Five Habits of Highly Effective Sourcers

Kameron Swinton

About Me• Talent Sourcer, Cloud + Enterprise at Microsoft• 9 years in Recruiting/Sourcing– Agency + Corporate– IT, F&A, Engineering, Scientific, Ops– Trained sourcers from US, Europe, Asia and Africa– This is my 3rd SourceCon– 2013 SourceCon GrandMaster

Habit #1: Make a List & Check It Twice

Make a List & Check It TwiceWhy should you build a list? • Simple and customizable• Saves time – minimize distractions• Quick reference• Easy to maintain• Sortable and searchable

Make a List & Check It Twice• Start with a list of likely suspects– Past Employees, Offers, Interns– Similar Profiles– Skill Matches

• Search your ATS/CRM first• Prioritize your list by recruitability

Make a List & Check It TwiceProspect is a potential or likely candidate. – Experience, education, availability, etc.

Recruitability is the likelihood that the prospect will respond favorably to being recruited.– Location, longevity, prior recruiting contact, career

progression

Build and maintain a list throughout your search, prioritize your leads and don’t call your best people first.

Habit #2: Building Blocks of Research

Building Blocks of Research• In addition to AND/OR/NOT, you must know

these 5 commands:site: Get results from only specific domain Google + Bing

inurl: Searches within the url of the webpage

Google

filetype: Searches for documents of a specific type

Google/Bing

* The asterisk takes the place of a word or multiple words (i.e. NEAR)

Google

- Excludes webpages that contain a term or phrase

Google/Bing

Building Blocks of ResearchAdd them up!site:ucsd.edu

Building Blocks of Researchsite:ucsd.edu inurl:CV

Building Blocks of Researchsite:ucsd.edu inurl:CV filetype:pdf

Building Blocks of Researchsite:ucsd.edu inurl:CV filetype:pdf "Computer * Engineering"

Building Blocks of Researchsite:ucsd.edu inurl:CV filetype:pdf "Computer * Engineering" -2016

Building Blocks of Research• Advanced Search – no Boolean• Google Alerts• Bing RSS feeds

Habit #3: Be a Detective

Be a Detective• Finding contact info can be easy but time consuming• Set a limit of 5-10 minutes per prospect• Look for these clues:– Company/Title– Location– University– URL/Username– Unique Identifiers– Webpages

Be a Detective• Start by finding work email address– It’s a consistent process– Usually easiest to find

• Then see if you can find personal email and contact info

• Don’t forget to check your ATS/CRM

Be a Detective• Phone Numbers

– Zabasearch.com– WhitePages.com

• Email Addresses– Google/Bing– Personal Websites– Social Networks (Facebook, Google+, Twitter)– Whois Lookup

• Verification– Mailtester.com– Verify-email.org

• Social Search– Namechk.com– Tweepz.com

Habit #4: Love Your Inbox Again

Love Your Inbox Again• Signatures• Quick Parts• Quick Steps• Outlook Social Connector• Rapporto

Love Your Inbox Again• Live Demo

Habit #5: Always Follow Up

Always Follow Up• Sales are rarely made on the 1st attempt• Right place, right time• Calendar reminders from email (or your CRM)• LinkedIn projects by date• Consider a “3 strikes” rule

Q&A• Questions?