Edge Reengineers on El Dave

Part 2 - "Reengineering Before Recruiting – Or "Why Can’t We Land A Superstar?" - of Dieselevy's Edge series on Six Degrees From Dave is up. Here's the start:

Right off, I’ll admit that I’m a huge fan of Lou Adler: I like him personally and professionally. His concept of performance based hiring (what I refer to as 1X2X3 - one by two by three hiring) should be a staple in all recruiting organizations. When Lou and I first sat down for a lunch chat at HR Tech in Philadelphia a few years back, it was clear that we were on the same page (it was here that I also became his sounding board and part time trainer to help him with his shoulder problems).

Sure there are minor differences in how we implement our versions of performance based hiring, but the premise was the same – people are hired to solve problems, not to demonstrate that they have 5-8 years of experience, a BA or equivalent, and excellent organizational skills. Let me distill this down – if your job descriptions, ad copies, or recruiting spiels begin with, “You will be responsible for…” then you need to re-engineer before you recruit.

Click here for more of Part 2...

Click here for Part 1: Recruiting and Finance – A Happy Marriage?

Part 3, Brick-n-Mortar Recruiting - How to Old School the New School, is planning an appearance on El Dave next week.

The Shock and Awe Campaign

Towards the late-middle of the afternoon of an entire day spent in a conference room with twenty or so recruiters and sourcers from one of America’s finest world-class companies teaching them telephone names sourcing, one of the recruiters tentatively raised her hand and asked, with her head tilted and in a small voice, “This may seem like an odd question, but, uh, does it surprise you we know so little?”

This, after all of the morning and much of the afternoon was spent explaining the telephone names sourcing basics – how to set up a job and what tools to use in the set-up, why we do it this way, the logic behind it and the advantages it gives us. A show of hands early in the afternoon when I asked who knew what Hoovers was and who knew what LinkedIn was had yielded only a handful of affirmative answers to each question. We had spent about an unscheduled hour and a half playing around with Hoovers and then LinkedIn on the overhead monitor after these questions were raised. The group had great fun during the exercise.

The recruiter’s question took me by surprise and I shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other. Standing up a bit straighter and squaring my shoulders, I thought to myself, “What should I say, and how can I be diplomatic about this?” I hesitated and then I spoke in the only way I know how to – forthrightly and directly. “Yes, it does,” I admitted.

“I expected more of you to know about LinkedIn as it, today, is what I consider the killer app for starting all my sourcing jobs. I also thought more of you would be using an information source like Hoover’s more aggressively.”

I had earlier recommended to them that after they set their jobs into a Word doc, (or whatever it was they were using when they were “sourcing”) using all the information they can glean from an info source like Hoovers, that next they visit a site like LinkedIn for those “names in” they may be asked by the Gatekeeper to provide when they do call in. “Do you have a name?” is what many sourcers dread hearing from the Receptionist when they call into a company. A source like LinkedIn can provide that name up-front so you’re not caught with your pants down.

“I just thought you would know more of the basics – some of you do,” I almost apologetically reminded them. “These tools are easy to use and once you become familiar with them I think you will find them of great use to you in your daily sourcing routines...”

I could feel the room’s retained interest in the question. They were quiet and I could see they were listening intently to see if they were the only ones in the Universe who were so, what they felt was, ill-informed and untrained. I went on. “Things change very quickly in this business – what works today could be replaced by something better tomorrow and if you’re immersed in this sourcing activity you’re going to stay apprised with what the current and most useful tools are. Start with today and make it your habit to use a service like Hoover’s or SGA or any of the other info services out there – the important thing is to get started and put habits into place so your processes have the ability to evolve. I don’t care where you start – just start someplace!” I encouraged. “The hardest part of much of this stuff is just getting started – start today – it’s 3:30 – you have time left in your day or start tomorrow – the important thing is to just get started! If you do nothing else the rest of today, join LinkedIn before you go home,” I challenged.

“But nobody ever told us about this stuff,” someone from the rear of the room remonstrated. “This is the first time some of us have even heard about names sourcing.”

“You’re not alone,” I reminded. Earlier in the day I had told them, after again asking for a show of hands from them as to how many of them knew what “names sourcing” was, and only seeing about one third volunteer that they knew, that almost all their hiring managers won’t know what it is and the majority of those in their own recruiting departments won’t know what it is. I repeated this earlier impartation and then attempted to reassure them further, “Much of this learning is up to you – there are plenty of resources out there where you can learn about this – join the Electronic Recruiting Exchange, join my ASK Maureen group in there, join the Sourcers Unleashed group on Yahoo!, read the popular blogs on recruiting like Recruitingblogs.com, Recruiting Animal.com and Recruiting.com and The Recruiting Edge all for great information on our industry – get involved, contribute to the conversation strings and get to know people – make friends with your recruiting brethren – mingle and tingle with them. You don’t need to attend expensive conferences or formal training classes to do this – this stuff is all around you!” I almost yelled.

Some of them looked startled and a few squirmed uncomfortably in their seats. I could see the ones who would do this – they were scribbling down furiously my suggestions while others sat unmoved, hunched over the table, chins in the palm of their hands, holding their heads up from hitting the table in boredom, focused hazily in my direction with eyes half closed. (Not everyone in the class had “volunteered” to be there. Some had been “volunteered” by their hopeful managers.)

To answer the question, “Was I surprised?” Yes, I was. But then, I’m not when I think about it. On the way home I thought about the average age of the sea of faces I looked out across – 30, I would say, maybe even a little younger. I’ve watched and listened in the groups over the last couple years about the sore need for training in this industry and I’ve concluded that it exists, and the need exists in great measure. In fact, I am shocked and awed at the need. Whoever is working today to address that need, God bless you. The need for training is urgent and a large part of filling jobs in today’s competitive hiring environment is wholly contingent upon its answer.

“You are today where your thoughts have brought you; you will be tomorrow where your thoughts take you.” ~ James Allen

Maureen Sharib is a seasoned telephone names sourcer, names sourcing since 1997. She and her husband Bob own the names sourcing firm TechTrak.com and Maureen telephone-names sources daily as well as teaches telephone-names sourcing in her online telephone names sourcing course "The Magic In The Method." She can be reached by email at Maureen@techtrak.com or by phone at (513) 899-9628.

Maureen will come on-site to your company to teach telephone names sourcing to your sourcers. Call her for her rates. It's not inexpensive but the results your sourcers will produce in the future will be!

The Edge Series on El Dave

Part 1 - Recruiting and Finance – A Happy Marriage

Part 2 - Reengineering Before Recruiting – Or "Why Can’t We Land A Superstar?"

and coming soon (the end of next week)
Part 3 - Brick-and-mortar sourcing (old school lives!!)

The Edge is Whipped

We've both been pulled from all directions - particularly our minds - the past few weeks. As a result, our personal talks have been at times like 6:30 AM or 10:15 PM and since at these times we're sleep deprived or dead-dog tired, we mostly laugh with each other (I do a reasonable imitation of her husband as well as a host of recruiting personalities).

We'll be better by next week - and will have far more to say about recruiting and sourcing. So Katie, bar the doors...

Big Days for The Edge

When it rains, it pours...

Estro Edge is taking a trip to teach telephone sourcing to a, oh how shall we put it, behemoth-sized business next week (and having spoken to her husband a few hours ago, I can feel his pain) and not only did Testo Edge nail down a few interesting retained searches but now has a three-part series over at the House of El Dave.

El Dave is one of the finer sourcers out there and his blog deserves to be a part of your week. So please visit his blog (Estro and Testo will be nice to your company - heh, heh - if you know what we mean). And after you read the piece about Testo Edge, be certain to take a side trip over to the House of J and Vote! for the article.

One Lucky Lady

ILL GOTTEN Gains - Keepin’ the HOME FIRES burnin’

Trial judge vacates conviction of late Enron founder Lay
By Greg Farrell, USA TODAY
The late Ken Lay, the Enron founder who was convicted in May of deceiving investors about Enron's finances, is once again innocent in the eyes of the law. U.S. District Judge Sim Lake, who presided over the trial of Lay and his colleague Jeff Skilling in Houston earlier this year, issued an order Tuesday vacating Lay's conviction and dismissing the indictment against him. "The court concludes that Lay's conviction must be vacated," wrote Lake in a 13-page opinion. "The indictment against Kenneth L. Lay is dismissed."

Read the whole thing here.

The Edge wonders what the weather’s like in Switzerland?

Recruiters Behaving Badly???

From www.myjobtips.com...

In a sign of the reversal of power roles in the job market, a new survey from myjobtips.com shows that job seekers change their opinion of a prospective employer based on how good an impression the interviewer makes during the job interview.

According to a new survey from myjobtips.com of job seekers and their interview experiences, 90% of 20-somethings surveyed said that their overall image of the organization changed as a result of a recent interview experience. Of those who had a good interview experience, 54% said their impression of the company, its products or services improved. Of those rating the interview as less than good, 22% said it worsened.

"If you want to attract and retain good employees, the people interviewing your candidates have to be prepared and engaged in job interviews," says Bill Beairsto, chief executive of myjobtips.com, an Internet tool that helps job seekers manage their on-line job search. "Bad interviewers can turn off not just the person they interview, but everyone they know. Our survey shows that more than 70% of job seekers would recommend a company to their friends as a result of their interview experience."

Job seekers were asked about their interview experiences in the past two years. The results include:

• 1 in 5 said the interviewer hadn't read their resume before the meeting
• 12% said the interviewer was distracted (answering the phone, leaving the room etc.)
• Nearly 1 in 10 reported being asked inappropriate questions or hearing inappropriate comments (about ethnicity, marital status, looks etc.)
• 4 of 5 job seekers said interviewers were professional and appropriate in questions and behavior
• 67% said interviewers asked excellent questions and probed to learn more about the applicant's skills

Companies also need to be wary of loyalty among their younger employees. 59% of respondents said they weren't currently looking for a job but were keeping their eyes open and would apply if the right job came along.

The on-line survey of 305 young adults ages 20-30 who have had a job interview in the past two years, was conducted September 21-23, 2006 from a panel of the general population of the US and Canada. The research was carried out by Sixth-Line Solutions, an independent professional research firm.

For survey quotes, click here
For full survey results, click here

Astroturf Blogging

Ed Cone writes a very nice piece on Astroturf Blogging - essentially a blog run by pros that is meant to look like the efforts of regular folk. Worth looking at if you have Corporate blog and are concerned about first impressions (and second, third, ...).

Short Odds for Ignorance

Edge must thank Robert Hahn and Paul Tetlock whose New York Times OP-ED piece served as the inspiration for this thread. Actually, I stole the title because (a) it fits and (b) I think it'll cause more people to read it.

The piece was written to discuss the deleterious effect of legislation that recently passed that would make it crime for credit card companies and banks to send payments to Internet gambling sites. The measure was attached to an unrelated bill on port security at the last hour - interesting how our government works; I wonder which lobbyist was paid beaucoup bucks for this coup.

Hahn and Tetlock assert that "the bigger economic story is how this act, by effectively prohibiting Internet betting, could unintentionally slow the emergence of new tools that have the potential to improve the productivity of the private sector and the government." This is serious and we should care about how this impacts us (yes, there's a recruiting connection coming). Information markets, which reflect the collective wisdom of savvy participants, can help us make more accurate forecasts. Information markets have historically and consistently outperformed "experts" whether it’s predicting point spreads or elections or printer sales or...whether an applicant becomes a candidate becomes an employee becomes a pain in the asset.

In 1954, Paul Meehl, one of the truly great thinkers in American Psychology, wrote his classic book, Clinical Versus Statistical Prediction: A Theoretical Analysis and Review of the Literature. In it, he asked a very simple question: Are the predictions of human experts more reliable than the predictions of actuarial models? Since 1954, every non-ambiguous study that has compared the reliability of clinical and actuarial predictions has supported Meehl’s conclusion.

In recruiting, so many want to rely on their gut instinct. Edge offers that if the gut is so darn good, why do 50% of all marriages end in divorce? Please. But back to the OP-ED piece. My fear is that with mindless legislation coming from Washington in the employment space, the EEOC will be given more power to change how we recruit. My fear is that they will legislate away predictive models using the Disparate Impact argument. This would be tragic for our industry.

The fact is the EEOC of late has been an abject failure (not earlier in the days of the Civil Rights Act, EO 11246, etc.). It runs on fear - the fear of companies who know it's easier to pay a fine than to fight a baseless charge. The thread on Sourcer's Unleashed regarding whether Google has the right to require a college degree for its sourcers is a clear indication that the EEOC has gone too far. As much as I have specific thoughts about Google, I feel for poor Diane Hill who posted the initial thread (Diane - feel free to use the Edge as a source anytime you please).

During the rabid discussion, the key protagonist wrote “if Bill Gates were to step down from Microsoft tomorrow would Google say that he is not hireable because he doesn't have a degree? If so then why him and not the others they did not choose.”

Well slap me upside the head – this is a revelation! I can imagine the phone call…

“Uh, Larry and Sergey, this is, um, Bill Gates of Microsoft. I just left the company and was wondering if you might have something for me. Although I have some experience with business and technology development I don’t have a degree and I know you guys require degrees. But I’d be willing to start in the mailroom.”

I’d love to know the “metrics” but for every Bill Gates, Edge is certain that there are hundreds of thousands of people without degrees – perhaps millions (remember, Billy is one in 50 Billion) – who just don’t make it like Bill. Nice ratio, huh? Make a case for the nonsensicalness of high GPAs if you’d like (and Edge does) but we’ll stick with degrees and a company's decision to require them. HP’s motto is invent; I’m quite certain that most of those duped by a certain agency that they have been aggrieved would prefer that most companies have as their motto, cower and submit. Which sadly, most do.

Which leads Edge to a final point - give a government agency an inch and they'll take a mile. Heck – they can’t even protect children and then ruin a good apology with an excuse. Just like blanket legislation that bans Internet gambling, our government proves that it rarely considers all the facts. Same with the EEOC and employment/labor law. Knee-jerk legislation and the people who sponsor and support it need to be kept on our radar screen. Our profession’s future is clearly at stake.

Saving Lance

Anyone who quotes Ayn Rand and Voltaire is always worth reading. Consider reading Lance Martin's Saving Liberty blog.

Religious Employees Tax Breaks Expanding

As Religious Programs Expand, Disputes Rise Over Tax Breaks

"As religious organizations of all faiths stretch their concept of mission far beyond traditional worship, should their traditional tax exemptions expand as well? Increasingly, government at all levels is answering yes.

The property tax exemption is one of the oldest tax breaks granted to religious organizations, but it is not the only one. Lawmakers and judges have also approved what amounts to special tax treatment for religious organizations and some of their employees, including exemptions on personal-income and payroll taxes, and have made it easier for them to get tax-exempt construction loans for purely religious projects.

Like the exemptions from federal and state regulations that have proliferated for religious groups in recent years, these tax breaks are widely defended both as an acknowledgment of religion’s contributions to society and as a barrier to unjustified government limitations on the liberty that religious organizations enjoy under the First Amendment.”

The Work Fashion Report

Work is where wild things are

Be careful - animal prints can show your wild side!

NEW YORK — As most professionals know, it can be a jungle out there. So it makes sense that animal-themed attire is wildly hot this fall for fashionable female workers. Women are wearing big-cat animal prints — think jaguar, leopard, tiger and cheetah — as well as zebra- and giraffe-inspired designs to even the most conservative of workplace settings. The safari style has been spotted on a pack of professionals, including hedge fund office managers, court stenographers and corporate lawyers.

Don't Practice Legal Terrorism

“If businessmen and -women become scared of breaking laws they imperfectly understand, or if they fear becoming victims of the Department of Justice's legal terrorism, they'll cease making the kinds of decisions that keep the U.S. economy energetic and pushing forward.

That would be tragic for the U.S.--and the world. So let's keep the legal bloodhounds active--but on a sensible leash.”

Interesting article in Forbes by Paul Johnson...

The Edge Lovefest Continues

The Levinator : El Dave
Dieselevey Just a Commodity : The Animal
How Recruiters Do It : Jason Alba
Oh Where Have You Been... : ds-Mobile



This merely demonstrates that the blogging industry is desperate for material.

Event: Howard Adamsky and his Brooklyn Twang

NJMetroEMA - New Jersey Metro Employment Management Association

Closing the Deal/Tips and Techniques that Make a Difference

Speaker: Howard Adamsky of HR Innovators

Date:	October 10, 2006 6:00pm - 8:00pm
Location:	Doubletree Hotel Newark Airport (former the Wyndham Hotel)

In recruiting, you either close the deal or you don’t. If the candidate accepts the offer, you look great; if they don’t accept the offer you want enter the witness protection program till things calm down. Fun huh?

Feeling the pressure? Just remember the number one rule in recruiting:

If the offer is made and the deal closes, it is due to the great work of the hiring managers and all of the rest of the company. (Whether they were involved or not.) If the deal does not close, it is surely the result of the recruiter.

Those who get up really early and come to this event, half dressed, and half asleep, looking for free coffee and some stale donuts will learn the following things:

• The importance of the recruiting interview. (Learn why it is different then the hiring manager’s interview)
• When the selling begins
• The most important question you need to continue to ask the candidate during the hiring process. (E-mail me if you think you know the question.)
• Why there are no easy deals
• The importance of making a candidate counteroffer proof
• The need to provide a world class interviewing experience
• How branding can help you to close more deals
• And more…

About the presenter:

Howard Adamsky (howard@hrinnovators.com) is a recruiting consultant, writer, public speaker and educator. His mission is to support his client's efforts to build great organizations by hiring the very best employees and to teach others how to do the same. He has over 20 years of experience in identifying, developing, and implementing effective solutions for organizations struggling to recruit and retain top talent.

Howard is published internationally in print as well as on-line. He is a regular contributor to the Electronic Recruiting Exchange (links to articles are listed below), a member of the Human Capital Institute's Small and Mid-Sized business panel, a Certified Internet Recruiter, and a rider one of the largest production motorcycles ever built. Howard holds a B.A. from the CUNY at Brooklyn College.

His book, Hiring and Retaining Top IT Professionals/The Guide for Savvy Hiring Managers and Job Hunters Alike has been published by Osborne McGraw-Hill and is currently in local bookstores and available online.

ERE Articles

• The New Emergence of Greatness in Recruiting
• Recruiting and Leadership
• The Hiring Manager's Guide to Working With Recruiters
• The Recruiter's Guide to Being Totally Miserable
• Selling the Company
• How You Can Make Your Worst Recruiting Practices Go Away
• 6 Ways Recruiters Can Support Building a Better Organization
• How To Lose a Candidate in 10 Ways
• The Myth of the War for Talent
• What Great Recruiters Do to Prevent Counteroffers
• Hiring the Best Recruiters: An Executive Briefing
• Close the Deal and Land the Candidate
• The Strategic Recruiter
• The Thinking Person's Guide to Improved Performance
• Reader Response to The Myth of the Passive Candidate
• The Myth of the Passive Candidate
• Because Recruiting Is No Easy Task
• 10 Things Recruiters Should Know About Every Candidate They Interview
• Recruiters as Business Builders
• 4 Ways to Supercharge Your Recruiting Performance
• How to Develop a Capture Strategy
• An Appeal to the Difference Makers: It's Time to Make a Difference
• 10 Things You Can Do Today to Become a Better Recruiter
• Hiring Your Boss: A Recruiter's Guide to Recognizing Exceptional HR Leadership
• End-of-Summer Thoughts: Ignoring the Hype and Becoming a Difference Maker
• Eat What You Kill: Using the Sales Model To Improve Your Recruiting
• 12 Ways Hiring Managers Can Get More From Their Recruiting Partners
• 8 Secrets to Dealing with Non-Responsive Hiring Managers
• Behavioral Styles and Recruiting: Understand the First and You'll Excel at the Second
• Getting a Seat at the Table: A Radical, Yet Logical, Approach
• 5 Critical Skills Recruiters Should Acquire: A Crash Course in Career Development
• Closing the Deal: Applying Agency Philosophy at the Corporate Level
• The Other Side of Experience, Part 4: Potential and Teamwork
• The Other Side of Experience, Part 3: Productivity and Communication
• HR, Recruiting, and the Sales Function: 6 Thoughts Worth Considering
• The Other Side of Experience, Part 2: Attitude and Leadership
• Flying Home: Notes on ER Expo 2003 Chicago from 30,000 Feet
• The Other Side Of Experience
• The Sixty-Minute Hour, Or, Why Doesn't Anything Ever Get Done Around Here?
• Successful Networking Skills: A Guide for the Very Nervous
• Is Your Employee Referral Program Acting as a Disincentive?
• The Excruciating Job of Being a Recruiter in This Economy
• Fixing the American Economy: A Recruiter's Revolutionary Proposal 6/5/2003
• Talent Management: Something Productive This Way Comes
• Take Me To Your Leader
• The New World of Employee Responsibilities: A Guideline of Expectations
• Employee Retention: Notes from the Underground
• America Cries, Again
• Leadership for the Next New Economy
• Recruiting Tomorrow: Inventing the Future
• Recruiting Today: Good People In Difficult Times
• An Insider's Guide to Successful Job Fairs
• Make Believe They're Coming to Your House

---

When:	October 10th 6:00 – 6:30, check in and networking 6:30 – 7:00, light dinner and more networking 7:00 – 8:00, presentation	Cost:	Advance Registration (online credit card only) $35, NJ Metro EMA members $40, non-members $25, in transition At The Door (check or cash only) $40, NJ Metro EMA members $45, non-members $25, in transition
Where:	Doubletree Hotel Newark Airport Please note that this is the same site as the former Wyndham Hotel. Parking is free when you request a voucher for the NJ Metro EMA meeting as you enter the parking lot. 1000 Spring Street Elizabeth, NJ 07201-2183 Phone: 908-436-4600

Click here to register.

There's a lesson for HR somewhere in here...

Political Science for Dummies

DEMOCRATIC
You have two cows.
Your neighbor has none.
You feel guilty for being successful.
Barbara Streisand sings for you.

REPUBLICAN
You have two cows.
Your neighbor has none.
So?

SOCIALIST
You have two cows.
The government takes one and gives it to your neighbor.
You form a cooperative to tell him how to manage his cow.

COMMUNIST
You have two cows.
The government seizes both and provides you with milk.
You wait in line for hours to get it.
It is expensive and sour.

CAPITALISM, AMERICAN STYLE
You have two cows.
You sell one, buy a bull, and build a herd of cows.

BUREAUCRACY, AMERICAN STYLE
You have two cows.
Under the new farm program the government pays you to shoot one, milk the other, and then pours the milk down the drain.

AMERICAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You sell one, lease it back to yourself and do an IPO on the 2nd one.
You force the two cows to produce the milk of four cows. You are surprised when one cow drops dead. You spin an announcement to the analysts stating you have downsized and are reducing expenses.
Your stock goes up.

FRENCH CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You go on strike because you want three cows.
You go to lunch and drink wine.
Life is good.

JAPANESE CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk.
They learn to travel on unbelievably crowded trains.
Most are at the top of their class at cow school.

GERMAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You engineer them so they are all blond, drink lots of beer, give excellent quality milk, and run a hundred miles an hour.
Unfortunately they also demand 13 weeks of vacation per year.

ITALIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows but you don't know where they are.
While ambling around, you see a beautiful woman.
You break for lunch.
Life is good.

RUSSIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You have some vodka.
You count them and learn you have five cows.
You have some more vodka.
You count them again and learn you have 42 cows.
The Mafia shows up and takes over however many cows you really have.

TALIBAN CORPORATION
You have all the cows in Afghanistan, which are two.
You don't milk them because you cannot touch any creature's private parts.
You get a $40 million grant from the US government to find alternatives to milk production but use the money to buy weapons.

IRAQI CORPORATION
You have two cows.
They go into hiding.
They send radio tapes of their mooing.

POLISH CORPORATION
You have two bulls.
Employees are regularly maimed and killed attempting to milk them.

BELGIAN CORPORATION
You have one cow.
The cow is schizophrenic.
Sometimes the cow thinks he's French, other times he's Flemish.
The Flemish cow won't share with the French cow.
The French cow wants control of the Flemish cow's milk.
The cow asks permission to be cut in half.
The cow dies happy.

FLORIDA CORPORATION
You have a black cow and a brown cow.
Everyone votes for the best looking one.
Some of the people who actually like the brown one best accidentally vote for the black one.
Some people vote for both.
Some people vote for neither.
Some people can't figure out how to vote at all.
Finally, a bunch of guys from out-of-state tell you wh ich one you think is the best-looking cow.

CALIFORNIA CORPORATION
You have millions of cows.
They make real California cheese.
Only five speak English.
Most are illegals.
Arnold likes the ones with the big udders.

Persistence

“I took your course but to tell you the truth, I just don’t have the TIME to do what you do,” the caller explained, almost apologetically, before asking if I had time to take on some more work. She then went on to describe her long background in recruiting, admitting in the tale that it has always been the front-end part of the job, the sourcing, that she has never really been comfortable with. Not only did she find it awkward, she explained, she also remarked, “It takes so much time!”

Yes, it does. There are no two ways to say this. Sourcing takes a lot of time, and this part of a job’s anatomy is commonly missed, skipped and/or glossed over by hiring managers. Not only does it take a lot of time, even for a skilled sourcer, it takes oodles and oodles of time learning the fine art and science of. I estimate, in the first module of the telephone sourcing training course, “The Magic in the Method,” that I have spent thousands, yes, literally thousands and thousands of hours, sourcing.

Recently I read an article about selling. It compared selling to running a marathon – going the distance. So it is with sourcing. It takes time to “close the deal” – in the case of sales the author pegged the process anywhere from one to thirty-six months, to “qualify the prospect, strategize with management, put together a presentation, present a proposal, negotiate the terms, and close the deal...time for the prospect to compare with the competition, build trust with the salesperson, justify to his boss, and give us his autograph”. In the case of sourcing we usually don’t have the luxury of months; weeks is the norm and less than two the preferred. But the process is much shorter for us – we don’t have to jump through the hoops of relationship building that most of a sales process entails. The similarities between the two activities are more similar, though, than this appears.

What we need in boatloads is Persistence. Like in sales, if we lose focus, if we stop attempting to make contact with our intendeds, it’s a pretty sure bet someone else, someday, is going to walk away with that prize. What sourcer will it be? The persistent one, of course!

It is recommended that a salesperson stop calling, IF he stops calling at all, after the fifth call. This is because it is estimated 70% of prospects won’t even make a decision until the fifth call. And that’s not necessarily a decision to buy – just a decision to take things to the next level! This phenomenon in the face of the fact that 92% of salespeople stop calling on the new prospect after four calls, and the greatest majority (44%) after the first! Personally, I don’t think it’s a wise choice to EVER stop calling – I think you know, by now, my philosophy: “If they have any of my time I want to be paid!” Working on a per-name-rate rather than hourly, it is my mantra, as you can easily decipher.

Why do 92% salespeople stop calling too soon? Maybe it’s because they don’t know what to say after they say “Hello” or maybe they just don’t know how to stay in the hunt. I propose that it’s a similar reason why many would-be sourcers give up after that first one or two calls – it’s a small part of not knowing what to “say” but the biggest part is that they don’t realize that they just have to stay in the hunt – long enough to finish the race. It may be an hour and it may be ten. It might be ten and it might be a hundred. Whatever it takes – you just have to stay in the hunt. You have to cross the finish line. You just have to keep “showin’ up”, as many great success stories will attest to.

“What do you say, anyway?” I get asked over and over. “How DO you get these names?” they exclaim in pleased surprise. “Why can’t my sourcers do what you do?” they half-wail in indignation. “You’re my secret weapon!” another customer tells me. “TechTrak is poetry in motion” one person sent in an email, asking if I would put his remark on my website as a Testimonial. I assure them, it’s not what I say that matters so much (in fact, I “say” very little!), rather, it’s HOW I say the little I do say. When they press further, I admit to the real secret sauce – persistence. I don’t complain when their fifty name job took me as much time as someone else’s hundred name job. I don’t remind them of same in an attempt to curry favor; I have posted my rates and I stand by my rates knowing that at the end of the month, when I shake that blanket out fresh out of the dryer before folding it and putting it away, that most jobs will have evened themselves out to reward me handsomely for my patience over the term. Many sourcers don’t get this. Many people in many walks of life don’t get this. If you get this one simple premise, it will hold you in good steed.

Sourcing is a marathon. You can’t finish if you drop out. Do you have a strategy to go the distance?

“He conquers who endures.” ~ Persius

Maureen Sharib is a seasoned telephone names sourcer, names sourcing since 1997. She and her husband Bob own the names sourcing firm, TechTrak, and Maureen not only telephone names sources every day of her life but also teaches telephone names sourcing in her only-of-its-kind-online telephone names sourcing course "The Magic In The Method". She can be reached by email at maureen at techtrak.com or by phone at 513 899 9628.

Get the NEW and FREE Telephone Sourcing GLOSSARY by e-mailing maureen at techtrak.com