I competed in the SourceCon challenge…and you should too! by @TheJobGirl

Editor’s Note: There’s a new SourceCon Challenge Winner for 2015! We’re excited to welcome Kerri to the elite ranks of the SourceCon Challenge winners (we will be refreshing the SourceCon Challenge Wall of Fame in the next few weeks so stay tuned). This is Kerri’s first blog post since winning the challenge in Dallas. Kerri has only been recruiting for 5 years and she’s never been to a SourceCon event before last week. I look forward to hearing more from her in the coming year. See the video embedded below to learn more about Kerri and the 2015 challenge.

Flashback to about a year ago…I was scrolling through my LinkedIn news feed and came across a connection bragging about her co-worker making it to the finals of the “SourceCon Challenge.” SourceCon challenge? What’s that? I quickly typed it into google and found out the SourceCon challenge is basically a series of difficult challenges, aimed at challenging sourcers to solve puzzles, follow clues, and find other random things on the internet. My competitive mindset quickly kicked in and I told myself that I had to compete in this exciting challenge the next time it was launched.

Fast forward to March 2015 when I got approval to attend SourceCon 2015 in Dallas. I was thrilled that I had this fantastic opportunity to attend the conference and sit in a room for two days with people who are as passionate about recruiting and sourcing as I am. It wasn’t until about a month before the conference in August when I looked at the conference schedule and saw at the bottom of Day two, “4:30 to 5:00pm – SourceCon Challenge Winner announced.” The challenge! I had totally forgotten about the challenge until now! I searched on the web, quickly started part one, and submitted my answer 24 hours before part two was released.

After spending about seven days completing part two and three, I ended up qualifying for the finals and eventually won the title of SourceCon GrandMaster. Never in my mind did I think I would win, let alone make it to the finals my first year trying. Of course the title is a huge perk in itself, but there are a few other reasons why I strongly encourage you to give it a shot for 2016:

You get to know incredible people: When you become a finalist, you are added to a Facebook group for people who have ever made it to the finals and you will meet some in person at the conference. Some are veteran challengers and industry experts; others are newbies just like you. These people cheer you on through the entire process, and you end up learning a significant amount from them too.
You will have a ton of fun: Honestly, if you are as passionate about sourcing as I am, you will have an incredible amount of fun attempting this challenge. Yes some parts are time consuming and I had to do it on my own time after my paying job, but I didn’t mind it because the majority of the time, I loved the research and clues that I had to figure out to advance onto the next question.
You will gain confidence: When I started part one of the challenge, I was SO close to throwing in the towel within the hour. Thank goodness for my husband who kept telling me, “Kerri, this is what you live for, this is the stuff you love to do. You know you can finish this!” During part three, there were multiple times I told myself I was done; I was stumped and there was no way that I could figure this out. I kept giving it one more shot and when I finally finished part three in the top five, I was shocked. I was proud of myself for not giving up, and especially proud for figuring out each crazy puzzle/question that at one point, I really did not think could be done.

I promise that if you give the challenge a shot, you won’t regret it. Heck, you may even end up walking away as the SourceCon GrandMaster champion!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VUbiee35ig