If you had to choose one sourcing tool/solution on the market what would it be?
Let's suppose money wasn't an object. I know, I know...it is. But money aside, if you were told you could pick one tool/solution or even a mashup/combo of a couple of sourcing tools available, to help with your efforts to find talented candidates both passive and active, what would you choose and why?
Clarification added September 11, 2008:
Thanks for all the responses thus far. I appreciate it.
To clarify, I'm realy looking for answers dealing with tools/software/products/licenses, such as the Broadlook Eclipse, LinkedIn, ZoomInfo, AIRS Sourcepoint, etc., rather than agencies, search firms, sourcing techniques/advice like using the phone book, etc.
Answers (29)
Russ M
Consultant - Sourcing at Talent Find LLC
Best Answers in: Staffing and Recruiting (2), Professional Networking (1)
Eclipse
I'd choose an organization geared towards recruitment in the particular area you're looking to acquire talent in. Not just any organization. It would have to be one which can offer some sort of differentiators from the rest of the pack which could transfer across as a benefit for your organization.
The reason I say this is simple: Leave it to professionals who are trained to find talented resources. Put all your efforts forward on the one area of business you're profficient in. Why try to mess with something you don't have the time or energy for?
Peter C suggests this expert on this topic:
If Mary doesn't know the answer she probably knows who does
martin H
Owner, redbottle consulting ltd and Process improvement, quality, supply chain
I agree with Daniel Petrisor; the best sourcing tool is people who understand your business, or people who know how to source.
I have found product and written sourcing papers for industries that I know very little about because I know where to look for information and how to research and ask that all important question - what does this company want the product/ service to achieve?
The software tools on the market will help you to answer these questions but I would recommend a human who you can talk to over a computer that can be as useful as a computer dating service.
Honestly - the phone book. There are far too many recruiters (private and corportate) who rely on job boards or other electronic data bases where they connect with active job seekers. That might be fine for hiring direct labor, but if you're needs are in critically skilled or leadership positions, the best person for your job is likely already working, being productive and making good decisions and good money for somebody else. You typically don't find these folks on job seeking on job boards or social networking sites. You can find this top talent by building passive networks with people in your industry and vocation. To do this, you need phone book, Google, the guts and discipline to make the phone calls, and a nice pitch to get someone who's engaged with their current employer to start thinking about what a bigger, better deal (BBD) looks like for them.
Linked In. It's currently the best tool for finding both active and passive candidates.
Wonderlic!
Links:
Andres P
External Facilitator at Movistar (Telefonica Chile)
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IF (Aside money + real motivation to find "talents" + taylor made solution), THEN = The Gallup Organization.
They have the most amazing tools and experience tha I've never seen before about how you can load your organization with strenghts & talents.
Talent isn't a simple word, it's a way to understand your company, and what do you want from it. I recomend to you the book "Now, break all the rules", and I'm sure you'll change your point of view.
Good luck and regards from the other side of world.
Andres
Keith H
Founder - Harrell-Steward & Associates
Best Answers in: Mentoring (1), Career Management (1), Computers and Software (1), Software Development (1)
I would choose AGResearch LLC.
http://www.agresearch.info/contact_us.html
Clarification added September 11, 2008:
We do specialized work in the Aerospace, and DoD arena
Bill H
Sales Manager at The Venetian
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I agree in part with Samantha, but to take it one step further, along with using Linkedin, the best tool/solution for sourcing is the recruiter themselves. I don't care if you are on the agency side or the corporate side, the only way to contact great talent is to pick up the phone and call. Once you see where someone is working, don't shoot them an invite as you have too much of a chance of having the invite shot down. Do a little work, find the number of the company and make the call or look and find companies in similar industries and call them and just ask for the person that does the particular job that you are trying to fill. I have found a couple of high level people this way and they appreciate the call. In this day and age of everything being online, too many recruiters (no matter what side they are on) have gotten lazy and too dependant on the "job boards". Anyone interested in discussing this further or for additional insight, send me an invite and it really is as easy as it sounds. Bottom line.....DO THE WORK!!!!
Clarification added September 11, 2008:
Sorry that I did not see this earlier, but right on JEFF SCHANDER!!!!!!!
Bob G
Transportation, Logistics, & Staffing/HR Professional
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Fortunately, there is no one source...otherwise, everyone would be using it and where is the fun in that?
Talenthook has been invaluable to my organization to rapidly search the web for active and passive candidates. Matt Cimino was the representative I worked with at Talenthook for a very successful launch of their product.
Donna K also suggests this expert on this topic:
Well in that case I would say my number one choice is Maxhire. I've used others like Winsearch, etc. but if you're looking for something in depth and easy to use then Maxhire is your animal. Hope this helps.
Links:
ZoomInfo and a great telephone
I would choose the new tool (soon to debut) from eGrabber. Chandra Bodaparti showed it to me at SourceCon. Every Sourcer will want it as their secret weapon and every Manager will look at it as a way to save costs on hiring more Sourcers. Yeah, its that good. Ask Chandra to give you a peek and tell him I referred you.
Links:
I would buy a subscription to ZoomInfo then have that imported into the applicant tracking system recruitmax, now called vurv. You can lease Vurv for less then $100 per month, and get an initial 3 month subscription to zoominfo for under $3000, with unlimited exports, which should give you plently of time to have your data imported into Vurv.
Mark C
Recruiting Manager - Online Marketing, SEO/SEM, Web Analytics at Numeric LLC, TOPLINKED.COM, LION [mark@numericjobs.com]
Hi Peter,
I thought that from an Applicant Tracking standpoint that Brassring is phenomenal. It kept me pretty organized in my searches for candidates while at LM. I've used PeopleClick, Filemaker, Taleo, Staffsuite, and Resumix.
With what I do now, I live in Linkedin and Facebook b/c social media/marketing recruiting is the industry i'm in but i'm not sure how many Engineers, techs with TS have profiles. Look into having your group purchase Spoke. It gives you list of employees, titles, email sequence - I.E - first name.last name@lockheed.com.
Steve G
ATS, Reporting and Spreadsheet Customization at SGHRC (Daymon Worldwide)
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Hi Peter,
use them all. There is no magic panacea when it comes to sourcing. The wider the net cast, the more fish you will catch. Now, if you mean filtering tools, that is a different conversation altogether.
Best,
Steve Guine
The INTERNET
Use the various search engines to look at Management Teams for companies of interest . . .
Use the same search engines to look for who is hiring what talent . . .
etc
etc
etc
I believe that the passive candidate database Sga ExecutiveTracker and Hoovers as well as certain job boards work the best and provide you with the most results.
Zoominfo is a internet scraper, these other sources keep the data current with information specialist updating, adding and deleting records.
Maureen S
5000+connects TopLinked.com Telephone Name Sourcer/MagicMethod Trainer-Names Generator
Best Answers in: Staffing and Recruiting (6), Sales Techniques (1)
Telephone names sourcing - whatever the cost. It's the ONLY way available today to find ALL the people inside an organization - relying on Internet sourcing tools can, at best, deliver MAYBE 10% of the people you need to find to fill your open positions! You know why? Because NO MORE THAN THAT are even on the Internet in a capacity that allows you to find them for your needs. Why accept <10% when you can have 100%?
Simple-LinkedIn!
Of ALL the tools I have, The Ladders, CareerBuilder, Monster, LinkedIn has increased my placements 10 times over all those combined. As my subscription have come to and end, I do not intend to renew them.
The hard thing corporate recruiters have to overcome, is the sales side of using it, and getting management to let you pay for the "InMails", as it is considered a "Passive" candidate source. I had AIRS Sourcepoint for a year, did not consider it any value what so ever. I have Taleo as an ATS, and their Source Toolbar is wonderful, allows me to source quickly and put everything into Taleo without needing a resume to search on my internal database. I did some customizing to make this possible, and the search function was tailored to searching resumes. I added custom fields in the candidate page, allowing me to add passive candidates from jigsaw, or sourcing online, this way I do not need a resume when I go back to find candidates in my database.
BTW-Search firms are not ALL bad, I sent over an hour helping one of my clients learn more about LinkedIn, anything to help her look good!
Hope this helps!
Best,
Marni
Irina S
Executive and Technical Recruiter, Grand Master Sourcer Irina@braingainrecruiting.com http://twitter.com/braingain
Best Answers in: Staffing and Recruiting (1), Using LinkedIn (1)
Broadlook Diver + Google
Links:
Clarification added September 15, 2008:
The cost is $2K/year.
In opinion there cant be one tool that will suffice your sourcing needs... a mash up of tools will be your solution.
For Active Search
Monster and a niche job board depending on the nature of requirements
For Passive
Zoominfo (one of the best aggregator of passive contacts), Airs (Multiple database search for candidate database Free+paid) and a paid Linkedin account (for networking) should suffice
Advert posting
Multiple advert posting engines like Broadbeen...
Carreer site optimisation
jobs2web or optijob... Cant comment much but could help
I wont mind adding the whole lot of passive tools, but will think twice on what additional value they can provide.
Hope it helps
Kind regards
Masood
Keith H
Recruiting Lead, Senior Recruiter, Recruiting Strategist, Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) Consultant
I would use the folks that say:
Hi:
If you need virtual Recruiting/Sourcing,/Etc., services, we can help. There is a free trial period and if you are satisfied, a very reasonable monthly or weekly fee. Our teams offer these services:
I Active Sourcing & Calling/Resume Screening/Job Posting:
A. A recruiter with experience in dealing with clients and candidates in the required industry will be made available as per hours and time zone required by you.
B. VOIP-designated telephone line with a local number, voice mail and Caller ID.
C. 24/7 support for work classified as 'urgent and top priority'.
D. Personal monitoring of progress by senior management on a daily basis.
E. Our fees: USD$2500 per month (based on a three month contract).
F. As an alternative, we can do searches for you on Monster, Hotjobs, Careerbuilder, for USD$85 per week per position or less for longer periods or more positions. You keep all the resumes and candidates to hire now or to develop as a pipeline for future needs. We can also do a variety of postings on the various *sites. If you are dissatisfied with the searches for any reason, we offer a **100% refund for the first 3 days.
II. Marketing for candidates or “on-the-bench” consultants that you need marketed and interviewed? Our fees: USD$1500 per month.
III. Passive Sourcing for candidates not on any job boards and from other/competing companies? Our fees: USD$1250 per month.
IV. Lead Generation for positions other companies have advertised on the Internet and compile information to enable you to map a market by skill, qualification, profession, region, industry segment, etc., so you may market your services more accurately to your prospective client companies, Our fees: USD$1000 per month.
V. Interview Scheduling and Coordinating:
Do you need to schedule and coordinate interviews between candidates and the hiring team? Our fees: USD$800 per month.
Thank you,
Keith D. Halperin
kdhalperin@sbcglobal.net
* CareerBuilder, HotJobs, and Monster are the top three premium job boards. Please contact us for more details.
** Craig’s List fees are the only exception to this policy. Please contact us for more details.
Thank you,
Keith D. Halperin
kdhalperin@sbcglobal.net
* CareerBuilder, HotJobs, and Monster are the top three premium job boards. Please contact us for more details.
** Craig’s List fees are the only exception to this policy. Please contact us for more details.
There are tons of online tools that make sourcing easier but if I had to choose a few I would say:
-The entire suite of broadlook software but most importantly Broadlook Eclipse.
-Zoominfo
-LinkedIn
Mike C
Account Manager TalentHook - 14,600+ 18M+ TopLinked - LION
Best Answers in: Compensation and Benefits (1), Staffing and Recruiting (1)
Talenthook
Links:
Networking-meeting people through others. There is no substitute for building the relationship in person. No phone, no e-mail or any other form of communication even comes close to getting out there and networking.
Peter,
My current preference is for Broadlook Profiler v. 3, but I just learned that v. 4 is now available or will be soon. But 6 months from now my preference just might be the semantic web search by PureDiscovery. Stay tuned . . .
All the Best!
Ray "VirtualSourcer" Towle
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