SourceCon Feb 2013 Sourcing Lab

1. Initiating Contact with
Passive Talent via
Social Media
Carmen Hudson,
Principal Consultant
Recruiting Toolbox

2. Welcome!
• A little about me
• Today’s agenda
• Preso will be available on Slideshare.net

3. Mistakes we make
We don’t prepare
Email/inmail & pray
Not persistent
We don’t follow up/want results NOW
We don’t acknowledge our awesomeness

4. How I do it
• Research person
• Add to spreadsheet, CRM, ATS etc.
• Call, reference follow up email
• Send email (and LI inmail)
• Call again (or get someone else to call)
• Send a new email
• Ghost write email for hiring managers
• Wash, rinse repeat 5x (7x for best results)
• If this is the candidate, then I show up in person! Or
send snail mail.

5. Treat every lead like
gold
• Start with a google
search
– LI profile
– Blog (resume)
– Tweets
– Professional social (meetup, github, google+,
slideshare, etc.)
• Now you’re ready to have a real
conversation!

6. What do we know about
Jack?
• Moved to Bay Area after founding a Startup;
in 2011 recruited to Square
• Married. Likes coffee. Feminst stuff. Blogs.
Not a sports fan. Social. UW. Likes to build
things.
• Ha ha funny.
• Likes Scala, can code in C, agile, pair
programming, graph search, writing
algorithms for a little over a year, + much
more

7. Stalking* Jack
• Code
• Presenting or attending conferences
• Photos
• Questions
• Everything except Facebook
• Check-ins
*meant in the nicest, most legal sense

8. Contacting Jack
• Google it
• Call the main number (get his extension)
• Check out his blog
• Jigsaw it
• Namechk it
• Pipl, Zabasearch, whois.com, + 1 million
other sites
• Desperate?
• Go old school!

9. A Word About Inmail
• Open rate?
• Short and sweet
• Hint: it’s not about you
• Do not inlcude long, boring job
descriptions. If you must, include a link.
• Bottom line: Inmail alone is lame sourcing

10. Use Rich Media
• Storify story
• Custom Video/communication
• Embed media into your email
• Music????

11. Use Your Mobile Device
• Foursquare
• Highlight, Sonar etc.
• Track whereabouts using Twitter or
Facebook

12. How do I get someone to
follow me?
• Lead! (With great content)
• Follow
• Retweet (with comment) using
@twittername
• Ask – but that seems a bit lame
• Use DMs judiciously
• Remember tweets are public

13. Is it OK to contact via FB?
• Good luck with that.
• If all else fails, try.
• Try a FB ad (just thinking out of the box)

14. Smiling and Dialing
• Smile. Seriously. Stand up. Energy!
• How did you get my number?
• “I’m working on some important positions
for my company, and your experience is
really interesting to us. Do you have a few
minutes to talk about your current career
status?”

15. Stalk Me
• @peopleshark
• www.recruitingtoolbox.com
• www.slideshare.net/peopleshark
• carmen@recruitingtoolbox.com