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Topic: Meet Mark Rinovato, Broadcom's Corporate Staffing Pioneer of Sourcing, SEO, and Employee Branding - Goes Solo: 8-0133 • Mobile: (949) 395-9593 • Email Ever live "down the street from someone" and only years later, thousands of miles away reintroduced yourself and communicated and learned what an exceptional innovator you missed a coffee or a lunch with when you had the opportunity? Of course you have; these are digital times, but alas, the virtual handshake allows us to recover bona fides. In this instance, a staffing manager who was an early disruptor within corporate walls was only a few miles away when I lived in Irvine before I escaped to the Rocky Mountains. Today, I give thanks to RecruitingBlogs Monday Member Showcase series for the opportunity to share a discovery of a true industry innovator, Mark Rinovato. This week, I am honored to feature his extraordinary legacy of achievements during his tenure at Broadcom; mainstreaming sourcing efforts, in addition to introducing SEO and employee branding as a vital strategic staffing component. Mark served as Manager, Strategic Sourcing at Broadcom, he oversaw a budget of $1.5M where he initiated the creation of the strategic sourcing function and managed a team of eight Sourcing Specialists dedicated to passive candidate identification and pipeline generation through sourcing channels. He created the company’s first Employment Brand that is now used in all career-related advertising and communications in order to convey the true company culture. Mark implemented Search Engine Optimization technology for the career site that resulted in Broadcom’s open requisitions landing on the first page of Google search results. His efforts translated into the Successful development of identifying over 5000 qualified engineers to the database within six months. As Manager of Global Staffing at Broadcom, he managed a budget of $3.5M and directed a global team of 28 including recruiters, sourcing specialists and coordinators in support of the Broadcom’s recruiting strategy and execution worldwide. He created Broadcom’s Employee Referral Program that produced a third of all company hires. His staffing organization grew Broadcom from 2,500 employees in 2004 to over 7,000 employees in 2008. In all, Mark’s efforts averaged over 1400 hires per year for four years, - exclusive of acquisitions. Recently, Mark has initiated his own contingency search firm, “EMR Search Partners” which provides talent acquisition solutions to the high technology industry. EMR provides search services on a retained, contingency and contract basis. He has diversified his clientele with start-up venture funded firms as well as large established companies. Q&A with Mark Rinovato Six Degrees: Tell us of your home world. Mark My wife, Edie, and I celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary in Februrary on the island of Bora Bora, Tahiti. It was spectacular. We met in Los Angeles, where I was starting out my recruiting career with an employment agency on Wilshire Blvd. She was working for a restaurant located in the same building. We know we made a great team. My wife is Hungarian born and actually escaped from communist Hungary in the 70’s with her mother and eventually made their way to Los Angeles. That’s an entire novel in itself! As it turned out, we started our own restaurant in Los Angeles, a Hungarian/Continental restaurant, and it was quite successful. I found myself recruiting by day and helping with the restaurant at night. I would not recommend this. We sold it 4yrs later, but the marriage is still going strong. Six Degrees: What's a day in the life for you Mark? Mark My main hobbies are golf, music and movies. I don’t have enough time to play a lot of golf, but I get out when I can. I’ve been to many PGA Tour golf tournaments, including the US Open at Torrey Pines in 08. It was a spectacular event. Having been in the restaurant business, my wife and I also share a love of gourmet cooking and wine, and we love to entertain friends. We also love to watch classic movies. As far as music, my tastes are pretty eclectic, and include folk, rock, jazz (especially latin jazz) and classical. Six Degrees: How many years have you been in the staffing industry? Mark: I’ve been in the staffing industry for over 30 years, so I’ve seen a lot of changes, especially with the technology. When I started in the industry the most innovative technology was the phone system. Come to think of it, we may be coming full circle with smartphones and the mobile internet. Six Degrees: How did you get started as a recruiter? Mark I was asked by a friend in Los Angeles, who had just been hired by an employment agency there, to talk with this agency about getting into the business. This was a small firm just starting up, and I was about the 6th employee. I ended up being with that agency for 7 years going from a Recruiter to Management, and we grew from one small agency to 5 agencies with 20 employees each. The success I experienced there was very exciting, especially for a young man in his early 20’s, and really set the tone for my career in this business. I was hooked. I still am. Six Degrees: What single event had the most impact on your sourcing/recruiting career? Mark That’s a tough question. There have been so many important events. But I would have to say that starting my own agency was the most important. There is something about going out on your own, with no support other then your belief in your own abilities, that really defines who you are. It requires you to be creative and do more with less, but it also gives you the freedom to do all of the things that you could not do working for others. As an example, the first firm that I worked for was slow to adopt the PC, networking and recruiting software that was then coming available, pushing it off into the future because of the expense. When I started my own business I immediately bought a software package designed for search firms and automated my business. It happened to be on the Mac as that was the only GUI available and I couldn’t deal with DOS. Do you have a mentor to whom you attribute your overall outlook on recruitment, capabilities, and/or model your career after? Mark Actually, there were two individuals that I would say I modeled my career after. The first was the owner of the first agency that I joined and was with for 7yrs. I saw how he ran his business and how successful he was, and that inspired me to learn recruiting and start my own business. The second was a corporate staffing manager with a Fortune 100 corporation who helped me transition into corporate recruiting. He gave me an opportunity and opened up that side of the business for me. Six Degrees: Tell us about your last position, (responsibilities, size of your staffing organization) : Mark I spent the last 8yrs at Broadcom Corporation, a $4.5 billion communications semiconductor company. I started out as a contract recruiter, and eventually progressed to Manager of Global Staffing and then Manager, Strategic Sourcing. The teams that I hired and managed were instrumental in growing the company from 2400 employees to just over 7500 employees in 4yrs. Most of these hires were highly skilled engineers, hardware and software. The staffing department had 25 recruiters and sourcers at one time, and we were an excellent team, but recent budget cuts have eliminated most of them. It’s the worst time I have ever seen in our industry. Six Degrees: What talent niche groups do you target and are these particular talent areas specialized under your review? Mark The talent groups that we focused on at Broadcom were primarily design engineers with either IC design, systems design or embedded software design expertise. Within these groups is quite a bit of specialization, as the company has over 22 different product lines. But those are the basic talent hubs, and they were all supported by my teams. We also recruited for other support functions, such as finance, IT, HR, etc. Six Degrees: What types of training in sourcing/recruitment are available to you and have you taken advantage of? Mark We had access to a lot of good training. The three primary training courses for staffing were: The Adler Group – full cycle recruiting, including interview and assessment. JobMachine – Sourcing AIRS Xtreme - Sourcing All of these vendors did an excellent job of coming on site and conducting professional training sessions that had a great deal of benefit to my teams. Six Degrees: What recruitment software tools do you use in your day to day recruitment activities & do they translate effectively within all of the different countries where you recruit? Mark The main tool was the ATS system, from VirtualEdge, and that system was implemented worldwide. We used all the typical job boards. Job boards were a tool worldwide as well, but only Monster worked reasonably well overseas. Most countries and regions have there own local boards that do better then Monster, CareerBuilder, Hotjobs and Dice. Of course, everyone had a LinkedIn Recruiter account, which is quite effective everywhere. Other sourcing tools included ZoomInfo, Broadlook Diver and Profiler, InfoGist, TalentHook, and others. We also used Search Engine Optimization and built an SEO site with TalentHubs. Six Degrees: (A) What other companies' recruiting operations do you admire or have heard are best-practice examples? Mark Microsoft is a name that keeps popping up on everyone’s top ten list. Also, I hear a lot of good things about Ernst and Young. We had a Broadcom employee leave to go to work in E&Y’s college program as a recruiter and described the experience in glowing terms. A lot of industry leaders in sourcing seem to have come from Microsoft. Six Degrees: (B) In what aspects are they superior? Mark Most companies with superior recruiting functions have the support and commitment of top executives who understand the importance of recruiting to the company’s success. This translates into budgets that allow staffing leadership to hire the best recruiters and sourcers, and implement the best tools and methodologies. The best recruiting departments have a strong strategic approach to staffing, along with a superior process. Six Degrees: Worst mistake, biggest goof, lousiest practice you thought would fly but didn’t…and how that was a learning experience? Mark Most of the big mistakes I have made were the result of lack of communication. Nothing leads to disaster like making decisions in a vacuum. Probably the best example of this happened when I became enamored with Web 2.0 job boards and thought that I needed to add one to my company’s toolbox. I did my due diligence, checked out all the top contenders and made my selection. I even had a small team of 2 recruiters who also participated in the demo’s, and they were also positive, so I was comfortable with my final decision. I was so sure that this was a great product that I failed to involve the larger team of recruiters and sourcers who would be using the product on a day to day basis. It turned out that, even after extensive training, they were not getting the results from this new product, and simply stopped using it. I had wasted tens of thousands of dollars of the company’s money and valuable training and recruiter time. The result was no results, and no ROI. No matter how cool a technology seems, you need to make sure that it can produce the desired results and that you have buy in from the majority of users before going with it. Six Degrees: What recent general news story or industry trend do you feel will have an impact on your work in the future? Why? Mark Obviously, the financial meltdown and deep recession has had a strong impact on the recruiting industry. No matter what part of the business you work in, you have probably negatively impacted by this downturn. Corporate recruiting budgets have been sharply curtailed. Many friends of mine on the agency side, both retained and contingency, have painted a very bleak picture of the current market. While this too shall pass, I think the severity of it will make companies hesitant about committing to hiring fulltime employees and push them towards more outsourcing and contract labor. The cost of healthcare is also a factor that will encourage this trend as well. Six Degrees: Tell us about your broader involvement within the staffing industry: Mark The most interesting groups that I have been involved with recently are CSLE (Corporate Sourcing Leadership Exchange) and OCTane, which is a local business group here in Orange County, CA. CSLE is focused on sharing information and stimulating ideas about Sourcing as a center of excellence in corporate environments. It is always enlightening to hear what other top corporate staffing teams are doing internally, especially with regards to sourcing. OCTane is a group dedicated to the branding of Orange County, CA as a destination for high technology and medical technology firms and talent. Sahali Six Degrees: Can you detail how the recession has affected your particular industry niche? Has it effected your job or that of your fellow team members within the organization - If so, to what extent? (If you have been laid off, tell us about the experience, when it happened) Mark Well, it has affected me quite dramatically. The entire strategic sourcing function was eliminated, along with my position as manager of that team. Many recruiters were also let go, as were other departments in HR. So the recession has had a very negative impact on me, and many of my colleagues. I’ve been through a number of these recessions, and they are always bad news for the recruiting industry, but we always bounce back. Six Degrees: Aside from simply the generic term “Networking” what specific efforts have you made on your own behalf, or on behalf of colleagues to broaden your opportunities. Are there specific groups, both online and in-person that have proved fruitful in extending your personal brand and job seeking prospects? Mark We have some local groups here in Orange County that have been a big help so far. There is a group called HR Connections, which is sponsored by LHH, that brings together local HR talent at monthly meetings. We share job leads and job hunting advice. Also, InContact HR puts together great networking events for HR professionals nationwide. I’ve also joined a few promising groups on LinkedIn such as Corporate Recruiters, Personal Branding Network and Cybersleuths. I’m looking forward to getting more involved in networking and branding through these and other groups. Six Degrees: Given your own Trial and Error experiences as a Networker, what advice do you have for your peers on what NOT to do? Mark My advice would be to pick and choose carefully the networks you decide to become a part of, and then really participate as much as possible. You have to give something in order to get results. Not contributing to the networks is a mistake that I have made in the past, mainly because I’ve been too busy, but also because I was did not incorporate it into my daily routine. I plan to change that. LinkedIn has been my main professional network so far. I have used Facebook primarily for personal contacts. And of course Twitter looks to be a great tool that I’m just getting started with. Six Degrees: What is your next career goal? What do you need to do to get there? Mark I did a lot of soul searching over the past couple of months as to which direction to go in. I initially thought about going for another Manager or Director of Staffing role in a corporate environment. But I have decided to start my own search and consulting business instead, and I’m in the middle of launching this new enterprise. It may seem an odd time to be launching a business of any kind, let alone a recruiting business, but recessions are often the best times to start a new business. We’ve hit bottom, and nothing but growth lies ahead. I’m looking forward to the challenge. Happy Holidays, from SixDegreesfromDave.com…; Added by Dave Mendoza at 4:25pm on November 29, 2009

Topic: Meet Marie Journey, Sourcing Enthusiast - "Listening Within A Constant Sea of Voices & Heard": esentation of a company. A Sourcer knows OFCCP inside and out. A Sourcer uses the finest tools at hand to create a talent pool. There are endless other examples of value that a Sourcer brings. We organize and use data to build relationships." "Easy, you just help other people ... When people are needing food and mortgage money, there were no splits, no markers, and no thanks needed. Most never knew my hand was there at all. How did this help me? It didn’t in terms of money or recognition. It was priceless in terms of ability to break every previous personal production record, stretch my network a thousand-fold, and be in finest form for my next role." • RecruitingBlogs Profile Marie Journey • Sourcing Extraordinaire & Sweet Tea Enthusiast • Location: Navarre, FL • Linkedin • Facebook • Twitter • Website • Company • Community Volunteering: Volunteer at the local elementary school and helping women out of abusive situations. • Personal Causes: Working with children that are wired differently, helping families of deployed military, and being there for women in need. • Office: 678.779.6619 • Personal Email Our mutual friend, Steve Rath, was kind enough to introduce me to Marie Journey and the more I inquired - the more I learned how many fellow travelers we have in our lives. Marie and I share the same ecosystem of sourcers to social networking enthusiasts and a passion for passing it forward. She is a rock star with10+ years recruiting experience, and contributed to talent development in five languages (Spanish, French, Portuguese, German, Japanese) in both Corporate as well as Agency Environments; working with one of the largest for profit organizations, Microsoft, as well as one of the largest non-profit organizations in the world, AIESEC. She has presented at Recruitfest 2009, been on on Jim Stroud’s Recruiters Lounge, and among fellow gurus as an attendee at each of the last two Sourcecon conferences. Marie is also one of the pioneers in video SEO for high demand reqs; she was able to get 1st Page Google, 1st Rank for key skill set within 48 hrs of launching the following video: http://budurl.com/hogandev Q & A with Marie Journey Six Degrees: Tell us of your home world. MARIE: My world comprises of people I love that live with me, next to me, and all around the world. My feet are in Paradise AKA Navarre, FL. As far as family goes, if you can order sweet tea, it is likely one of my blood kin from my mother’s side is nearby. You’d have to travel the seas to encounter rest. A sweet, chocolate eyed, mad scientist in the making that holds both Martin Luther King, Jr. and Albert Einstein close to his heart calls me Momma. His name is Julian age 7 and he is a miracle child many times over. A wild burst of energy, that flies across any ground and launches into my arms is Ian, age 6. Then there is Miss Kayla who will change the world for the better with her passion for science, animals, and justice that is age 10. Jared’s silence speaks loudly in the near constant sea of voices; he can sum up a person and motivators within seconds, age 8. Simply put, single mom of 1 and official back-up Daddy to 3 more when their father is deployed. MARIE: All the children gather one evening every other week for a sit down meal and the Extreme Play Date begins: we build robots, conduct science experiments, fiercely debate merits of Pokemon, and dance to hundreds of random questions. In the rare moments of me time, I devour a book a day. When stress weighs too heavy or I need a bigger dose of escape, it is power tool time. Have a flare for blades and dying to get my hands on a 26 inch Katana to continue Japanese sword fighting lesions. Painting abstracts along with photography feeds the creative side. Checking out new apps is another favorite. Love all types of tools for creating be it an iPhone, Dremel, brush, or camcorder. The future holds - a nonprofit called the League of Competent Woman that attracts strong ladies looking to make a positive change by promoting and protecting both women and children through changing/enforcing laws, providing an extensive network of resources, and mentoring. Until my house remodel is complete and the greyhound rescue dog of my dreams comes home to us, my only pet is my laptop, Vixen. She is smoking hot and holds her own. Six Degrees: How did you get started as a recruiter? MARIE: I started 10+ years ago during my time at AIESEC, which was one of the largest non-profit orgs in the world second only to the Red Cross at the time. With AIESEC, there was International recruiting, business development, marketing, and a mission to better the world. After AIESEC, I went on to be an international logistic consultant designing automotive factories in cool places like Brazil and Germany. 100% international travel, worked on multi-national project teams, learned a great deal about other cultures and business practices. Had fun reworking highly complex systems with thousands of variables, designing with AutoCAD in five languages, being humbled by the brilliance of great minds, and even got to dance with the Portelas @ Carnival in Rio. Why go back to recruiting? When I returned to the United States for love, I had the opportunity to choose a different career path. Decided to return to recruiting and found that the career break helped me immensely by gaining skills sets that are often needed and hard to gather on the typical recruiting career path. Six Degrees: What types of training in sourcing/recruitment are available to you and have you taken advantage of? MARIE: For years, I have been absolutely relentless in the pursuit of sourcing/recruitment training. I have taken One on one training with National Sourcing Expert, Shally Steckerl. I could list out a couple of hundred, but generically –Taken massive training on OFCCP and even designed training manuals. Did every available session on Diversity and wrote several more training sessions. Any ATS used, I worked to become a super user at warp speed. Went outside of traditional recruiting/sourcing and took training on tech/marketing/system optimizations and courses that involved the current niche or sector of talent. Training is essential to know the law, the space, the MVPs, how to connect, how to present, and then how to close in shortest time possible. Six Degrees: What single event had the most impact on your sourcing/recruiting career? MARIE: The moment of silence from Shally, when he decided if I was serious or not and how to respond to my request for what I would like for him to teach me. Okay, he probably had the mute on and was laughing his back-side off, but he proceeded to first drill me on what I knew, tell me what I needed to learn, and ticked off points to help make it happen. Do you have a mentor to whom you attribute your overall outlook on recruitment, capabilities, and/or model your career after? MARIE: To survive your first week in recruiting you had better have a strong mentor or an example of a person that has it figured out. There are hundreds that have knowingly or unknowingly helped along the way. For recruiting/sourcing successes you can bank that one or more of the following were a factor (listed in alpha order by first name): 1. Barbara Marks – watched her flawlessly perform recruiting miracles and hiring manager interfacing magic for years. Generous of heart and would stop my desk for her anytime. 2. Burt Black – taught me tech recruiting, a multi-million dollar producer for over ten years, and has been a true friend to me for over 15 years. 3. Chandra Bodapati @ Egrabber - creates the tools that make me drool on myself. 4. Chris Havrilla – queen of empowerment, legend in the field, and always one of the 1st gen adopters of doable/usable tech. 5. Dave Copps – had me at AI app. 6. Eric Jaquith – listening to him is pure beneficial bliss to any recruiter or sourcer. If you need to “Miracle Grow” your system, he is the man with the plan. 7. Geoff Webb – geek that gets social networking, sourcing, and keeps the space lively. We are in the middle of a friendly yet fierce challenge: http://bit.ly/geekchallenge 8. Jeffrey Rosado, at Pensacolaco Computers – he opened the door and let me out of the box. Smartest guy in tech I’ve ever met, taught me how to get 1st page/top rank in Google (SEO Amazing Man), created Vixen (My smokin’ hot, voice activated laptop), and fully stocks my software addiction with professional grade product! 9. Jim Stroud – his reach is so vast in terms of training, involvement, and accomplishments; I am one of hordes that owe him credit. 10. Kay Kelison – brilliant social networking and researching talent and flat out one of my favorite people for talking shop with, future trends, or just about anything. 11. Marjorie Mancini of CVTracer – created an ATS that actually does what you need in recruiting with the fewest clicks possible. She has also been a light of inspiration. One woman that has done so much in this field! 12. Rob McIntosh – if you are in Sourcing you owe this man thanks. 13. Rodney Walden – Showed me stuff on InfoGist I didn’t know was possible, got me on to LinkedIN years ago, and always makes me laugh. 14. Shally Steckerl – gave the advice I needed to hear at just the right time. 15. Sharon Meyers – awes me with her sourcing talent in both the national and international space. This lady has to use a fire hose for her talent pipe. 16. Steve Rath – put together one of my favorite recruiting teams, forerunner in Sourcing 2.0, pays it forward, and I’ve had the pleasure of watching him be stellar in the industry for years. Any mistakes made along the way have been 100% my own doing! Six Degrees: (A) What other companies' recruiting operations do you admire or have heard are best-practice examples? MARIE: Any shop that Rob McIntosh or Chris Havrilla is running. (B) In what aspects are they superior? MARIE: Rob can whip out Excel spreadsheets, PPT presentations, and flowchart his superior methods. Love the quantifying of what most would consider intangibles. Chris Havrilla is the finest cherry picker of talent and can create magic with her managing style and in depth understanding of how to be effective in not only today’s market, but tomorrow’s as well. Six Degrees: What recent general news story or industry trend do you feel will have an impact on your work in the future? Why? MARIE: As tech improves and people like Dave & Chandra come up with these groundbreaking, time saving sourcing tools…why do companies need “Sourcers”? A Sourcer brings much more than the ability to rattle off a complex Boolean string, a database of names, or niche product knowledge – A Sourcer is often the front line and first representation of a company. A Sourcer knows OFCCP inside and out. A Sourcer uses the finest tools at hand to create a talent pool. There are endless other examples of value that a Sourcer brings. We organize and use data to build relationships. Bring on the best Tech! Six Degrees: Tell us about your broader involvement within the staffing industry: MARIE: Attended both SourceCons and was asked to speak at RecruitFest! 2009. Six Degrees: Can you detail how the recession has affected your particular industry niche? Has it effected your job or that of your fellow team members within the organization? MARIE: When Microsoft has massive layoffs you know it is going to be a rough road. As a MS Prospecting Consultant via SearchWizards, I got the call right in time for Christmas of 2008 that the whole team was toasted effective December 30th. What was the experience like for a single mom, in Tech Recruiting, that has always worked? Well, having twins without an epidural in the Amazon would have been less painful and shocking. Like childbirth, I’m glad it is over, joyous at the bright future ahead, and will not be sending pictures/videos/or play by plays of the process. Six Degrees: Aside from simply the generic term “Networking” what specific efforts have you made on your own behalf, or on behalf of colleagues to broaden your opportunities? MARIE: Easy, you just help other people. I answered that question, “If you had to do your job for free would you do it?” Yes, I sure would and did within the week of being laid off. I went from recruiting on behalf of Microsoft to pipelining any viable jobs that were open. It was fast and furious work and mostly done in stealth mode. When people are needing food and mortgage money, there were no splits, no markers, and no thanks needed. Most never knew my hand was there at all. How did this help me? It didn’t in terms of money or recognition. It was priceless in terms of ability to break every previous personal production record, stretch my network a thousand-fold, and be in finest form for my next role. Six Degrees: Given your own Trial and Error experiences as a Networker, what advice do you have for your peers on what NOT to do? MARIE: Never take complete credit for any success if there is the slightest possibility that you can share the credit with somebody else. Six Degrees: What is your next career goal? What do you need to do to get there? MARIE: Take a high need skill set, create a video campaign, work with corporate Marketing, and then track results for both recruiting and sales. For example, if you Google: “Hogan developers” job The 1st Page and 1st Rank has been one of my videos from launch weeks ago until the moment of writing this. Jim Stroud was the first to introduce me to the idea of using video to reach candidates and Jeff@pensacolacomputers.com has been teaching me the SEO and backend side of ranking. Really wanted to work the SEO angle without any corporate branding or specific job to see what would happen in terms of rank as a control. Now the next goal is to add the corporate branding along with buy in and marketing resources in order to incorporate a much broader social networking strategy and own the space. Recruiting wins low cost renewable pipeline with shorter fills and less production loss. Marketing wins name recognition and increased revenue. All I need is company that likes the notion of prime market position Using Your Geek Card Lately? This profile is one in a series titled Monday Member Showcase. It was originally published on RecruitingBlogs.com, a recruiting and HR community, where I am a featured contributor. To read the whole series please click here.…; Added by Dave Mendoza at 8:24pm on December 6, 2009

Topic: Meet Jim Fowler, CEO of Jigsaw: "Cloud-Based, Database Automation As A Service": I was sick and tired of the expensive and crappy lists the marketing team would buy for my sales teams ... Twelve years in sales left me frustrated with the time-consuming practice of finding contact details. I said, ‘There’s got to be a better way.’” We live in an economy now where people make a living with their brains as much as with their hands. I spend a lot of time creating and working with people" “We are on a path to go public. We have the chops to become a billion-dollar company” • Jim Fowler • CEO, Jigsaw "The Crowd-Sourced Business Directory" • San Mateo, CA • RecruitingBlogs Profile • Linkedin • Twitter • Jigsaw Tweets • Facebook • Corporate Website • Join Jigsaw and earn 20 free passive contacts Over the last several years, I have had the pleasure of getting to know Jim Fowler at the various staffing industry conferences. He will spontaneously offer to find a bench to catch up, and is one of those executives without any pretentiousness. In fact he is a rare breed among the approachables: he will speak to you and recollect from the mundane to the significant that you have shared with him, and in each response he is direct, substantive and charismatic. For a CEO, he is less about watching the clock than he is more about getting to know you and the topic at hand. He didn't build a business simply for a dollar's glance - he truly wants to contribute to what we consider Game Changing ideas in the art of commerce. Prognosticators will tell you Information is the most powerful weapon of the 21st century. It isn't simply about hardware and software - it's also about field entries. The market for Database information is a $50 Billion dollar business. Billions within it are likewise exceptionally relevant in how our staffing industry generates and collates that data to produce and introduce prospective passive and active candidates to employers of choice. What more relevant subject for today's feature than someone whose daily effort is to find knew ways to vett quality and quality utilizing the social aspect of community data sharing? For me personally, I cannot think of a more valuable way to verify my name generation leads and to contribute them to the broader concept of community. It's a pleasure to introduce you to my friend, Jim Fowler. As Chief Executive Officer of Jigsaw Corporation, Jim Fowler provides direction and leadership toward the achievement of goals and objectives at Jigsaw, a leading provider of business information and data services that uniquely leverages user-generated content contributed by its global business-to-business (B-to-B) community. A veteran sales executive, Jim has more than 12 years selling software for marketing and collaboration applications. Before starting Jigsaw, Jim served as VP of Sales at Digital Impact (DIGI), Paramark and TightLink. In these roles, he built sales departments from the ground up focusing on sales strategies and processes. He was able to leverage his experience as an outstanding sales manager at Personify and NetGravity. Prior to his career in software sales, Jim owned and operated Lookout Pass, a ski resort in Idaho. He also served in the US Navy as a Diving and Salvage Officer. Jim graduated from the University of Colorado. Q&A with Jim Fowler, CEO of Jigsaw Six Degrees: Tell us of your home world. Jim: I have been married Holly Wiebe for ten years. We met through my wife's best friend who was dating one of the ski instructors I knew and we were introduced to one another. We have a son named Six (who is eight years old) and a Labradoodle named Comet. Our family skis/snowboards all winter and camps all summer. Our favorite type of camping is canoe camping. You go to really beautiful and remote places and still carry enough stuff to eat and drink really well. There is nothing better than an after dinner cigar around a campfire beside a high Sierra lake! Six Degrees: Tell us about your Company, Jim JIM: I am the CEO and Co-Founder of Jigsaw.com. We have 120 employees. Most of our employees are software developers or sales people, but we do have a full time recruiter! Jigsaw is a Global Business Directory of company and contact information. Jigsaw was in Beta through summer of 2004 and officially launched in December 2004. We have over three million complete company records and 19 million complete contact records. Members get contacts they need to recruit, sell or market by adding, updating or graveyarding records. Jigsaw Pioneers Data-as-a-Service. The ability to quickly find people in a target organization and contact them directly is an essential means to gain an edge in a very competitive marketplace. Jigsaw provides very simple, but required data that every single recruiter needs to do their jobs – company and contact records. Jigsaw is essentially an open database, along the lines of Wikipedia. Salespeople looking for say, a buying manager in a given company, swap one of their contacts to access the lead they need or they can buy it for $1. Every one of its contact records is complete with email and phone number. (Note: 72% of Jigsaw records have a direct dial.) We make money by selling data and data hygiene services to corporations. Six Degrees: How was Your Company Founded? JIM: Jigsaw was founded by myself and Garth Mouton on Oct. 31,2003. We are venture backed and have raised $18M in venture funding. I came up with the idea for Jigsaw after 12 years in software sales left me frustrated with the time-consuming practice of finding correct contact details within a company. Prospecting lists were costly and usually full of outdated information. Six Degrees: How did you get started in the industry? JIM: Jigsaw was founded out of pain. I was sick and tired of the expensive and crappy lists the marketing team would buy for my sales teams. (I was VP of Sales at an email marketing company called Digital Impact). I knew there had to be a better way and the idea of a crowdsourced business directory popped into my mind. The idea for Jigsaw was germinated in the summer of 2003. We raised our first round of funding (of three total) in December of 2003 and formally launched Jigsaw in December of 2004. When I was vice president of sales at online advertiser Netgravity (now part of Google’s DoubleClick), I asked a sales rep nicknamed Tark “to cold call into Sprint PCS until he got us a meeting. It took him two weeks. I said, ‘There’s got to be a better way.’” Six Degrees: What is the broader picture of how the data business operates Each year, corporations spend over $50 billion a year on B2B marketing data. Your usual data acquisition avenues – list rentals, online data services like Hoovers, OneSource, and that old technique cold calling – are hard and expensive and don’t provide automatic updates, maintenance or net new records. Six Degrees: How/ where did you develop investors? JIM: We are located in the Silicon Valley. This is the land of venture capitalists. Just follow the signs to Sand Hill Road! Six Degrees: What is Your Company’s Value Proposition? JIM: Our value proposition is that we are the best source of data for recruiters who do passive recruiting. Every one of our 19M records is complete with name, title, business phone and business email. Our service is free. You can exchange business cards you have for business cards you need. If you don’t want to exchange you can purchase our records. Our data is the best available because we have one million members who clean and maintain the database (for credits). We are similar to Wikipedia in that many people build and maintain our database. Six Degrees: How do you plan to make Jigsaw into a Game Changer? JIM:The goal is to do the same exact thing to the data layer that salesforce has done to the software layer. Ten years ago, when Salesforce first got started procuring and managing software, Today if you look every company that sells B-to-B, they're procuring and managing the records that populate their CRM solution. the lead records. contact records, the account and the lead records. What Jigsaw DataFusion provides is unlimited access to Jigsaw's community vetted database. Overall, Jigsaw has established a robust database of over 19 million records, and it grows daily by 25,000. The Database as a service is their Game changing premise. It used to be known simply as a cool social aspect of keeping data fresh to make sure it is kept up-to-date, but now the concept has expanded by volume, accuracy and automation: With DataFusion, What we do nightly is that we take that data and put it in the cloud and every night compare our client's data to Jigsaw's. Given Jigsaw doesn't allow partial data - the data is refreshed and complete, coming in everyday, flagging records, piping all those changes every night in an automated way; Matching, filling in all the fields, flagging their dupes, a process of 'stare and compare' of records. We pipe in new data that matches the client's administrative criteria. In an SaaS mode. It will no longer will be a one off, and will transform the data business. Data Fusion comes as a monthly subscription service but companies can reduce the usage costs by contributing back to the Jigsaw system. It connects with a CRM system and automatically matches and updates records daily, with a dashboard to monitor activity and changes and the option of accepting or rejecting any specific updates. Administrators can pick which fields in each record they want to synch daily. After Salesforce, Jigsaw expects to add other CRM systems and databases this year and next. It has published an open API and a Developer Toolkit so any CRM or database vendor can integrate Jigsaw. Data Fusion comes on a per-seat, per-month basis just like Salesforce and other SaaS providers. A full license like a big OEM just bought runs $500,000. With Data Fusion, if you have 25 seats of Salesforce, then you buy 25 seats of Jigsaw. Six Degrees: Are you importing contacts from sites like LinkedIn, Hoovers and others? JIM: No. Every contact in Jigsaw has been added by a member. We started with 20K contacts and now have over 1.7M (and growing by 10K new contacts per day). Even if we wanted to import contacts from other sites we couldn't because Jigsaw requires every contact to have complete information including phone, email, title, etc. Phone numbers and emails are hard to get and are usually not provided on other sites. Six Degrees: How does Jigsaw use social media networks and your blog to connect with customers and prospects? JIM: Like Wikipedia, Jigsaw links out to the best possible information. Every contact record has a link to Google and LinkedIn for automated research on the contact – such as looking at a biography. Because Jigsaw is a community of sales professionals our blog and message boards are critical for communicating closely with our community. We also have large followings on Twitter and Facebook. Six Degrees: How do you control members from sending out spam emails to contacts in Jigsaw? JIM: Jigsaw's model isn't a good fit for spammers. Too much work or money is required to get information off in the quantity needed by a spammer. Jigsaw’s members primarily do one-to-one marketing versus one-to-many marketing. If a member is caught doing anything unlawful or against Jigsaw's rules, the member will be banned from Jigsaw permanently. Six Degrees: What is the pricing structure for your services/products? JIM: Most of our million members use Jigsaw for free (the add, update or graveyard records in exchange for the data they need). We sell subscriptions and lists that fit every budget. Six Degrees: How has your Company adopted to the economic downturn? What is the long-term future for Your Company? JIM: We expect to double revenue this year. We want to get companies out of the business of procuring and managing company and contact records. We want the Jigsaw database to power every CRM solution by providing all the prospecting data a company could ever need, and keeping those records up to date in real time. We are in heavy duty hiring mode. We’ve just released this product in beta and hope to see it take the market by storm! Six Degrees: How has your company promoted its brand and aligned itself with Staffing Industry communities, both virtual and on-site ? JIM: Not as well as we need to. We are getting ready to hire a marketing person who’s full time job will be to address the recruiting industry. Six Degrees: What single event had the most impact on your overall staffing industry expertise? JIM: I am an expert in only one narrow (but important!) part of the staffing industry – information. The single event that had the most impact on my expertise was founding Jigsaw and the people who I have met throughout the journey. I’ve learned an incredible amount over the past six years of Jigsaw’s life and it keeps feeding our passion to innovate. Do you have a mentor to whom you attribute your overall outlook on modeling your career after? JIM: I really admire Steve Jobs. Not his management style, but his vision. The guy is just an incredibly talented individual. Six Degrees: Aside from simply the generic term “Networking” what specific efforts have you made on your own behalf, or on behalf of colleagues to broaden your opportunities. JIM: The single biggest has been to been as a “Featured Networker” listing with SixDegreesfromDave.com. We became more motivated to connect and reconnect with our following within the recruitment industry in a big way. The process gave us a more approachable introduction to both our users and those who have inquired about our utility as a passive talent database. We will continue driving home the message to the recruitment community and to our database of 19M business contacts to drive awareness of Jigsaw and to recruit passive candidates to organizations. Six Degrees: Given your own Trial and Error experiences as a Networker, what advice do you have for your peers on what NOT to do? JIM: Use extreme caution when sending out a single message to your entire network. Networking is generally about one-to-one communications. Mass messaging is irritating within a social or business network. Six Degrees: Do you blog? JIM: No – my Co-Founder Garth Moulton writes our company blog. Six Degrees: Reading up on you, I understand you are a Triathlete, a big time Giant's fan, who loves playing hearts and "No Limit Hold Em", and, not surprisingly, you are not a big fan of puzzles. Tell me something others may not know about you JIM: I’m a complete history geek. I unwind by reading history. Curiously, I find studying history helps me in business. The decisions politicians and generals have had to make since the beginning of history are not unlike the decisions you have to make as a start-up CEO. There is usually less actual blood involved. • Join Jigsaw and earn 20 free passive contacts …; Added by Dave Mendoza at 4:40am on January 18, 2010

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Topic: Meet Jeff Newman, Empathetic Eccentricity: Passion in Recruitment, Punjabi Cooking To History of Baltic Republics: thenticity. My friends, rarely has someone been so transparent in his quirks, been so effusive in his passion in our trade, and so in love with candy, wife and gaming ... but within it all ... a love for his fellow man. He identified the 9/11 perspective, one I share ... a crisis which taught lessons. We found the inner core of what drives this business for not only successful people but also successful human beings. Jeff is one of those successful 'human beings' because he has been shaped, by circumstance, to view his own personal mortality. Even so ... its also part of who Jeff truly is as a person to pull himself forward, look his client in the eyes, and be driven to know what he can do for his fellow man. He is the embodiment of the reality our friend Steve Levy often speaks of ... the People skills 1.0 few people pay mind to, preferring a run from basics and onwards to all things 2.0 We know that without people skills 1.0 we have fads and gimmickry. In Jeff, we have someone who can count 1.0, 2.0 and so forth and having lived them before they were terms. A 'people' person in a people 'industry' - imagine that. Jeff reflects the conscience of Industry Leader, Don Ramer and his themes of bringing empathy, transparency and love to our passion for humanity and I am esteemed to have observed this in his own words. We have authenticity as a driving force in a veteran recruiter like Jeff, not for love of dollar alone, but for love of looking in his reflection and valuing what he represents. It matters to Jeff, it matters to me and it should matter to all of us. It isn't a value that is fait accompli in this industry regretfully. I see talent in Jeff, his colleagues at the office do as well. but today my friends, it is important all of you see it as well which is why I take great pleasure in introducing a valued contributor to our community today. Meet Our friend .... Jeff Newman. Jeff Newman, Senior Technical Recruiter at Genesis10 • RecruitingBlogs Profile • Linkedin Profile • Office Email and Personal Email • Office Number: 212.688.5522 ext. 20 Q&A with Jeff Newman Six Degrees: Tell us of your home world. Jeff: One of my strongest recruiting traits is that I really am not much of a game player. I am the same guy at home, as I am talking with a candidate, talking with a peer or making friends with someone in Human Resources. My essence, the core of Jeff Newman, is to take everything with a smile, good and bad, and remember that this too will pass. I do this at the office, at home and occasionally at the Gym (to know me is to hug me). I am married 11 years as of January 18th. The key to my marriage is communication, being friends first, and nodding, leaning forward, and looking right in her eyes while saying “I agree”. It is kind of cool that that works in Sales relationships too, eh? Senda is my wife’s name and she is an MSW/CSW who specializes in HIV/AIDS. She works as a Senior Social Worker for St. Mary's in Harlem http://www.stmarysharlem.com/jsp/. I figure that her good work might make up for some of the things I've done while, what’s the word the hardcore ethicists use now, “rusing”? When I started, we called it Pirating...kinda like the folks in Somalia but without the heavy weaponry. Most important in my home life is the fact that Senda knows that recruiting often has lot more failure then success. We get hung up on more then we get to hear “AWESOME, I have been WAITING for someone to call me at work who I never heard of!” I had a boss once say to me that this is a Business of Failure. What do you call a baseball player who only succeeds three times out of ten? Very rich. The trick is to try and take that home as little as possible. At least in NYC, non-corporate side recruiters (especially in IT) are looked at better than muggers but still worse than building contractors, in terms of social status. You can't behave like that or you will start to believe you are that. Most of all, you cannot take the fact that out of 75 calls you made that day, 70 amounted to nothing. You take home the 5 that were successful and leave the negative ones in the office. I also am the pet human of 2 of the coolest cats in the world. Cleo has had Senda and I for 11 years, she is all black and she has had us since she was still taking milk in the bottle. She likes to lie in our bed and she sleeps with us every night. Goofy, our tabby, is about 2 years old and he is chock full of energy. Senda taught him how to play fetch with toy mice and he can do this for hours on end. He and Cleo are not the best of friends, however. Six Degrees: Tell us about the after-hours version of Jeff Newman Jeff: As anyone who has spent more then 10 minutes with me will tell you, I am quite unusual. If I was richer, they’d call me eccentric and I’d be on the front page of the NY Post. I feel that you can never have enough knowledge, learn enough things, and or try enough new things. I try to keep my span of knowledge broad, even if just to use as tidbits when forming a relationship. I genuinely am interested in everything from Punjabi cooking to the history of the Baltic republics. One thing unusual in our house is that we don't own a television. We watch DVDs through the PC and all the major networks post their shows through their websites so we don't miss much. At then end of the day, I think we only watch Lost, Fringe and 30 Rock, anyway. We watched the Presidential Debates streamed live through MSNBC.com and Meet the Press on the treadmill at the Gym. With the rest of the time, we talk, we read and we go out with friends. We'll play board or card games together and PC Games alone. My wife is an Everquest addict, she has been playing since 1999. In fact, I'll often call her by her EQ name. I'll pick up a new PC game every so often, from Spore (which stunk) to anything by Paradox Entertainment. Senda and I are also big Science Fiction fans, especially with Star Wars, but not limited to that. We go to I-Con every year and other Sci-Fi conventions when they hit NYC. As a Technical Recruiter, I have often made great connections through this world. Between us, I'd still be involved even if I was hunting for Admins. If that wasn't enough, I am also a StumbleUpon fan. If you are unfamiliar with that, check out the site. Make sure you have a good block of free time and don't say I didn't warn you. One more thing that I think really is important to understanding me is that I have Multiple Sclerosis. Go figure: I survived 9/11 yet was diagnosed shortly thereafter with MS. Nothing gives you greater focus and better understanding of whom you are that having a challenge of that nature. I usually don't mention it, or make a big deal about it but in terms of recruiting it has been very helpful. I can empathize and understand much better the unique challenges that everyone faces, even if I have never walked in those shoes. And it really does make for great stories. Every candidate has different and unique needs and helping them get through often means the difference between a placement and a turn down. Six Degrees: How many years as a recruiter? Jeff: I have been an Staffing Firm side recruiter for 10+ years. I have always done technical/IT staffing, through the good and bad times. I have never hesitated to place a different skill set if that was what the client wanted from me however. In recruiting you can specialize but you should never limit yourself. Six Degrees: How did you get started as a recruiter? Jeff: Ahh, I wish I could say I was embarrassed to admit it, but, another thing that people who know me will tell you is that Newman doesn't really get embarrassed much. I graduated Columbia University http://www.columbia.edu/ in May 1998. I was married for 6 months and had spent the majority of my college career enjoying myself as opposed to studying. I had no idea what I wanted to be when I grew up but I knew I needed a job. I sent out 200 plus resumes. A Technical Recruiting firm, Recruit Dynamics, had called me in because I had JAVA on my resume. I had JAVA there, because I was pumping that resume as much as I could, and once I had read a book on JAVA. They had a 6 month contract in Rochester, Minnesota for an entry level programmer. I replied that I really wasn't a developer I had applied for the recruiter role. You know, the one with no experience needed. The lady who brought me in came out and said the boss would meet with me, but not until lunch. It was about 8:30 AM at the time... I said no worries and was it OK if I waited here. I waited 6+ hours, to finally interview with the President of the firm. After an hour or so, he said, “Jeff, you know nothing about recruiting, in fact you know nothing about business. I do like the persistence of someone who will wait hours for an interview. Let's try it for 30 days and see what happens.” The irony is what kept me in the office wasn't truly persistence. It was the air-conditioning, free coffee and a bunch of magazines. I had no money and no place else I had to be. That's why I stuck around. 10 years later. I think it was a good decision. Six Degrees: What single event had the most impact on your sourcing/recruiting career? Jeff: For me, it was the Death of COBOL following Y2k. For the year leading up to Y2K, COBOL developers were naming their rates. People who had taken a class in COBOL in 1978 and had been driving a cab ever since, were getting high paying contracting gigs. Everyone needed COBOL/MAINFRAME experts, they were paying for them through the nose and you couldn't find one not booked up to save your life. It was fun, the money was great, and I was very busy. Then came January 1st, 2000. The world didn't end, the machines stayed A-OK and I had to fire 50+ contractors. Developers, who a year ago wouldn't take your calls, were calling everyday. There was nothing we could do to help any of them. This taught me two very important lessons. First, it said don't focus your recruiting in one area or skill set. Diversity is the spice of life and to spread out as much as possible. The second thing it taught me was to keep your skills cutting edge or you could wake up one day and find yourself as obsolete as a Blacksmith after the invention of the personal automobile. A close runner up is the .Com bubble. The lesson I learned there was do not take commission payments in stock. Speaking of which, if anyone is interested in shares of Flooz, I have PLENTY! Do you have a mentor to whom you attribute your overall outlook on recruitment, capabilities, and/or model your career after? Jeff: I cannot name one specific person who I model myself on, but I have taken many different pieces from people over the years. The Big Boss at APS-Botal was a guy name Steve Sayetta. He had arranged for me to attend an 8 hour NYATS seminar. I complained as it was really focused on Admin recruiters and I only did IT. He said, “Newman, if you learn one thing, it will have been worth the time you spend.” I really believe that and have applied it to my recruiting career. I have worked with some amazing people over the years. TK Sheridan, Tom Sheridan and Paul Sheridan at E-Claro taught me the basics of the industry, from how to calculate a bill rate to the best way to close off a call without hurting someone’s feelings. Peter Elia, from APS-BOTAL (now Infinity Staffing), got me to better appreciate the importance of details. Peter is also one of the best relationship managers out there. He was also the best boss I ever had, because he had served “in the trenches” and knew what it was all about. Darren Greif, the IT Staffing Director from the Bachrach Group, is the best closer you have ever seen. He could see all the problems in a deal that would need to be gotten over before anyone else. As a manager, his policy of helping you to do better without interfering with what was working was amazing. Lately, I have been introduced and begun working with Steve Levy. I had read his blog, seen his comments on recruitingblogs.com, his blog and ERE and then I got to meet him in person. At first I was a bit star struck. But then I got to work with him and I thought, “And I got all veklempt of this?” Kids may admire and want to emulate sports heroes and guitar wizards, but since I started reading their works, for me it has been guys like Glenn Gutmacher, Shally Steckerl and Steve. What I have learned from him has just been fantastic. I try to learn as much from everyone I work with as I can get. Your talents can only get better through knowledge and practice. [I had other things to say about Steve but he knows where I live and work] Six Degrees: Tell us about your day in the life at the office Jeff: Well, right now I am with Genesis10. Genesis10 is one of the largest privately held business and IT staffing firms in the nation. The company was started in 1999, and has grown, on average, at a rate of 44%. One of the main reasons I chose to join Genesis10 is founder/CEO Harley Lippman. His bio really impressed me. Every company is a sailing ship and much can be told about how it will travel if you know her captain. Personally, I am a senior recruiter on a team dedicated to supporting one client in midtown NYC. The client has an awe inspiring need for excellent developers, especially in C++/UNIX. The process is one of the most difficult hurdles I have ever seen candidates need to get through, including two technical screens, a code review and then a final interview. It does ensure that our client is only getting the crème de le crème of the industry. This was the first time in about 6 years that I have ever been just recruiting, as opposed to a full desk. It is also the first time since the start of my career that I have been just supporting one client. With Genesis10's depth of resources and it's commitment to providing the best people, both technically and personality wise, I feel very comfortable in this role. It was an adjustment for a bit however. Six Degrees: (A) What other companies' recruiting operations do you admire or have heard are best-practice examples? Jeff: I am mainly acquainted with the firms in NYC. Our business, especially in IT, all seems to be 6 degrees of one another. I have heard buzz about many of the firms in our sphere, good and bad. Recruiters and sales people tend to gossip. Based on my second sentence in this paragraph, I will go with discretion being the better part of valor. Six Degrees: What recent general news story or industry trend do you feel will have an impact on your work in the future? Why? Jeff: The way you can wake up and have the market give you a surprise, I'd be uncomfortable guessing anything at this point. I don't just think our industry will change, I think the United States is changing. I couldn't even hazard a guess as to where we will be in a year. To quote myself from above, all you can do is “take everything with a smile, good and bad, and remember that this too will pass.” Six Degrees: What is your next career goal? What do you need to do to get there? Jeff: While at the Bachrach Group I helped to train a number of Junior recruiters. This was one of the most satisfying experiences of my career. It was a talent I didn't know I had and I really enjoyed it. At some point, I'd really like to be able to that again. Past that, I'd like to retire at 50 but if you look at my 401k.... To get there, you just need to work hard and get lucky.…; Added by Dave Mendoza at 12:34am on January 19, 2009