My Favorite Posts
Filed under: Research
One thing that I have found to be incredibly helpful when trying to conduct passive research is that you must be mentally in the right place to do so. Now, I’m not talking about doing meditation exercises or ‘clear the mechanism’ kind of mindsets (though doing so might help with concentration!). What I’m talking about is making sure you’re thinking in the right direction.
What does this mean? Well, what lots of new researchers just starting out will do when they receive a search request is immediately turn to a resume database such as Hot Jobs, Monster, or CareerBuilder because, after all, this is where recruiters are supposed to go to find candidates. I’m not arguing this at all. However, what happens when that search is fruitless, which often happens – especially with very specific needle-in-a-haystack searches? You need to turn to more passive resources. But which ones?
One of the most important things to do when beginning passive research is to picture the end result. The end result, in this case, is the ideal candidate for your position. Then, you must think about the steps that will lead you to this end result. These steps are the places you will need to investigate to find the people who will be considered when looking for your ideal candidate. So – how do you find these resources?
With the proper mindset.
In order to find the person for whom you are searching, you must walk in their shoes. You must think like they do. You must pretend that you work in their profession. With this mindset, you will ask yourself questions like, “If I were a [insert job function here], what associations would I belong to?” or “What hobbies might I have that related to what I do for a living?” or “What trade publications would I read?” Think about where someone in that job function would go to find others in that job function to mingle with.
For anyone who speaks multiple languages, you have probably learned either through word of mouth or from firsthand experience that the best way to master a new language is through immersion. If you live in a place that only speaks the language you want to learn, you are pretty much forced to learn it in order to function on a daily basis. The same is true when conducting research. You must immerse yourself in the profession for which you are searching and learn the ‘language’.
I look for Public Relations professionals. In order to find PR people, I have to think like a PR person. I have to put myself into the function of that which I seek.
Examples:
- What would a PR professional read? Things like O’Dwyer’s, PRWeek, Strumpette, PR NewsWire, etc.
- What associations would a PR professional belong to? The Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), the International Public Relations Association (IPRA), and International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) just to name a few.
- What hobbies might a PR professional have that relate to their job function? Some popular interests of PR professionals include politics, new media, and writing.
In the next step, approaching research from a PR mindset, here is what I would do to start conducting my passive research:
- Subscribe either via email or RSS feed to as many PR publications as possible. When necessary, I will purchase a paid subscription for some of the larger publications.
- Find out the membership criteria for the PR associations, and join as many as I can. Sometimes, memberships will have to be purchased, but trust me in most cases it’s worth the investment!
- Start investigating political interest groups, blogs, wikis, podcasts, listservs, and discussion groups where PR folks might hang out in their spare time. Social networks are always a great place to start, as are Google Groups, MSN Groups, and Yahoo! Groups.
Obviously there are more steps to go through here, but this is a great place to start getting your mind going in the right direction.
So, if your company does SAP, think about what listservs your target audience reads. If you are looking for civil engineers, check out some of the local chapters of the American Society of Civil Engineers. If you need an internet marketing professional, try reading Marketing Sherpa. If you need software developers, think about what they do (write source code) and seek out places where source code might be shared.
You cannot just think like a researcher or a recruiter when you are conducting research. You must put yourself in your target’s shoes if you really want to uncover the hidden talent. It will eventually become second nature to you as you learn more and more about where your target audience likes to hang out.
Filed under: Uncategorized
Alright – this is totally off topic, but I could not resist! For all you Office Space fans out there…coming soon to a computer monitor near you….
Wanted to spotlight a newcomer to our little blogging community! Donato Diorio is the founder and CEO of Broadlook Technologies, developers of innovative search automation software applications and services. Donato’s new blog, I, Donato, is a glimpse into his brain and what makes him tick. Looking forward to some very thought-provoking material from Donato!
Recently, Waggener Edstrom Staffing Partner Nikole Hunt visited Howard University’s School of Communications Career Fair…
This year, we decided to try something new. We thought it would be cool to interact with the students in a different way, a way that would help us stand out from the blinding mass of free pens and key chains and really engage some of our future employees.
Howard hosts the Communications Career Fair with students from Pennsylvania to Texas (and mostly everywhere in between) participating in interviews and workshop sessions. The organizations that recruit at this event are as diverse as the students. The Waggener Edstrom booth stood alongside of ABC, Fox Group (including MySpace), Target, MTV, NBA and nearly every large public relations agency.
Many thanks to Torod Neptune who continues to support WE’s efforts at HU by participating in the panel discussion on how to get an internship and build a career in public relations. As usual, Mr. Neptune had a line of students lining up to speak with him after the panel to glean his words of wisdom.
For the last two years, Monica Lins (now an honorary recruiter) and Nikole held down the WE booth. They had the chance to speak with several students regarding their career aspirations, types of employers they’re looking for and their thoughts on the changing media landscape.
Filed under: Recruiting
I think this is a great recruiting video/post that LinkedIn put forth…..
LinkedIn is doing some demolition and remodeling on its first floor, and for fun it allowed some of its employees to participate in the demolition. What better way to take out some frustration on a crabby customer or that annoying coworker than to take a sledgehammer to the walls of your company! 
Check out the post here.
Oh and by the way, at the bottom of the post, LinkedIn placed a short sentence stating that they are hiring engineers now.
Grab people’s attention with some demolition videos (for those of us who like to break stuff) and then invite them to “come join us….” Brilliant!
Filed under: Contests
I am very thankful to all of you who read my blog on a somewhat regular basis! It makes me smile when I receive emails and connection invitations with notes that say things like “I love your blog!” and “I am a regular reader of the Research Goddess…thanks for writing”. As a gesture of appreciation to the regular readers, i.e. my email and RSS subscribers, I have a special gift I am going to give to one lucky subscriber. At the end of the month of November, I am going to draw the name of one subscriber and present them with a Ghirardelli gift album.
Here are the rules:
- You must be subscribed either via email subscription or RSS feed before the last day of November (and if you are an RSS subscriber, please email me and let me know as I do not have access to that information; this is on the honor system)
- Only one entry per person, so if you have both an RSS and email subscription – sorry, you only get your name entered once!
Here is a link to the Ghirardelli gift album’s choices. Check it out and decide what you would like in case you win! The gift album is worth $75 so this isn’t just some little door prize! Whether you keep it all for yourself, share with a friend, or just re-gift it, it’s a nice little prize, if I do say so myself!
And here’s my little sales pitch: if you check out the Ghirardelli gift album and like what you see, it makes a great holiday gift. You are welcome to purchase one; in fact there are 18 other varieties available. Check them out here; they are fantastic for hard-to-buy-for friends and family. Email me if you have questions.
This is the time of year when lots of us are thinking about giving gifts. I just wanted to say Thank You to you all!
Conducting research using social networks has become a popular way to uncover passive leads for recruiting efforts. One issue that you run into when conducting this kind of search, however, is that you don’t always know if the contact you have found is actively seeking new opportunities. Sure, sites like LinkedIn have different connection settings you can choose to indicate whether or not you’re interested in new career opportunities, but there are some other ways of getting an idea of whether or not your potential candidate might be interested in what you’ve got available.
Something you can do to check interest before you actually check interest is to take a look at the recent connection patterns of your contact. Sometimes a person’s networking activities will give an indication that they are interested in checking out other opportunities. There are a couple of ways you can see this activity on LinkedIn:
- Take a look at your contact’s New Connections. If the people they have recently linked up with are recruiters or operate in some capacity within the staffing function, this may be because they are checking out some new opportunities. Also, if you notice lots of connections with individuals at competitor companies, particularly those with titles just slightly more senior to your contact’s present title, this might also indicate some interest in a job change.
- Look at who’s been viewing your profile. There is a section on LinkedIn’s home page where you can view a list of the names of people who have recently viewed your profile. This will at least give you a warm reason to reach back out to someone (“Hey Mr. Candidate, I noticed today that you showed some interest in my LinkedIn profile. Is there some way that I can assist you, perhaps you are looking into some new career options, etc.?”)
Some other indications that could be derived by a person’s networking patterns could be a desire to gain a new customer by connecting with employees of a potential client or planned attendance at an industry gathering by connecting with others who have indicated their intent to attend. Regardless, just monitoring some of the activities of the people in your network can give you an idea of where their interest is. This may help you in your research efforts in determining if someone is quietly seeking new opportunities. Hope this helps!
Filed under: Article Reviews
First off let me say that the ONLY reason I am paying any attention to this particular post by John Sumser is because I feel it needs the viewpoint of someone who actually understands sourcing and research. Otherwise, unknowing recruiters might read it and believe John’s negative opinions on sourcing, as evidenced by some of his prior postings on the topic.
I will start by addressing the very first paragraph in this post:
There are two ways to begin a search. If you know what you want, its easy. You simply tell the search engine what you want. If you don’t know what you want, you search until you find it or until you know what you want.
This couldn’t be more wrong! This is a narrow-sighted view of research evidenced by the attitude of “I just typed a word or two into Google and I got some results.” It’s not ‘simply’ telling a search engine what you want. It’s way more complicated. I will use the words of one of the translators I met last week: (pointing to an American walking by) just because that guy speaks English doesn’t mean he can write articles for the New York Times. Just because you have access to a search engine does not mean you know how to research, or that you are going to get your desired results.
I completely agree with the statement that “clear knowledge of what is desired is the starting point.” Unfortunately, this only exists in a utopian world. You are not always going to have clear knowledge of what you need. So more times than not, you have to simply make due with what you get.
Here, I would like to point out that the communication chain is only as strong as its weakest link, which by the way is not always sourcing! If a client is not providing enough details of their needs, then the recruiter is not getting the full picture. If that is the case, then obviously the sourcer/researcher will likely be off the mark on their results as well. So it is unfair to single sourcing out as the only function completely dependent on an adequate description. We are all connected here in what we need to accomplish in the end, and pointing fingers will not get the job done.
While I certainly respect Mr. Sumser’s track record with regards to recruiting, I think he missed the mark badly on this analysis of sourcing and research.
My overall message in response to this misunderstanding of the sourcing function is this: sourcing should not be viewed as the whipping boy of the recruiting process. Every company’s needs in the sourcing and research area are going to be different, so you cannot set a standard in those regards. And make sure you use due diligence when forming your own opinions on this topic. Check out multiple resources and do not rely solely on the opinions of one person, especially one who does not respect the job function. Yes, John is entitled to his opinions on sourcing. I am not questioning that. But we as sourcers are also equally entitled to set the record straight.
I welcome any kind of feedback on this post, especially from Mr. Sumser.
Filed under: Uncategorized
Today is Shally’s birthday, so I decided to bake a special cake…have a good one, Shally!
