Amybeth Hale – Research Goddess

Apologies for the lateness of my post! Those of you who know me know that I’ve been spending a fair amount of time in DC this summer, and that’s where I went after SourceCon for the weekend. HOWEVER – I have to say that SourceCon was awesome! And if you didn’t go – figure out a way to get to SC ‘09 because you seriously missed out this year.

There are most likely several posts of overviews of the conference, and please also stay tuned for the September issue of The Source for some additional thoughts on it, so I wanted to take this opportunity to highlight my favorite session from the event – Michael Marlatt’s presentation of Web 2.0 technology in recruiting, Sourcing Beyond Recruiting 2.0. I enjoyed so many sessions, but this particular topic is near and dear to my heart because I use so many of the types of tools Michael laid out in my every day function. Michael didn’t do a “web 2.0 recruiting” session on ‘this is Facebook, this is how you create an account on Facebook’ or something similar with using LinkedIn. I understand the need for such training sessions, but for me personally they don’t do a bit of good. I already know how to create a profile, and search using the resource’s search function, and add friends, and join groups. I want MORE!

What Michael did was paint a picture of the future of our function based on the use, and mashup, of various tools that are available out there. He used the term “cloud recruiting” as derived from “cloud computing“. He discussed the virtualization of recruiting, and how far we’ve come just in the last couple of years with technology to make our jobs simpler. Michael even drew an example of future technology where you could have a job alert set up on your phone, and a notification if someone fitting the requirements happens to be in the vicinity. This is not so futuristic, he told us, as ideas like this are already being worked on (Dave Copps I’m sure will agree with that – he too had a fantastic keynote presentation on semantic search).

Something I took to heart (and I’m sure many in the audience did as well) was what Michael said about RSS: “If you are a sourcer and you don’t use RSS, you should put a question mark after your job title.” OUCH Thankfully, I’m an avid RSS user for many different reasons – keeping up with the recruiting trends, keeping up with the PR industry, using articles to do name gathering and research, keeping track of who is reading and quoting me, etc.

In my opinion, Michael’s presentation topped the charts because he gave a nod to the past, as well as the present, but his focus was on the future of these tools and that’s where we all need to be looking. Kudos to you, Michael. I can’t wait to see more!

Please keep your eye out later this week for the new The Source newsletter, and also watch for other posts that are sure to be popping up this week!