Sourcecon 2013: The State of Sourcing – 2013

To start off Sourceon, we had a “state of Sourcing” by Sourcecon Editor Jeremy Roberts. In this session he talks about the characteristics of a sourcer in 2003 and compares that to how the role has evolved and is today.  In 2003 sourcers were paid less than recruiters, and were more focused on building lists of candidates. Now we have increased regulatory requirements, increased unemployment, data is easier to come by but sifting through it all is a chore. He talks about how candidate engagement will separate the good form the bad as more and more sourcers are asked to do the initial screen. He shows several slides of information showing the difference in pay of recruiting and sourcing. In most cases recruiting is paid hi8gher than sourcing, something I found interesting as it did not match what I had seen. He also showed where sourcing working as independents made more than those working as employees. He goes onto show a bunch of slides about sourcers being paid left than recruiting. One slide I found interesting was the one that showed 75% of all sourcer and recruiters hire via Linkedin in the last 12 months. I found that interesting considering all the other places to find people. To me using Linkedin is the same thing like mining your own database and takes very little skills, experience or knowledge.

Next he went on to talk about all the other tools out there beside linkedin, such as Entelo, Gild, TalentBin, Swoop, Open Web and more. Next came “the 8 most annoying comments sourcers hear form recruiters”:

1)    “Great! Can you go ahead and submit them to the hiring manager and get them set up for an interview? I’ll take it from there…” (translation – Please do most of my job for me, then I’ll swoop in at the end and be the hero.)

2)    Perfect fit for my job! Can you send me some more resumes in the meantime?” (What happened to ‘perfect?’)

3)    “The hiring manager is going with an internal candidate who came in at the last minute…” (Thus negating potentially weeks of sourcing for external talent.)

4)    “I made this hire.” (Yeah… with MY sourced candidate! Share the accolades please…)

5)    “Pass.” (Okay.. why? What didn’t you like about the candidate? What should I change in terms of my search? No details, just ‘pass’?)

6)    “I know what I’m asking you to find doesn’t exist, but that doesn’t change the fact that the client wants to see more resumes.” (Sourcers thought: “Your lack of ability to manage your client does not constitute an emergency on my part.”)

7)    “Can you put them in the ATS for me?” (Sourcers thought: “Do it yourself.”)

8)    “You need to be more innovative, have you thought about using LinkedIn or maybe doing Boolean searches?” (Sourcers thought: “That’s all I do.”) 

He talked at great length about the needed for a Service Level Agreement (SLA), even between the sourcer and recruiter. OF course he goes on to talk about the Staffing Lifecycle (SLC) and the many ways it can be split up and that leads to Metrics and how do you measure the sourcers. To me this is simple you measure them on things they have at least 50% control over.

Finally he talks about trends to watch:

1)    Search Aggregators

2)    CRM Development / Consolidations

3)    Facebook will continue to gain ground on LinkedIn

4)    Tools to engage candidates will be in high demand

5)    Sourcing will continue to gain respect and compensation levels will match recruiter compensation

All in all a good state of sourcing and pretty much sums up sourcing as it is today, and up and coming specialized part of the SLC.