First, If you are a good sourcer, you go to SourceCon.
Second, you go to Dean Da Costa’s roundtable on sourcing tools (it’s actually a private room this year with a really large screen). You sit around the table as Da Costa reveals the world of robots. You are not as familiar as you’d like to be, but you try to soak up as much as possible and take the best notes you can. You may even collaborate with other sourcers that were in on the roundtable.
See you are a good sourcer.
But despite Da Costa’s brilliance and your best efforts, you like many people leave feeling overwhelmed and wondering how you will even find the time to review all these tools, let alone how you will make enough sense of it to implement them into your process. You end up doing very little or sometimes nothing, and that is a shame.
Good sourcers have a system in place to learn, test, integrate and track their sourcing methods and tools. You see, creating systems allows the subconscious to take over, which frees up your active mind to do what you love – connecting and helping people enrich their lives through their careers. There is so much power in creating systems!
If you do not have one in place, it’s okay. Remember, you are a good sourcer which means you are half way there.
Below I have outlined a system that will help you to learn, test, integrate and track the robots, and all of Da Costa’s recommend tools so that you can better do your job.
Learn
- Schedule research time. Make research time part of your routine. This way you can plan your research into manageable increments that won’t interrupt your day.
- Attend SourceCon to stay on top of the latest tools and to see what tools your peers are using.
- Read SourceCon articles to discover deeper insights into those tools.
- Download Da Costa and SourceCon’s monthly collaborative series of e-books featuring different sourcing tools that you can add to your tool belt. You can find this month’s here.
Test
- Schedule time in your calendar to have yourself, a testing team and your team install the tools you learn about and play with them.
- Schedule a quick review time to discuss the tools and select the ones that will benefit you and your team the most.
Integrate
- A certain level of integration results from including team members in the testing process.
- Create a list of approved tools that goes out to all recruiters using your communication channel of choice.
Track
- Track the usage parameters of each tool. At Genuine Recruiting we use a simple Google Sheet to track the tool, the cost, the limits, and the renewal date. Then we categorize, describe and review the tool as seen below:
- Track the results from your tools. We use our ATS and recruiting database to track our sourcing methods. Our database allows us to quickly add them individually so we can track the results throughout the sourcing, engagement, and placement process.
- Track ROI – you should also be tracking your ROI. This will help you to see where you should invest your capital – monetary, human, time, and effort capital. You’ll be interested in tracking different numbers depending on if you are on the corporate side or agency side. We like to track Monthly cost, hires per month, gross profit margin, net profit margin and how long we’ve been using the tool. This will help you to know where you are getting your best bang for the buck and thus where to focus your capital.
This is a system that will help you control the robots. And yes, even the distinguished Da Costa and many sourcing legends follow this system. Organizing how you learn, test, integrate and track the enormous amount of sourcing tools that are out there will help you leave SourceCon with more confidence. Maybe of more importance, it will increase your productivity and get the most out of yourself and your team.
