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Things are picking up! Soon you may not have time to phone source to fill your hard-to-fill positions. When that happy event happens in your world, call the phone sourcing experts at TechTrak 513 899 9628
One of the sourcing-experienced Members over on the MagicMethod Phone Sourcing network, in her profile when asked to answer the following question "Where do you learn about name sourcing?" replied:
“I had to do it for myself as a recruiter. The better research I did, the less time I spent recruiting to find good prospects.”
I found the bolded part very interesting - do you agree w/ her remark?
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Oracle completes $8.5 billion takeover of BEA, layoffs loom
Business software maker Oracle Corp. (ORCL) completed its $8.5 billion takeover of rival BEA Systems Inc. (BEAS) Tuesday after European regulators approved the deal.
It was Oracle's largest acquisition since the Redwood Shores-based company paid $11.1billion for PeopleSoft Inc. in 2005. Oracle has now spent about $35 billion buying dozens of its smaller competitors during the past three years in an effort to build a one-stop shop for database and business applications software.
Oracle prizes San Jose-based BEA for its so-called "middleware" - computer coding that helps business programs interact with databases.
The takeover is expected to trigger layoffs among BEA's work force of 4,100 employees, most of whom will receive severance packages as part of a plan adopted late last year while BEA's board was still trying to fend off Oracle.
Oracle has acknowledged job cuts are likely as it strives to maximize its profit from the BEA deal but hasn't specified how many workers will be jettisoned.
Read the whole story here.
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April 28, 2008 Noon – 1 p.m. (EST)
Yesterday's class centered around “Handling the Gatekeeper” and there were a couple dozen people in attendance for the Inaugural MagicMethod Classroom Chat. Several of them participated and there were some very good questions asked. By the way, I had a note from someone before class started that several people from one company wanted to attend BUT their company's firewall had the site (like many other Internet sites) blocked. Did you know 64% of U.S. companies deny their employees access to social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace, etc.? If you have trouble signing in you might want to talk to your company's IT department about unblocking the site.
MagicMethod Classroom Chat Best Remark of the Day
“For what it's worth - my Mantra in Recruiting is the telephone is the shortest distance between two points and beats the Internet hands down.” ~ Bill Vick
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Recruiting Animal Do Gatekeepers ever recognize your voice?
Maureen Sharib Have I ever been recognized? Sure! All the time. In fact, I say, once we've est'd some rapport (this usually takes 2-3 calls), "It's me again!"
Kristin Scala Do you have experience sourcing for Financial Advisors? Any recommendations getting past the gatekeepers at wealth centers?
To view the entire MagicMethod Classroom Chat Log, go here.
Be there TODAY again at Noon (EST) for ANOTHER MagicMethod Classroom Chat.
Today at noon (est) until 1p.m. This is a LIVE INTERACTIVE experience - chat with Maureen and other sourcers to learn the tips and techniques of telephone sourcing from some of the best in the business.
Your questions regarding telephone sourcing can be/will be asked/answered in the Chat Room. Today's subject will be "Handling Gatekeepers" (or whatever else comes up).
The MagicMethod telephone sourcing class will meet weekdays (except Wednesdays when Maureen is on the Recruiting Animal's Radio Show) at noon (est) until 1p.m. Make it a habit to be there!
You must join the MagicMethod NING group (it's FREE and EASY!) to attend any of the classes. Go here to begin.
What is the most common Gatekeeper response you encounter?
This question is for those who are engaged in telephone names sourcing* or for those who have a reason to penetrate beyond the Gatekeeper to reach someone you may (or may not yet) know the name of. What is the most common Gatekeeper response you encounter and can you also describe your approach that elicits that Gatekeeper's most common response?
*telephone names sourcing: the finding of persons who hold (usually) specific titles in (usually) specific companies so that you may approach them with your opportunity.
“I have been the person, a personal assistant, between you and the person you want to reach. You have less than 30 seconds to convince me that you had something of value to say.”
Interesting 21 LinkedIn responses to the question, “What is the most common Gatekeeper response you encounter?” here.
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A soucer is usually someone who is dedicated to producing names and list generation for a particular job opening or search assignment. A sourcer may very well work directly for a recruiter. A recruiter on the other hand will usually have full life cycle responsibility. This of course can include sourcing as well as candidate development, salary negotiation and managing client expectations. Breaking down respsonsiblities simply by titles relative to your specific question, a recruiter could also be a sourcer, but it would be unusual for a sourcer to be a recruiter.
Other LinkedIn Answers here.
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This was one of the responses in a discussion string over on ERE (did you know you can search these strings for "keywords"?) in January of '05. Caron Osberg, Recruiter, QCI deserves credit for this.
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First, my qualifications. Second, my list of gatekeeper "rules".
I started my working life Lo! These many years ago as a receptionist in a law office. I was a flighty little 18-year-old girl who was told to keep people at bay. There are people a lawyer wants to talk to and there are people a lawyer doesn't want to talk to.
A few years later as a slightly less flighty 24-year-old, I got a receptionist position in the executive suite of a big manufacturing company. Corporate HQ was in another state: I was the guard dog for the CEO, CFO, Controller and VP of HR (in a union environment). Under them were the worker bees directly involved in doing secret mission C-suite type of work. Let's just say at this level, there are a lot of people who don't want to talk to a lot of other people.
Then I went to college and at a hardly flighty 30 years old I got a job with Olsten Staffing Services. I was required to pound the pavement every single day - no telephone work for me unless I did it from home. Did I apply my experience as gatekeeper? You bet I did. Here's what I know (apologies for the gender roles below):
Rule #1: A receptionist also has ethical issues to grapple with on a daily basis.
Rule #2: A good receptionist is lying from the moment she sits down at 8:00 until the moment she leaves at 5:00.
Rule #3: Her job is not so much to help you as to keep you away while making you think she is helping you.
Rule #4: When she is gone after 5:00, it's true that the CEO will pick up the phone himself.
Rule #5: A bad receptionist is easy to spot. A good receptionist should know enough to be a 'smiling assassin.' In other words, you don't know for sure how much her brain is recording and to whom she is relaying the information.
Rule #6: When you are physically in front of a receptionist, be careful of everything. Someone in HR or an executive assistant will ask her how you acted, how you treated her, what you said and what you did while you cooled your heels in front of her. And you thought you sat there for no reason, didn't you?
Rule #7: She WILL remember your voice.
Rule #8: She will remember if you ticked her off the first or even the 15th time you called.
Rule #9: She does have a sense of humor.
Rule #10: It is hard to deflect a heartfelt request for help. You also may hit her on a day when she is tired of telling people that Mr. Highstuff is in yet another meeting.
Rule #11: It is likely she is lying to you. Did I already mention that?
Rule #12: She goes to lunch. Who covers for her? Most likely lunch is covered by someone who doesn't really want to be answering the phone. That may be a very good time to call.
Rule #13: She may not be a receptionist. She may be a switchboard operator.
Rule #14: She'll tell someone that you call repeatedly.
Rule #15: As we have already heard, she's been trained to spot you as a recruiter before the phone even rings.
Rule #16: On the other hand, she ALWAYS knows more than anyone realizes. She sees The Fax, puts through The Call, makes The Photocopy, etc.
Rule #17: She knows who is important and who isn't important regardless of how important they think they are. That includes you.
Rule #18: There is always a slim chance she will take pity on you once or twice, but if she thinks for one nano-second that you think she's stupid, you're done. Everyone at work tells her she's got the most important job in the whole company and yet she knows she makes the least amount of money. Add to it and you will feel her displeasure.
Anything I've missed? I'm sure there is something. I doubt I have told you anything new, but it is a good habit to keep these things in mind.
Especially Rule #7.
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NameSourcer blog.
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It so happened…
I planned and plotted, pulled and portioned, picked, proofed, parted and pared.
Provided and posted, pegged, populated, pinned, pitted and primed.
I perused, panned and peeked, peered, pored, puzzled and pinched.
I purred, patted, prompted, pleaded, promised, pecked, prodded, pestered, poked and pried.
I pelted, pummeled, punted, perspired and passed.
I paused.
Nothing was working. My approach was off. They could hear it in my voice. I was having a bad day. All was going in but nothing was coming out. The planets were in the wrong places. I was pressing.
I played and peddled and penned and pleased,
I preened and polished, puttered and prayed.
I pampered and primped and plastered and painted
Until…
I felt the planets re-align. I got back in the saddle. I called again, and asked again, and the heavens opened and spilled all over my keyboard. Imagine that. What providence, patience and perseverance provide.
“Patience is also a form of action.” - Auguste Rodin, sculptor (1840-1917)
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This originally was a post over on ERE in January of '06. You can read the original here.
Medieval castles were besieged with many frightening weapons in the attempt to breach their walls – these included the trebuchet, battering rams, siege towers, tunnels - anything to gain access to a castle. Defenders, meanwhile, had a few tricks of their own. I’m not exactly sure what those were, but I do have an idea what some modern-day defenders are doing. The following is some interesting reading I've lately been pointed towards.
"It is only one who is thoroughly acquainted with the evils of war that can thoroughly understand the profitable way of carrying it on." —Sun Tzu, The Art of War
The Dark Art of Social Engineering By Duane Laflotte - Social Engineers Are High-Tech Con Artists
It's All About Control
If hacking were black magic, social engineering would be one of the darkest arts of all. Sit back, relax, and let Cyberspace Samurai Duane LaFlotte tell you a tale of social control and manipulation. I'm here to teach you what social engineers do when trying to manipulate the human element of a system. Only when you understand that will you know exactly how to defend yourself and your company. As a good friend of mine once said, "It's all about control."
Protect yourself against the devious tricks that some folks in the business employ (whether they'll admit to it or not)
“Hence it is that which none in the whole army are more intimate relations to be maintained than with spies. None should be more liberally rewarded. In no other business should greater secrecy be preserved.” ~ Sun Tzu Ch. XIII ~ The Use of Spies
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Do something today you don’t think you can do. Lose phone fear here.
Todd Raphael of ERE writes in the Fordyce Letter:
Chris Murdock, executive sourcer & knowledge manager, Yahoo!, shared some of his thoughts on popular sourcing tools today at the NAER conference in Redondo Beach (a good place for a weekend afternoon but a pain in the kiester to get to on a work day).
See the mentioned sourcing tools here.
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Stephanie Lada writes in the Fordyce Letter:
Whether you are an account manager working all sides of the desk or a
recruiter focusing strictly on locating top talent, when you start
the candidate search process for a job order it is imperative that
you cover all of your search bases. How many times have you gone to
cover a search where you’ve randomly drifted from job boards to
various databases and other tools? It often leads to frustration and
lack of productivity. To help avoid this, here is a list of standard
targets for generating candidate call lists:
5.) Exercise your cold calling techniques. What truly differentiates
the best in the candidate search business is the ability to cold call
and generate new relationships. Start with the creation of target
lists for competitive companies and utilize tools like Harris or
OneSource to help you generate existing names within the companies.
It also is helpful to spend time online visiting competitor websites
to review recent news announcements for names to add to your cold
call list. No one likes to do it, but it’s a trusted means to help
build your network.
Read all of the bullet points for organizing and starting your search
processes here.
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Chat LIVE with real time sourcers here.
This was a discussion that appeared on ERE in May of 2006.
What do you all think of this?
Competitive assurance may not involve torture. But it does sometimes involve lying or misrepresentation. There's the old headhunter trick, for instance, or the potential investor who just has to know a company's R&D plans. The ruses are endlessly varied, and what many executives may not realize is that they are perfectly legal. Lying to obtain information is not even cause for a successful trade secret lawsuit—unless the imposter has signed a nondisclosure agreement. Ironically, the only party who can legitimately be charged with a trade secret violation is, in many cases, the employee who unwittingly shared the crown jewels. "It's not illegal to misrepresent yourself," says R. Mark Halligan, an expert on trade secret law and a principal with the Chicago law firm Welsh & Katz. "And the pretext itself is not actionable."
Read the whole thing here.
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By: Inc. Staff January, 2006
All business subcultures have their own way of talking, and recruiters are no different. Here's some slang from the frontlines of the talent wars.
Lift-out n. When an entire team of employees is recruited from a competitor at once: "Good news: We engineered a complete lift-out of ACME Corp.'s programmers."
On-boarding v. To hold frequent follow-up meetings with a recent hire to ensure he or she is happy in the new position: "I've been on-boarding with Jane ever since she became a vice president; frankly, I'm worried that she's being poached by ACME."
Peel v. To dig through a company's website in search of its staff roster: "Take a couple of hours and peel ACME's site; I'd like to know how many vice presidents they have."
Peel back the onion v. To learn more about a candidate by conducting several lengthy, in-depth interviews and asking a battery of pointed questions: "The guy's got a Harvard M.B.A., but he starts to stink when you peel back the onion."
Poach v. To use aggressive and questionable tactics to lure away a rival's top talent: "Who needs recruiting when you can be out poaching?"
Ruse v. To call a competitor's office and misrepresent yourself, play dumb, or work the receptionist until you're connected with a job prospect: "To hell with the receptionist--just ruse her."
Read them all here.
Do you agree with these definitions?
E-mail me (maureen at namesourcer.com) for the FREE Updated Sourcing Glossary! Send me your email address - the Glossary is an attachment.
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Chat LIVE with real time sourcers here!
This was a discussion started in July of '05 over on ERE. You can see the original here.
"You get your names over the telephone?” the potential customer wanted to know.
“How do you do that?” he further inquired.
“After I’ve gone to the net or my former research for some names to get in with, I pick up the telephone and I dial,” I answered.
“That’s novel,” he reminded. “Can you get names for me?”
It’s that simple. Or is it? The main reason we’re hired to names source is usually because a hiring manager has a very specific problem – he has an open position that is not easily filled by the traditional venue of perusing easily available and multitudinous resumes.
So they call us to find that needle-in-a-haystack. They want us to deliver names to them that solve this problem: They’re hoping to see “fresh” names that nobody’s seen before. Names that carry titles that are closely aligned with the desired skill sets. We’re usually given a title and a few other titles these persons may carry. Then we’re set loose to do our thing.
There’s a huge controversy that raises itself now and then and that is the idea that one type of candidate (passive) is better than the other (active). The thinking goes along the lines of “If they’re looking, there must be a reason they’re looking!” In other words, there’s probably something wrong with the guy – if his resume’s still out there he’s been passed over. On the other end of the spectrum glistens the shiny new – that person popularly known as the “passive” candidate. The accompanying reasoning goes something to the effect, “If he’s out there and nobody’s talked to him before, I’ll be the first one at the table to get the best (and biggest) portion.” In reality, both lines of thought are problematic.
I’m reminded of the Clay Walker country song line, “When the new wears off and the old shines through...”. In defense of the actives, there are good people represented in the mix – and they’re going to turn up in some of our “passive” searches anyway. It’s just going to happen the more thorough we become in our sourcing skills. I don’t like to leave anyone behind and I try not to. The reality is, passives aren’t always truly “passive” and actives aren’t always “active”. Some “actives” have gone to ground, so to speak, and are fully engaged in another job that really gives them those desirable “passive’ characteristics that are so highly regarded nowadays. Skipping over them in any job search is a mistake. We must bear in mind, anything we put out on the net is going to stay out on the net, regardless of our efforts or desire to remove it. So if someone has a resume, say “out there” somewhere, he or she could turn up in a future search regardless that they’re looking at present or not.
There are passives who really aren’t passive at all. They know what they’re doing to market themselves – they know how to glisten beneath all that fallen snow that assures they’ll be the first snowflake picked out. I’m talking about the person who is active on the net, who does a lot of posting (or a little) that includes a lot of biographical information that, at first glance, appears extraneous. It’s not, usually – those tagline signatures that give us names sourcers those delightful Eureka! moments should be approached with some hesitation. The question to ask yourself is this “If I found them, who else hasn’t?” I know it’s exciting when your Boolean search ferrets out that exact title in the exact location that the job is calling for and it appears that all you have to do is dial the number and confirm that the guy’s still there. I know that temptation to end there and call it finished.
Don’t! Doing this is short shifting your customer as well as yourself. This little “gem” you uncovered as a result of your knowledgeable Boolean entry (you did work so hard to learn Boolean, didn’t you?) sometimes is tantamount to someone’s resume being posted out there – it screams, “Hey recruiter, look at me – I’m what you want - call me for your new job opportunity –I’ll make it easy – here’s my office number and my cell!
Know what I mean?
“Foul!” you cry. “They’re mine to find!”
Yes, they are. The question you have to ask yourself is, “Is that all there is?” You know the answer is a resounding “Of course not!” That “passive-active” usually has a team of coworkers he interacts with everyday – the best way to set that little hard rock into your job setting is to build his organization out around him – and that usually means (actually I don’t know of any other way) that you must get on the telephone and call him, or call his administrative assistant, or call his manager, or call the guy in the cube next to him, or call someone in the Mail Room who delivers mail to him and his group everyday, or call the VP of Engineering’s Executive Assistant, or call someone that will give you the names of the other people in his group! You must remove (at least one hand, momentarily) from the alphabet portion of your keyboard to dial that number. You must become an active names sourcer vs a passive names sourcer! If you don’t your research will suffer the consequences. More and more people are learning (and depending) on Boolean to fill their searches. Set yourself apart by honing your telephone techniques. They’re the ones that are hardest to master and they’re the ones that return the greatest results! They’re the ones that give you the only advantage of finding the truly passive candidate – the guy sitting at his desk doing his thing, 8-12 hours a day, too busy to even think about another job. The guy who doesn’t “post” for ulterior reasons or isn’t listed in some fab online gathering. He’s the guy who’s gainfully and masterfully employed doing what you need him to do for you – go get him!
The important thing to keep in mind is the overall quality of the pipeline. Proactively adding both passive and actives into it at the same time is going to give you a healthy mix in the end.
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HEADHUNTERS are at large in the public sector, trying to nab the best people. Bad news, you might think, unless you are one of those being hunted. Those who have made it to the top are generally prompt to return headhunters’ calls.
One of the keys to success in business and finance has always been to keep in touch with the headhunters who specialise in your area. This now applies to the public sector, too.
But what about your employees? Naturally, senior management would like to prevent their staff from walking out, especially if they have invested time and money in them and rely on them for key skills.
There are, of course, ways of preventing headhunters from contacting your people. Some organisations instruct the switchboard not to give out names or titles. Others monitor e-mails or ban private phone calls in office hours.
The measures described above are likely to damage employee morale, and are ultimately ineffective. An employee who wants to speak to a headhunter will always find a way... Most are grateful for an opportunity to test their market value and will happily stay with you.
But there are steps you can take to make it more likely your staff will stay. You should focus on making your organisation as attractive as possible to employees. This includes having a mission they can be proud of, and carrying it out, training workers well, paying them competitively and promoting on merit.
Read the whole article here.
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Do something today you don’t think you can do. Lose phone fear here.
“Do what you love, love what you do, and deliver more than you promise.” ~ Harvey Mackay, American Businessman/Speaker/Author
If you'd like to be interviewed in the "Spectacular Sourcer Spotlight" contact me at: maureen at namesourcer.com
The following questions are ones I am consistently ASKed by potential new customers -many of them are the same questions your customers will ask you. I’ve included my answers; you’ll want to answer in your own words. I feel the questions and answers are helpful because they serve as one model of a successful names sourcing business.
What types of jobs do you commonly work? I work across most industries, you'd be hard pressed to ask me about one I haven't.
Do you have any favorite spaces you prefer to work in? Yes
What are they and why do you prefer them? I like to work in what’s easy for me – that would be sales and marketing and I'd do that stuff all day long if I could but what I really enjoy most are the jobs that take me into places like Xerox Parc in Palo Alto where they're doing Star Trek-like technology and where I can get lost in learning about some of the fascinating stuff they're doing. I also enjoy doing civil engineering work and have seen a real up-tick in it the last year or so. Pharma, IT and the Final Four are challenges for me but I seem to get through these somehow, some way - they just take me a little more time. I am fortunate that I have a couple sourcers who excel in these areas so if I'm not inclined to do these I have others who are. The high tech stuff I enjoy as well but, again, these jobs take me a little longer. I cut my teeth on high tech in the heyday nineties in Silicon Valley. The name (TechTrak) stuck.
Names Sourcing
For names sourcing, how do you charge, by the name or by the hour? By the name
How much? $45
Do you feel your pricing is on the:
low end high end about right Low end for some of my work/about right on other I think jobs should be priced according to difficulty and scope – I think about changing my pricing to reflect that but this model is working in the meantime.
Do you intend to raise or lower or keep your rates steady in 2007?
I intend to introduce some fine tuning into the pricing, as I just discussed.
When you names source, do you work mostly on the internet or on the phone? Both
What percentages of activity do you assign to each (phone or internet), on average? Internet 20% Phone 80%
What's your typical turnaround, for say,
a 50 name names sourcing job, average penetration difficulty, several targets?
3 - 5 days
a 50 name names sourcing job, difficult penetration difficulty, several targets?
5 - 10 days
What does your typical end-product look like? What information does it include to the customer?
Company Name
City, State
Telephone
Name Title Extension number or direct dial of potential candidate (if I can get them).
All names are listed, one under the other, under the company/state/telephone number and reporting structures are shown as indentations. I deliver in a Word document, Times New Roman print, 10 point, usually.
Is everything you send phone-verified, in other words, is everyone you send where you say they are? YES
Do you have a guarantee? YES
What is it? I do the job, I send the job, when you're happy I bill the job.
Is there a time period attached? Yes, I guarantee names are there for 15 days after delivery, if the customer delays calling them beyond that, it’s at his own peril. Things can change FAST in our business.
Profiling
Do you do profiling? YES
How do you charge, by the profile or by the hour? By the profile
How much? $45 for a completed profile - it doesn't matter if the subject is interested in the new opportunity or not, if the subject has taken the time to answer the profile questions, this alone expresses some interest, regardless what the profiled "says".
Each profile is delivered to the customer and is expected to go into the pipelines of the customer - if the customer creates a relationship with the profiled it is entirely possible for the profiled to become a future hire. Results are up to the customer at this point and one reason metrics are so hard to track in sourcing!
How long does it take you to get 50 profiles completed? 2-3 weeks You gotta’ make alotta’ calls in the process.
What's your typical profile (what questions does it contain) look like? Here’s one I just completed: a 100 profile job – it required the identification of about twice that number of names to generate 100 profiles.
There were three people working on the profiling effort – it took about a month to profile all 100. Before the profiling could take place, it took about ten days to first name generate all 200 names that were to be profiled.
Candidate Profile
Contact Information
Candidate Name:
Current Employer:
Current Title:
Work Phone:
Home Phone:
E-mail Address:
Degrees: PhD or Doctorate Masters Bachelors Other
What is the degree in (i.e. CS, ME, EE, etc.)?
How many total years of hands on experience do you have?
What systems and tools have you used in the past?
What is your strongest technical ability?
What’s exciting to you about the work you do?
We understand the need for confidential in the workplace, but could you describe in general terms the type of project you’re currently working on?
What are your primary duties, for example: testing boards or circuits, or developing code for a graphic driver?
Profiler remarks:
Initial Interest in this opportunity:
A. Looking/Very interested/Wants to be contacted immediately/May send resume.
B. Not actually looking but is interested in being contacted by spokesperson.
C. Not interested in present opportunity/may have future interest
D. Not interested.
Remember, I’m offering them the job opportunity – I’m the first call they receive on the company’s behalf. Some will say, at first, “No, not interested,” but basically I beg them to share their info with me so they can go into a pipeline and be kept aware of future opps – this makes sense to many of them and they concur that that is exactly what they’d like to do. A profiling job (depending on the industry) can have up to 80% success ratios. A multitude of things impacts this, one is the skill of the profiler in being able to elicit information from and draw a person out.
Recruiting
Do you do full cycle recruiting? NO Thank goodness.
Are there any other verticals (other than recruiting) your activities service? Not at the present time but I’d like to see my names sourcing used for generating leads in sales and marketing and also in competitive intelligence work. I am very interested in being a catalyst in mergers and acquisitions work – I’d love to be on the front end of identifying and “warming up” the decision makers of companies that are interested in being acquired by others.
Of all the above named activities, which ONE would you prefer to do all the time? Names source, hands down, but then there’s that M&A activity thing I just mentioned -I know that space well.
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Do something today you don't think you can do.
Maureen Sharib
Telephone Name Sourcer/MagicMethod Trainer
513 899 9628
TechTrak.com, Inc.
This was something I wrote back in April of '05 but it's just as relevant today, three years later. It was first set into a discussion in the ASK Maureen group over on ERE. I've been long meaning to set it into MagicMethod as one of the lessons but have not - as of yet!
Browsing through Mark Twain’s personal narrative of variegated vagabondizing “Roughing It”, I came across a term in reference to gold mining I’d never seen before, “pocket hunting”. Twain describes it, “In that one little corner of California is found a species of mining which is seldom or never mentioned in print. It is called "pocket mining" and I am not aware that any of it is done outside of that little corner. The gold is not evenly distributed through the surface dirt, as in ordinary placer mines, but is collected in little spots, and they are very wide apart and exceedingly hard to find, but when you do find one you reap a rich and sudden harvest. There are not now more than twenty pocket miners in that entire little region. I think I know every one of them personally. I have known one of them to hunt patiently about the hill-sides every day for eight months without finding gold enough to make a snuff-box--his grocery bill running up relentlessly all the time--and then find a pocket and take out of it two thousand dollars in two dips of his shovel. I have known him to take out three thousand dollars in two hours, and go and pay up every cent of his indebtedness, then enter on a dazzling spree that finished the last of his treasure before the night was gone. And the next day he bought his groceries on credit as usual, and shouldered his pan and shovel and went off to the hills hunting pockets again happy and content. This is the most fascinating of all the different kinds of mining, and furnishes a very handsome percentage of victims to the lunatic asylum.”
Eureka!
I know that feeling! That’s what we call names sourcing today, AKA name generation, name-gen, fetching-the-goods, competitive intelligence, capturing-the-lightening, stealing-the-thunder, free-enterprise-at-work, or any and all of the various creative references we have to it as the starting point in the human resources function of hiring-the-right-person.
Twain goes on, “Pocket hunting is an ingenious process. You take a spadeful of earth from the hill-side and put it in a large tin pan and dissolve and wash it gradually away till nothing is left but a teaspoonful of fine sediment. Whatever gold was in that earth has remained, because, being the heaviest, it has sought the bottom. Among the sediment you will find half a dozen yellow particles no larger than pin-heads. You are delighted. You move off to one side and wash another pan. If you find gold again, you move to one side further, and wash a third pan. If you find no gold this time, you are delighted again, because you know you are on the right scent."
"You lay an imaginary plan, shaped like a fan, with its handle up the hill--for just where the end of the handle is, you argue that the rich deposit lies hidden, whose vagrant grains of gold have escaped and been washed down the hill, spreading farther and farther apart as they wandered. And so you proceed up the hill, washing the earth and narrowing your lines every time the absence of gold in the pan shows that you are outside the spread of the fan; and at last, twenty yards up the hill your lines have converged to a point - a single foot from that point you cannot find any gold. Your breath comes short and quick, you are feverish with excitement; the dinner-bell may ring its clapper off, you pay no attention; friends may die, weddings transpire, houses burn down, they are nothing to you; you sweat and dig and delve with a frantic interest--and all at once you strike it! Up comes a spadeful of earth and quartz that is all lovely with soiled lumps and leaves and sprays of gold. Sometimes that one spadeful is all--$500. Sometimes the nest contains $10,000, and it takes you three or four days to get it all out.”
Twain remarks at the end of his chapter that, “I have dwelt at some length upon this matter of pocket mining because it is a subject that is seldom referred to in print, and therefore I judged that it would have for the reader that interest which naturally attaches to novelty." Just as surely as his reader regarded pocket mining as a novel subject, I've found many who find the subject of “names sourcing” a mysterious, elusive and novel approach. Without belaboring Twain’s narrative of pocket mining, take and apply it directly to the names sourcing activity and you have an allegorical match. It’s modern day gold mining!
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This was from March, 2006 and was one of the discussions over on ERE.
“Visualize this thing you want.” ~ Robert Collier
I had a call from a young lady in Germany who’d just been informed that her new position would entail doing all the sourcing for various consultants in her company. Her first task was to locate yield engineers out of mostly semiconductor companies in Germany. She asked me how to do this.
“Challenging, but not impossible,” I told her.
“The first thing,” I told her, “is to look at the big picture. It's kind of like a puzzle, it comes out of the box whole, you look at it in its entirety, then you break it into its smaller and individual parts and then begin to fit the pieces together - soon the big picture begins to re-emerge and before you know it, you have the entire thing before you!”
"How do I do that?" she queried.
“Assemble a list of your target companies. Organize them into one document, add all the information you can about them – address, phone, size, officers. Add the locations in Germany you need to source people from. Add as much information as you can about the German locations – how many people are there? Are there multiple buildings? Is it strictly R&D or sales or are all functions combined at this location? What does the campus look like? How is their telephone directory structured? Do they have multiple prefixes inside the org or just one, the one related to the main number? Look for commonalities - look keenly at the structures. Are most of them headquartered in Germany?” I asked.
“No” she answered.
“Your job just got a whole lot easier,” I told her. “It’s likely that many of the locations you’ll be sourcing from in Germany will be satellite offices – find out if they have R&D functions at any of them, because this is where you’re most likely to find yield engineers.”
“Oh?” she said.
“Next, think in terms of statistics. Look at each office individually and then consider the statistics. If there are 100 people at a Research & Development location, it’s likely 1/3 – ½ will be engineers. It’s likely the majority of them will be male (unless it’s different in Europe than in the U.S. - is it? I haven’t found it to be so). It’s also likely 20% or so will be administrative, and the other 25% or so will be a combination of other activities, some in engineering, some in management/support, a few in other functions. It’s much easier to take satellite offices apart than main headquarters.”
“Okay, I’m doing that – I’m looking at the big picture, but HOW, now, do I identify them?” she puzzled.
Ahhh…the flummox of the thing.
“Anyway you can,” I answered.
“Huh?” she gasped.
“Well, for one, you can go to the Internet, google with the company name and the first part of their telephone number, and see if some names don’t come up; people inside that location you can call tomorrow and ASK for information or you can visit one of the increasing-in-popularity-by-the-day with the those-in-the-know networking sites (linkedin, spoke, ryze, jigsaw, others – I think OpenBC is popular in Europe) and enter the company name and location you’re looking for people in, and get some names to call on the morrow and ASK for information of or...remember when I told you, “How is their telephone directory structured? Do they have multiple prefixes inside the org or just one, the one related to the main number?”
“Yes,” she offered.
Well, tonight, when everyone’s gone home, get on the phone and see what you can decipher out of their telephone directory.”
“What?”
“Think about it. The telephone directory (usually) offers up everyone (or most everyone) inside that location. I think of it as the “Key to the Kingdom”. Call in and see if you can locate names inside the office that you can call tomorrow and network with. Of course, the more time you spend cruising their telephone directory the more names you’re going to get…believe it or not, a person’s voice speaks volumes about themselves.”
“Oh! I get it,” she exclaimed. “I never thought of that!”
“Okay, you have your marching orders, call me in the morning and let’s see how you’re doing! Now, get busy - you have work to do!”
“Don't be discouraged. It's often the last key in the bunch that opens the lock.” ~ Author Unknown
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Where are the Starbucks, Nikes, Amazons, Home Depots and Genentechs founded by women?
This is a question that puzzles those who track fast-growing companies. Few fledgling businesses founded by men or women ever grow into giant corporations, but with women launching twice as many businesses as men, some meaningful percentage of the new giants might be expected to have a woman as keystone.
That women are conspicuously missing is somewhat counter-intuitive to the glass ceiling argument. Only 43 women have climbed the traditional ladder to become CEOs of Fortune 1000 companies in the last 35 years, and fresh research from executive women's organization Catalyst suggests that the pipeline is not exactly filling up with future candidates. Such a track record might have caused the best, brightest and most ambitious executive women some years ago to tire of limited opportunities and set out to control their destinies and report to no man. Whole story here.
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Do something today you don’t think you can do. Lose phone fear here.
Pete Kistler, a 20-year-old entrepreneur (Wow! I’m impressed) tells us about the importance of writing in his April 22 post, "8 Tips to Boost Your Image Through Killer Writing". This young man touches on something I've been thinking about lately - the impact of delivery. Nowadays, when eveyone seems to be racing to deliver videos, and podcasts and webinars and all the other vehicles that don't rely so much on the written word, I've been wondering if my attempts at information delivery through my writing will hold its ground against the others. Time will tell and I believe many who do not know how/won't take the time to craft/don't like to write are grabbing onto the new media as an "instead" choice and consequently are missing out on the great challenge that Pete is talking about in his post.
"The pen is mightier than the sword." ~Eward Bulwer-Lytton, Richelieu; Or the Conspiracy, 1839
Whether they’re right or not, your audience forms impressions of you based on your writing.
Readers assume that if your…
Writing is sloppy: You don’t care about quality.
Writing is unclear: You can’t communicate ideas effectively.
Writing rambles on: You have no sense of purpose.
Writing is formatted poorly: You have no sense of design.
Writing is not tailored to your audience: You don’t care about others’ needs.
Writing is too informal: You are immature.
Writing is unorganized: You can’t convey information effectively.
Luckily, writing clearly and effectively is easier than you think. The following 8 tips will significantly enhance your ability to communicate:
1. Decide for whom you’re writing.
2. Get to the point.
3. Keep it skimmable.
4. Use short sentences.
5. Don’t sound stuffy.
6. Play the Devil’s advocate.
7. Proofread, proofread, proofread.
8. Keep formatting simple.
Pete's whole post here.
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I've been getting alot of questions lately as to what do I do when the Gatekeeper pushes back. Here is one lesson from Module VI of the MagicMethod telephone names sourcing course and I thought those of you who are interested in the subject might enjoy it.
I was calling today looking for Web Analysts in media companies and I called a company in New York and a very nice young woman named Donna answered the phone but as they sometimes do, she did not identify herself. Instead, she stated the name of the company she works for and, “May I help you?”
I took her cue.
“I hope, so, this is Maureen Sharib – I was trying to call Jeremy Black there in your office - I hit his VoiceMail, can you tell me, is there anyone else in Jeremy’s group we might try?”
“What group is he in – do you know?” she queried back.
“Yes, I do, he’s in the Integrated Marketing Solutions group and he’s a Web Analyst,” I answered with the aplomb and confidence of the information I gathered from his VoiceMail (the “Integrated Marketing Solutions group” bit – I already knew his title from LinkedIn!)
“Oh! I call them the SIM group,” she stated. I did not question why there was an S on the beginning of the acronym, rather than the end, recognizing the letters as standing for the words in the group name. She sounded like she was about to talk so I let her go on. “I can try someone else in the group, do you know anyone else?” she curiously asked me.
“You know, I don’t – does he have an Admin?” I casually asked, trying to change the subject.
“No, that group doesn’t have an Admin.” She sounded familiar with the group and I found the info that the group did not have an AA odd. “But tell you what, I can try someone else in the group for you. There’s a James Blow and a Peter Brow and a (incomprehensible foreign sounding name)... let’s try the first one, James Blow. Are you typing these names?” she asked, throwing me off-guard, surprising me and stopping my fingers.
I had been – I’ve been using a normal keyboard lately since my silent one gave up the ghost – they don’t last too long and I haven’t yet ordered my next one. Apparently she could hear the fast clickety-clack of my information gathering through my headset.
“Yes, I am,” I answered truthfully. (“Uh oh,” I thought, starting with the stinkin’ thinkin” I’m always warning you against – “Here we go – she’s going to ask me why...”)
“Do you have James’s last name spelled correctly?” she surprised me again.
“I think I do – is it B-L-O-W?” I answered.
“Most assuredly not!” she exclaimed, through her laughter. Nobody gets that one right – it’s B –L –A –U. I think it’s really important to know how to say, and spell, someone’s name right!”
“This is interesting,” I thought. “Someone after my own heart.”
“I agree, and I’m sorry I didn’t ask and I’m very glad you corrected me!” I chimed back. “It is important to say someone’s name correctly – I know my own name often gets mispronounced – I’m not really fussy about it but I know some people are – are you?” I asked her, deflecting.
“I am,” she answered. People don’t realize this, but I can recognize a lot of things on the phone...I can tell if you’re not smiling, if you’re aggravated, if you’re selling something...”
“What is your name?” I boldly asked.
“Donna. I never give my name out because people use it and say thing like, “Donna said, Donna said...”
I laughed, knowing EXACTLY what she was talking about, but I did not let on that I understood her plight
so completely.
“Oh my goodness - imagine that!” is all I offered.
Then she said, startlingly, “I’m glad you’re laughing because at first you sounded very serious...serious but polite, you told me your name right away – I appreciated that,” she remarked, “I know what you’re doing so it’s okay...”
“She knows what I’m doing?” I thought to myself. I hope not. She’s not THIS good, I hoped. I was beginning to see writing on the wall in front of me. I was uneasy and decided the best thing to do in this situation was to remain silent.
She then went on, filling the silence, to tell me, “I’ll go ahead and transfer you to James now, I’ll stay on the line to be sure he answers,” to which, I acknowledged, “Thank you so much, Donna,” wondering how much she really did know.
James’s line of course went to VoiceMail and thinking she was still on I said, “Donna?” She didn’t answer so I knew she had not stayed on the line with me so I zeroed out back to her. She answered.
“Donna, it’s me, Maureen, again – I got James’s Voicemail too!” I told her, with a slight hint of complaint. “Who else did you say was in that department?” I asked, like I didn’t already have the other name I heard when she recited them off in the beginning.
“Sorry! I didn’t stay on with you – my other line rang and I had to answer that,” she offered in way of an apology, like there was one needed.
“That’s okay, Donna,” I soothed. “Can we try someone else?”
“Sure, the next one on the list is Peter Brow – you know how to spell that?” she asked, testing me.
I could tell she took her job seriously.
“I give up! I’m not even going to attempt to try!” I teased back, breaking into a laugh.
“B-R-A-U,” she informed.
“Well, I wouldn’t have gotten THAT one right – that’s for sure!” I exclaimed, affirming her worth in the process. “Can we try him?”
“Sure – hang on,” and off I go to another VoiceMail, to which once again I listen for any clues to the keys to the kingdom. I zero back again.
“No good?” Donna asks, not even skipping a beat.
“No,” trying to sound as forlorn as possible.
“Allrighty then, let me just try Ellen...” The line goes silent as she swifts me to another VoiceMail and when I arrive back, once again, she offers, “I’m just going to go down the line, ok, hold on...let’s try Samantha...” and she sends me to Samantha.
Samantha answered, and Samantha, being one of the group, was able to detail for me what everyone’s title was and also informed me that Jeremy was the ONLY Web Analyst in the group.
My job here was done.
But this experience was different for me because it gave me a view into a real Gatekeeper’s psyche. She had strong beliefs about how communication should work and took pains to see that the process was well-oiled and functional in her organization. She affirmed for me many things I have held dear in my own process and she also demonstrated, once again, that things may not always be what you think they are. It’s best, when you’re thrown off your footing, to go quiet and watch what emerges. Nine times out of ten it’s not what you think!
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This information is not to be re-published for commercial purposes in any form without my prior written permission.
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Skype, the Internet calling subsidiary of eBay Inc. (EBAY) (EBAY), is introducing its first plan for unlimited calls to overseas phones on Monday.
The plan will allow unlimited calls to land-line phones in 34 countries for $9.95 per month, said Don Albert, vice president and general manager for Skype North America.
The countries encompassed include most of Europe, plus Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Chile, China, Singapore, Taiwan, Japan, Korea and Malaysia. Whole article here.
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Leaders are made, not born. Leadership is forged in times of crisis. It's easy to sit there with your feet up on the desk and talk theory...We're running the biggest deficit in the history of the country. We're losing the manufacturing edge to Asia , while our once-great companies are getting slaughtered by health care costs. Gas prices are skyrocketing, and nobody in power has a coherent energy policy. Our schools are in trouble. Our borders are like sieves. The middle class is being squeezed every which way. These are times that cry out for leadership.
Lee Iacocca's whole cry here.
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SOURCING GLOSSARYAdministrative Professionals Day Wednesday, April 23
"Administrative Assistant" definition (from the Sourcing Glossary): That person who supports a person or persons in an organization. She is usually doing the majority of the work for the person or the persons, and nine times out of ten knows who everybody is. May be resentful because she is over-tasked in the organization. Must be approached carefully and never taken for granted. Must be spoken to with honesty and respect and never pushed beyond her usually long-suffering patience. Was once called a secretary but the higher-sounding Administrative Assistant title has replaced this old-fashioned nomer in lieu of a fair wage in most organizations. Sometimes referred to as an AA but it’s always safer to ASK for someone’s “Administrative Assistant” -those in rehab may become offended with the use of “AA”, as in “Please transfer me to the AA”. Always say “Administrative Assistant’ to avoid embarrassment.
Executive Assistant definition (from the Sourcing Glossary): A usually very bright, very highly paid secretary to one of the C levels or to one of the Senior VPs or Executive VPs in an organization. She is a true knowledge treasure trove. She knows where the pencils are kept, who everyone is (including her boss’s girlfriend), all the internal dirt going on – she knows all the secrets! (Why do you think they call them [secret]aries?) Because she does, her job is supremely secure - she has no worry over job security, doesn’t have to play politics with anyone and suffers no fools. When you approach her do so on your knees with the utmost courtesy – ask her directly what you want in as few words as possible. It’s not necessary (nor would she find it of the least bit interest) to tell her WHY you want what you want –she doesn’t care. She has bigger fish to fry. The likelihood is she’ll tell you what you want to know because she’s too busy to fool with you and wants to get rid of you. Many of them are middle aged, educated and know what’s going on in the world. Don’t insult her by lying to her. As in all sourcing, it isn’t necessary.
Gatekeeper definition (from the Sourcing Glossary): This one deserves a lot of press. She’s (there are more he’s of them nowadays and believe me they’re no slouches!) is the one who answers the phone. May also be known as the “Receptionist”, occasionally referred to as the “Office Manager” but not often. She’s the one whose voice you must be keenly tuned into - able to hear what’s in it – is she pleasant sounding or exasperated? Is she young? Inexperienced? Does she sound like she likes her job or is she resentful about something? Will she help you or do you need to get past her? In an instant you must be able to discern all of this from her voice. Have a few “names in” ready just in case she asks you, “Do you have a name?” Usually recognizes and remembers voices. Usually picks up on it if you’re lying – knows one when she hears one because it’s usually her first responsibility to lie – “No, he’s not in, who’s calling?”, etc. Usually best to by-pass if possible; though can be a real fount of information. If she doesn’t believe you will not tell you anything and can send an APB (All-Points-Bulletin) out through her organization in an instant. Is never to be treated rudely or brusquely – she can make your job easy or she can make it hell. Is never to be resisted, requires patient obedience to her direction until she’s vested enough of her time in your process to want to see you succeed. Every bit as valuable as the Executive Assistant or the Administrative Assistant. If she suspects what you’re after, will forewarn same in advance of transferring your call.
For a FREE COPY of the Sourcing Glossary email me at maureen at techtrak.com and I will email it to you - it's an attachment.
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(When the new wears off and the old shines through?)~Clay Walker
Dr. John Sullivan writes, in Part 1 of 2 in his Monday, April 21, 2008 ERE article, The Future of Recruiting: It Won't be Anything Like Today (Tips for developing a future-oriented recruiting strategy):
"Current recruiting models place a large amount of their resources on "finding" or sourcing potential candidates. However, as a result of the growth of information systems and the Internet, the process of identifying or finding top performers and innovators is becoming increasingly easy. The new model will utilize new and developing information systems including social networks, consumer information, customer information, credit sources, niche job boards, professional association membership lists, and even sales leads to find prospective candidates."
Keeping in mind that even utilizing all of the sources listed only a small percentage (maybe 15%?) of the available workforce is going to be identified using those means. How are you going to get to the rest? This is a question all recruiting leaders (and Internet sourcers) should be asking themselves these days. If you don't find a way to do this (I suggest honing your telephone sourcing skills is the fastest and easiest way!) you're going to be left behind in this mad headlong dash we're all in.
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This question was asked recently in one of my groups:
I just joined this industry and I would like to ask how do you source for names if the receptionist said their directory is sorted by names not by department so she cannot connect you to anyone unless you give them a name?
Receptionists don’t always tell you the truth. Uh – duh! That’s right; some of them routinely misrepresent their state of affairs on orders from above. When she tells you that their directory is “sorted by names” she’s probably telling you the truth. What she isn’t telling you is that she has the ability to search (and re-sort) that directory using a multitude of functions – by title, location, extension number, etc. So she’s not really telling you the whole truth but you haven’t pressed her for the whole truth, have you?
Now when she tells you she can’t connect you to anyone unless you give her a name, she again is probably telling you the truth. That may be the company policy. That doesn’t mean she doesn’t know who everyone is and what they do; it doesn’t mean she can’t recite by heart the extension numbers of most of her company’s employees and tell you who’s on maternity leave and who’s out on disability. She probably knows too who’s about to get the axe too as well as who’s kissing who in the copy room.
She knows far more than you’re giving her credit for knowing and once you realize this you can help her better to “help you”. This ’07 ERE article - How to Make a Gatekeeper Feel Comfortable – might help you achieve your mission.
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LinkedIn has a Question and Answers function and I found the following question posted:
I’m looking for benchmarking info on how companies (Fortune 500) look @ sourcing candidates.
Are they centralized?
Are they set up by function; region expertise?
How do companies source passive candidates? Do they outsource?
If they do, where and do they off-shore?
Metrics? How do you measure sourcer’s performace?
How have companies adapted/changed the sourcing function given the new internet applicant law?
What is the ratio of recruiters to sourcers?
Is Diversity sourcing a separate Dept/function?
~ MC, Team Leader and Strategic Account Manager, TMP Worldwide
I answered as follows and I thought some of you might find this subject interesting. I hope you do. You can view all the answers to the question above here.
Your question is a set of questions and I will attempt to answer some of them from my decade long experience as a telephone names sourcer and as a trainer who has recently entered that arena.
There are two types of sourcing: Internet and Telephone. They do not have to be centralized, but if I had to choose between the two I’d say Internet Sourcing is more easily centralized.
Both types of activity draw specific types of personalities. If I had to say one word that describes people who enjoy this type of activity I would say Introvert. Of course there will be exceptions, but overall, I’d say this rings true. Introverts work best away from madding crowds.
There are FAR MORE Internet Sourcers in this world than Telephone Sourcers.
As Telephone Sourcing is the model I best understand I will continue to direct the bulk of my answers as your question relates to Telephone Sourcing.
Recently there is great interest among companies to set up the function of “sourcing” onsite. Did you know this type of sourcing now enjoys its own Wikipedia definition? Here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sourcing
Companies nowadays recognize the urgent need that sourcing passive candidates represents. In my opine, telephone sourcing best sources the “truly” passive candidate – the guy sitting inside a company’s brick walls who has no representation on the Internet and therefore cannot be “sourced” using traditional Internet sourcing habits. It takes someone to CALL IN and ASK QUESTIONS in order to locate those people. To me, and to my customers, this virgin possible candidate represents the best of both worlds – the possible employee who is busy doing the work you need him to do for you, only he is busy doing it for someone else. Until you come along! Then, usually intrigued by your approach, will spend some of his time considering your opportunity presentation. It’s a highly effective technique that delivers wild value to a company’s bottom line!
I digress, I know, but I think you can see from my response how excited I get about the subject! As you can also probably tell, I’ve done a lot of writing on the subject.
;)
Moving on, sourcing can be set up by function, region, expertise but I see this as more of a down-the-line evolution. It really depends on your own needs – what you require to be accomplished in your staffing organization. My advice is to just get the function started and manage it from there. Because it’s such “new” thinking for most staffing departments the hardest thing you’re probably facing is just getting others to understand what it is. Once they understand it, they might embrace it. I say “might”. It’s an extremely challenging space and though many will think it sounds intriguing very few will be able to answer its’ siren call. It’s very hard work!
Many companies hire sourcers like me to do it for them. Third parties have been doing it for years and then passing the fruit of our labors on to their clients along with respectable percentage fees. Telephone sourcing can cut a minimum of 75% of third party costs but there’s a caveat here – though telephone sourcers can deliver you “the goods” it still takes talented individuals to develop these possible candidates and bring them through your door. It takes a different approach to develop and then close a truly passive candidate like this.
There’s been discussion about outsourcing this function. In my experience, MAYBE some of the internet sourcing can be outsourced at this time but I believe it will be a long time before the language barriers and the hardware difficulties (no, VoIP doesn’t work for telephone sourcing!) are overcome to a point where this possibility exists. I could be wrong; I am always open to that, but I don’t think I am.
Telephone Metrics:
An excellent/great telephone names sourcer can do 200-300 names per week (the really really great, sometimes, even, per day!); a very good names sourcer can push out 100-200 names in a week, a good one, 100 names a week consistently, and a beginner should be able to do 25- 50 or so names per week for the first couple years.
Ratio:
I suggest one sourcer for three recruiters. Actually, I think what’s happening in the real estate industry could work well in corporate staffing departments: the team approach. It might look like this:
1 Sourcer
3 - 4 Candidate Developers
1 - 2 “Closers”
1 Administrative Assistant
I know it’s radical – just “consider” the possibility!
I will leave the diversity question and the new internet applicant law for others to address.
I hope this is helpful – if you’d like to learn more about the arcane subject, we discuss telephone sourcing all the time here on the Yahoo group “Sourcers Unleashed” and also on the Ask Maureen group on the Electronic Recruiting Exchange.
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Another April 15 has come and gone, and millions of taxpayers still haven't filed their tax returns.
About 10.3 million Americans were expected to file for automatic six-month extensions this year, up from 10 million last year, according to Internal Revenue Service estimates earlier this year. But some people didn't even bother getting an extension.
Whatever the explanation, the costs of not filing this year are considerably higher for most Americans than last year. This year, you have to file in order to be eligible for an economic-stimulus payment. The Treasury Department will begin sending those payments to more than 130 million households early next month.
What to do? And what should you do if you did file on time but suddenly realized you forgot to include something important, such as a tax-deductible donation to your favorite charity? Here is what lawyers, accountants and other tax advisers say about a few post-April 15 issues that some people are wondering about. What to do here.
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Jen Hubley says:Not so long ago, a friend of mine, whom I'll call Not-Me-I-Swear, informed me that she hadn't filed her taxes in three years. I thought this was totally shocking, until I talked to our Taxes Guide and he informed me that a significant number of his clients haven't filed in years. So basically, if you need to file an extension today, you shouldn't feel too bad about it. You're definitely not the worst offender out there. How To here.
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Interesting article about marketing…
“…whenever her mother was assertive, she was judged by her father and terrible arguments would ensue. To protect herself, she decided she would be safe by not asking for what she wanted. That worked beautifully in her previous job, she explained, because she was a waitress and all she had to do was act charming and serve people.”
Whole article here.
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Concerns about the economy, home values and health costs continue to sap workers’ confidence that they will have enough cash for a comfortable retirement.
The percentage of workers who said they were very confident about having enough money to retire comfortably dropped to 18 percent this year from 27 percent in 2007, according to the 2008 Retirement Confidence Survey. That represents the largest one-year drop in confidence in the 18-year history of the survey, the study said.
At the same time, the percentage of workers who said they lacked confidence about having enough money for a comfortable retirement jumped to 37 percent this year from 29 percent in 2007. Whole story here.
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Maureen will be presenting a full day of her MagicMethod passive candidate/telephone sourcing in a workshop at the Greater Cincinnati Human Resource Association (GCHRA) on Tuesday, June 24 at the Baldwin Center near downtown Cincinnati. It's a game-changing skill for recruiters. If you do not currently call into companies to find candidates, you need to attend this workshop. Maureen demonstrates and teaches telephone sourcing in this workshop - it's not as scary as you think!
Time: 8:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.
Price: $225 GCHRA members Non-members $275.00
Location: Baldwin Center/655 Eden Park Drive/Cincinnati, OH
Deadline to Register: Tuesday, June 17, 2008
The riveting 25 minute real-time telephone sourcing video of Pam the Fabulous Telephone Name Sourcer will be shown!
The “Magic in the Method” is the only-of-its-kind telephone names sourcing training available today for persons interested in the little-understood practice of telephone names sourcing. Simply put, telephone names sourcing is the finding of people who hold specific titles (usually) within specific organizations (usually) so that you, as a recruiter, may contact them and offer them your opportunity. It’s the killer starter application (or should be!) for most of your searches!
Greater Cincinnati HR Association
4100 Executive Park Dr.
Suite 16
Cincinnati, OH 45241
phone: 513.554.4747
fax: 513.563.9743
email: gchracincinnati at aol.com
Seating is limited - get your reservation in today!
If your job is even slightly shaky, now's the time to schedule a medical checkup, get your teeth fixed and look into coverage alternatives. Americans are dependent on their jobs for more than income. Many of us get our health, life and disability coverage through our work.
So as the risk of job loss rises during a recession, so, too, does the risk of losing coverage that can protect us against catastrophic events.
In fact, 4.2 million people could lose their health insurance in the coming months, estimates the Center for Economic and Policy Research, on top of the 45 million the Census Bureau says already lack coverage. Whole story.
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Those who still cite women's 76 cents for every male dollar as evidence of sexism fail to take into account the underlying role of personal choice. The "wage gap" is not so much about employers discriminating against women as about women making discriminating choices in the labor market.
Lower wages for women due to “personal choice” argument here.
Your thoughts?
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Top gripes with high tech candidates here.
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There was a post over on the Yahoo group Sourcers Unleashed that asked:
"Can anyone share some proven methods of getting the names of individuals in construction companies? They are usually not typically found in googling etc, and they are usually not found at the office locations of the company."
There have been a few responses - I thought you all might find them interesting.
"Usually the old fashioned way...cold calling, referrals, going where your candidates go...hope this helps. I always ask this question before I begin sourcing/recruiting. In your case, I would ask, 'If I worked for a construction company, where would I be?'" ~Robin
"I've used LinkedIn with some success. You get a name and build from there with referrals. Another tip - in Texas - PEs - are registered in a roster that is posted on the website. Included is the employer and phone number. I've not investigated to see if this is the case in other states, but this may be someplace to begin. You can pull that off the http://www.tbpe.state.tx.us/ website under the "Roster Search" tab." ~Ceciliana
Are you talking about Project Managers/Engineers - those types who many times might be assigned to field offices?
Robin's question is a good one - in addition, it's always smart to ask, "Who would I report to?" Also, don't forget, "What would I read?" and "Who would I hang out with?" "Do I typically have an Admin?" would also be of use as well as "Do I carry/have any kind of professional licensing?" "Do I have a need for continuous education?" should not be forgotten.
Project Managers many times need to be listed on civil documents - applications, permits, etc.
Sometimes their various projects ARE listed at their websites - once in a while with a PM listed as well - they're not always current but calling and asking if they're doing any "airport" projects or "highway" projects or whatever kind of projects that company typically does many times will elicit some of the current project locations from the receptionist. Then, ask for the "field office" number - many times they have one. It's in a trailer onsite or is sometimes the PM's cell phone. Be aware the ones they have listed might now be finished - these kind of companies aren't famous for keeping their websites up-to-date.
Think about what they do on a daily basis - immerse yourself in their workday world- and you'll have an easier time associating with them. We do a good bit of work in this space - construction. In fact, we're doing Estimators, Sales and Project Managers in this space at present. Typically the receptionist is a font of information if approached correctly - how are you approaching and what are you saying - exactly? ~ Maureen
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Many people ask me about business development techniques for sourcing. I tell them most BD techniques are pretty much the same - effective IF YOU USE THEM! This is one of the best ones you can employ - starting and cultivating discussions around subjects you know. This is one way to become recognized in our business and it's a good way to grow your business.
Don't forget your signature. Many people criticize me for my long signature. If you notice, and I'm sure you have, I always include my name, title, phone, company name, company website, email and sometimes a link to my blog along with whatever I happen to be promoting at the present time. I do this for a reason. I am a sole proprietor meaning I work for myself. I do not have a company paycheck coming in at the end of the week - any income I derive comes solely at my own efforts. I don't have the privilege of flying under any one company's aegis; I am completely and utterly alone in this world of commerce. Nobody pays my health insurance, matches 401 contributions, gives me three weeks vacation, car allowances, allows for sick days or understands when I need to take some time off. Therefore I must make the most out of all my efforts and it takes a great effort to contribute to groups like these - a good part of my day is consumed with writing, posting, monitoring and building out my networks. This is the capital I put into my advertising - my own blood, sweat and toil. Many times my posts get emailed amongst organizations and people who are interested in this arcane subject of sourcing which is beginning to become more understood. It is important to me that my signature be attached to my writings so that in the event anyone has a sourcing need they might contact me as easily as possible.
And let's not forget the addition of terrific content that gets added to many sites.
That's the reason I place my signature after my posts and it should be yours too if you're a sole proprietor as well.
Join the Ning SourcersGuild network here and chat LIVE today with real-time sourcers!
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Do something today you don't think you can do.
Maureen Sharib
Telephone Name Sourcer/MagicMethod Trainer
513 899 9628
TechTrak.com, Inc.
maureen at namesourcer.com
http://www.techtrak.com
My NameSourcer blog.
Donato Diorio of Broadlook asserts, in his recent post that there is “a deeper fracture between recruiting and sourcing” occurring and it is occurring resoundingly. Do you agree? Are you seeing differentiation of the two in your organizations?
Donato says a few of the signs are:
More talk of sourcing getting it’s own budget.
This seems simple, but it was noticeable: titles are starting to have the word “sourcing” in them.
Increased discussions, sidebars, questions about “sourcing” vs. recruiting.
Increased line length at the vendors booths that provide sourcing technology. This makes Broadlook happy
Sourcing has it’s own conference.
So what do you think?
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Join SourcesGuild today and chat LIVE with real-time sourcers!
SourcersGuild now has a networking site where you can join and fill out a profile detailing your experiences for all to see. You can also connect to other sourcers and be a part of the ONLY social networking site dedicated to sourcers and sourcing activities today.
SourcersGuild now has CHAT - We can talk LIVE to each other now about sourcing! It's all very exciting. Chat is on the right side, about halfway down the page.
Go here to join and set up your profile once you do.
Members pics and links to their profiles are listed on the top left side - see you there!
In the future I'll be profiling members from time to time in here. Remember,
SourcersGuild is unique being the ONLY professional sourcers network available today - join now and get connected!
SourcersGuild is looking for contributors - if you'd like to contribute articles, tidbits, tips, etc. contact me - maureen at techtrak.com
SPECIAL NOTICE: Does anyone have hardware they'd like to donate to other members getting started? Contact me - I have a few people who need assistance getting started.
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Do something today you don’t think you can do. Lose phone fear here.
1. If you have money, you don't have to worry about it.
2. Money can give you the freedom to pursue your passions.
3. Money can buy you time with friends and family.
Whole (and author's last) WSJ article here.
Ami Givertz did a nice “hats off” for the TalkSourcing segment of the Recruiting Animal Radio Show over on RecruitingBlogs.com – thanks Ami!
BY THE WAY, if you haven't joined the network over on RecruitingBlogs.com, you're missing one of the most dynamic and fastest growing recruiting organizations today. It's FREE - what do you have to lose and what in the world are you waiting for?
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TODAY at noon est
Animal Says:
The Recruiting Animal Show is the most efficient effective, results-oriented recruiting call-in radio show in the world today. It's supposed to be informative and fun and... Oh yeah? You tell me where it's boring. I want to know! Listen to the latest show here.
Call To Talk: 646-652-2754. You will be able to hear the show but will not be able to speak until the host lets you in. Make sure that you are on a good phone and speak directly into the receiver.
To Call Online A "Click to Talk" button appears here when the show is live. With Internet Explorer only. You also need a microphone to speak into your computer.
We're going to have a TalkSourcing segment today -call in with your name sourcing questions!
Job losses in the national economy combined with a surge in new claims for unemployment insurance are giving a boost to proposals — pushed for months by Democratic leaders and labor groups — to extend unemployment benefits beyond their usual limit of 26 weeks.
Bolstering the case for an extension, its advocates say, are indications that laid-off workers are having an especially tough time finding new jobs, even compared with past recessions.
Over the last year, more unemployed workers have exhausted their benefits before finding new jobs than in the years preceding the recessions of 1990 and 2001, according to a new analysis by a private research group, the National Employment Law Project, which will present its findings to Congress on Thursday. Whole story here.
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Take a survey to help AmyBeth compile results related to research/sourcing for her presentation on how to use research effectively (we’re ALL interested in that, right?) in June at the Fordyce Forum in Las Vegas.
Results of this survey will be revealed at The Fordyce Forum in Las Vegas, June 4-6.
Go here to complete very short survey.
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Good name in man and woman, dear my lord,
Is the immediate jewel of their souls:
Who steals my purse steals trash; 'tis something, nothing;
'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands;
But he that filches from me my good name
Robs me of that which not enriches him
And makes me poor indeed.
William Shakespeare, "Othello", Act 3 scene 3
Greatest English dramatist & poet (1564 - 1616)
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See all the domain names for sale here.
Learn about the sourcers in the newly formed SourcersGuild Ning network exclusively dedicated to Names Sourcing, that arcane practice that is (or should be!) the front end activity to most recruiting projects. Following are three of our recently joined members – watch for the Sourcer bios of more in the future!
Charles is Member #109 of SourcersGuild.
What type of Sourcer are you? Internet, Telephone
How did you learn to be a Sourcer? Trial & error, reading advice that others gave
Where are you located and what is your contact info? Chicago, IL - chas216 at gmail.com
What sourcing training have you had? AIRS
How many years have you been a sourcer? 8
Read the others here.
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The funniest call that I had was a recruiter that called me up and in a very strong chinese accent opened with a "You want job? I have super good job for you. You send resume and I give to manager. Very much pay with super good match." I thought that it was a telemarketing pitch or someone playing a joke on me. But he was just so high-energy that I had to play along and see what he had to say. The real kicker was that after about 10-15 minutes of him saying "You send resume...send resume now...I send to manager", it turned out that the job he was trying to fit me to was a job posting that I had had just put out to bid. (guess he didn't notice the similarity in names between the hiring manager and the name on the resume :)
Read them all here.
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Employers worried about recession slashed 80,000 jobs in March, the most in five years and the third consecutive month of losses.
At the same time, the national unemployment rate rose to 5.1 percent from 4.8 percent, the clearest signal yet that the economy might already be contracting. The new snapshot of the job market, released by the Labor Department on Friday, underscored the damage that a trio of crises — in the housing, credit and financial sectors — has inflicted on companies, jobseekers and the economy as a whole.
The unemployment rate was the highest since September 2005, when significant job losses followed the devastating blows of Gulf Coast hurricanes. Story here.
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I have a feeling that the information that AIRS gives you is available on the open internet but they just do a good job of compiling it all in one place. I have found some good web sites with tips for seaching but I'll bet that I am missing a lot. Any good instructional web sites you have found? Thanks! - David
Linkedin question and answers here.
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For Entrepreneurs, It’s All About Time
Everybody gets the same amount of time: 168 hours in a given week; 8,736 in a year. And yet a common complaint among entrepreneurs and small-business owners is that they wish they had more time.
While a 25-hour day is impossible, there are ways to become more productive within the existing 24.
Donald Wetmore, who conducts time management seminars, offers a number of ideas — some obvious, others not — on Powerhomebiz.com, a small-business Web site.
Here are some of his suggestions:
Plan tomorrow today.
Do not try to keep it in your head.
Sleep.
Take a speed reading class.
Break for lunch.
WHY WE WAIT “There are many ways to avoid success in life, but the most sure-fire just might be procrastination,” Psychology Today writes. “Procrastinators sabotage themselves. They put obstacles in their own path. They actually choose paths that hurt their performance.” The problem seems to be self-created.
“Procrastinators are made, not born. Procrastination is learned in the family milieu, but not directly. It is one response to an authoritarian parenting style. Having a harsh, controlling father keeps children from developing the ability to regulate themselves, from internalizing their own intentions and then learning to act on them. Procrastination can even be a form of rebellion, one of the few forms available under such circumstances.” Oh, by the way, the magazine says the standard comment of procrastinators, “I do my best work under pressure,” turns out not to be true. Whole article here.
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Google Cutting 300 Jobs at DoubleClick
In the first sizable layoffs in its history, Google is cutting about 300 jobs from the American operations of DoubleClick, the advertising technology company that it acquired recently, according to a person with direct knowledge of Google’s plans.
The cuts represent about a quarter of DoubleClick’s American work force of about 1,200. The company has about 1,500 employees worldwide, and the chief executive of Google, Eric E. Schmidt, has suggested that job cuts would also affect DoubleClick’s overseas operations at a later date.
Google declined to confirm the number of layoffs.
Google added more than 6,100 workers in 2007 and ended the year with 16,805 employees worldwide. Amid shareholder concerns about its fast-rising expenses, Mr. Schmidt promised investors last year that Google would slow its rate of hiring. Whole story here.
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Unless you have a complicated return or a one-time big financial event, you won't necessarily get what you pay for and even may be better off on your own.
1. "A big name doesn't always mean better service."
2. "You wouldn't believe what I get away with."
3. "You'd be better off without me."
4. "What are my qualifications? Well, I'm real good at Sudoku."
5. "If it's February, you're too late."
6. "You hired me, but your return is being done by some guy in India."
7. "Taxes, shmaxes -- let me see what else I can sell you."
8. "If I screw up, I'll pay up."
9. "Tax preparation is an art, not a science."
10. "You could find a much better deal if you'd only shop around."
Whole article here.
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Cell Boosters Coming for the Home
Verizon Wireless is joining Sprint Nextel Corp. (S) in jumping on the latest craze in the wireless world: little boxes called femtocells that boost cell-phone coverage in subscribers' homes.
"Our plans are to deploy femtocells in 2008," Verizon Wireless' Chief Technology Officer, Tony Melone, said Wednesday at the CTIA Wireless industry show in Las Vegas.
Much is unclear about the plan, including how much Verizon Wireless plans to charge. But Melone said the company was gearing up for a full-fledged rollout.
Sprint is the only other carrier that is conducting more than a small trial with the technology, but it is selling femtocells only in Denver, Indianapolis and Nashville, Tenn.
Femtocells address a challenge for the industry as more and more people drop their landlines: poor cellular coverage within the home. Femtocells tackle that by projecting a cellular signal in the home, much like a base station for a cordless phone. They look much like Wi-Fi routers, which have become a common household appliance. The term femtocells contrasts them with cellular towers that provide coverage outdoors - "femto" is a scientific term for something very small.
Whole story here.
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Comcast punches up Net access, but it comes at a price
Comcast (CMCSA), the No. 1 residential broadband service provider, Thursday will give residents of Minneapolis and St. Paul the first opportunity to check out a speedy Internet service that CEO Brian Roberts calls "cable's next big thing."
The service, informally called wideband, can transmit a high-definition movie in about 10 minutes. It would take about 40 minutes to do that on Comcast's most popular Internet service and more than an hour on most cable systems.
"An extreme gamer who wants the lowest (delay) that's available would find it interesting," says Mitch Bowling, Comcast's high-speed Internet general manager. "Also, we are deploying this to our business services customers. There are a lot of uses for it there."
The speed comes with a steep price: nearly $150 a month for residential users and $200 for business customers, who get additional software and services.
Whole story here.
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IPhone Popularity Spurs Blackberry Sales
Not only did Research In Motion Ltd., the maker of the BlackBerry smart phone, see its profit more than double last quarter, it may have gotten a boost from a top competitor's strong sales.
RIM has benefited from Apple Inc.'s introduction of the iPhone in June because it brought attention to smart phones, and more people are starting to use them, said Canaccord Adams analyst Peter Misek.
"People are starting to realize, 'Why should I buy a Razr when I can buy a BlackBerry or an iPhone?' I think the iPhone was the single biggest blessing RIM ever had," Misek said.
The Waterloo, Ontario-based company earned $412.5 million, or 72 cents per share in its fourth quarter, which ended March 1, up from a profit of $187.4 million, or 33 cents per share, in the same period a year earlier.
Whole story here.
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Do something today you don’t think you can do. Lose phone fear here.
Validate the phone number (those of you who are telephone sourcers may say that this is the ONLY way to go!)
Great blog post on the importance of checking research here.
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The odds are good that the person on the other end of your call will become a candidate
ERE Article Tuesday, December 05, 2006 by Maureen Sharib
I know I've promised you step-by-step sourcing instructions, but before we get started, there are a few housekeeping things I'd like to get off my chest. Lately, potential customers inquiring about my service have been asking me, "What do I say when I talk to these names you're going to give me?"
At first I didn't realize what they were talking about. I'm in such a routine with my established customers that they give me my marching orders, I give them back the names, they do their thing, and I don't hear from them again until the next order.
"Huh?" I thought to myself. "What do they think they're supposed to say to them?"
Then the lightbulb went off.
Whole article here.
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Recent research suggests that the experience of being duped can stir self-reflection in a way few other experiences can.Keep it above the belt, stop short of total humiliation and, if possible, mix in some irony, some drama, maybe even a bogus call from the person’s old flame or new boss. A good prank, of course, involves good stagecraft. But it also requires emotional intuition.
“You want to play on people’s weaknesses or dislikes, but not go too hard,” said Tommy Doran, a fireman and paramedic in Skokie, Ill., who as a rookie in Montgomery County, Md., was lured into the station’s kitchen and blasted with multiple cream pies. “For me it’s just the sort of dark humor we use to cope with the job and each other. Nothing dangerous or illegal.”
Psychologists have studied pranks for years, often in the context of harassment, bullying and all manner of malicious exclusion and prejudice.
Yet practical jokes are far more commonly an effort to bring a person into a group, anthropologists have found — an integral part of rituals around the world intended to temper success with humility. And recent research suggests that the experience of being duped can stir self-reflection in a way few other experiences can, functioning as a check on arrogance or obliviousness. Whole story here.
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By MARCI ALBOHER Published: March 27, 2008 If there is one thing that separates the self-employed from those employed by others, it is their preoccupation with health insurance. I was reminded of this on Feb. 14, when I wrote a post on the Shifting Careers blog asking small-business owners and would-be entrepreneurs what they were doing about health insurance. Within hours, scores of people posted comments about their own experiences and, if they had managed to find good resources, shared those. I have been reading e-mail messages and trying to make sense of the subject ever since. In short, it is not pretty out there.
A 43-year-old woman wrote about going without insurance in the first year of her business. “I lived in terror of needing a doctor visit or worse yet, lab tests or something more,” she said. She then moved to an H.M.O. for sole proprietors through a local chamber of commerce. The cost of that plan, which she said was $171 a month in 2001, has now risen to $500 a month. At the same time, she wrote, co-payments have increased and services have been cut. Whole story here.
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Cybercrooks are manipulating the computer code used to put the pizazz in millions of websites in hopes of taking over unsuspecting consumers' PCs. The vulnerability occurs when someone does a Google search, then clicks on a result that has been secretly tainted by hackers. They will usually be taken to the Web page they expect. But at the same time, they are invisibly redirected to a computer server that installs a hidden program.
This program enables hackers to use the PC to spread spam and carry out scams. Typically, it also lets the attacker embed a keystroke logger, which collects and transmits your passwords and any other sensitive data you type online.
Any website indexed by Google (GOOG) that fails to carefully handle JavaScript — the coding that activates many cool Web features, such as changing the color of a button when someone mouses over it — is a potential target. That's seven in 10 sites, says tech security firm WhiteHat Security. Hackers have discovered ways to trick the website application to run malicious JavaScripts.
"We're in a phase where one or two smart guys are attacking a few dozen major websites," says David Dewey, manager of IBM's X-Force security division. "In the next few weeks I would expect to see copycats attacking hundreds of high-profile websites." Whole story here.
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