This is my 2013 SourceCon Atlanta presentation on how to hire and grow your own sourcing team. It covers my hiring profile, a few Boolean search strings for finding people who fit my hiring profile, support for my theory that you can create super sourcers (and recruiters for that matter) by hiring people with no experience and training them properly, coming from the book "The Talent Code." It also explores the pros and cons of hiring experienced sourcers vs. hiring people with no experience and building sourcers from scratch.

1. looking to build or build out your sourcing
capability?
grow your own!
Glen Cathey
VP, Global Sourcing and Talent Strategy

2. agenda
intros
hire with or without experience?
• pros & cons
my experience
• hiring profile
• interview process
• training regimen
• performance expectations
why no sourcing/recruiting experience may be better than
any sourcing/recruiting experience
• talent code

3. a little about me
VP, global sourcing and talent strategy
16+ years in recruiting/staffing
- staffing & RPO
- I.T., F&A, Healthcare, Federal, Clinical Research, Energy, Engineering
- centralized sourcing/recruiting (40 - 300+ people)
- direct MSP/VMS delivery
- www.booleanblackbelt.com
- SourceCon 2010 (X2), 2011, 2012 (X2)
- 5-time LinkedIn Talent Connect speaker (U.S. X3, CA, UK)
- Australasian Talent Conference (Sydney & Melbourne – X2)
- TruLondon (X2)

4. a little bit about you
How many manage sourcers?
How many are planning on hiring and managing sourcers?
Hire for experience?
• Years of experience?
• Specific industries/roles?
Hire without experience?
Mix?

5. experienced
pros cons
• "hit the ground running" • more expensive
• immediate results • may have bad habits
• training not required • their way may not be your
• bring best practices from way
other organizations • may be resistant to
change – "can't teach an
old dog new tricks"

6. no experience
pros cons
• less expensive • require training
• no bad habits/nothing to • take time to ramp
unlearn • results are not immediate
• create in your vision • may not work out
• fresh & clean perspective • brain drain

7. my experience
i have hired and/or trained hundreds of sourcers and
recruiters
i've worked in a national delivery center with over 300
people
in my 16+ years, all of top performers i've worked with
have had no prior experience
i've recently hired and trained a 40 person centralized
sourcing team

8. the original team
Hires: 41 Turnover: 17% / 2.4% Reason
May 28th – 7 1 moving to agency
June 4th – 11 0
June 18th – 11 3 2 performance, 1 prev. offer came through
1 relo (staying w/us), 1 engineering, 1
August 13th – 12 3 location (agency)

9. sourcing sourcers
What is kik? It's the fast, simple and personal smartphone messenger.

10. hiring profile
performance oriented
enjoys problem solving
committed to excellence
positive attitude
quick learner
solutions oriented

11. wwsjd?
Hire pirates

12. hireTurner: "You cheated."
Will
pirates
Capt. Jack Sparrow: "Pirate."
Potential candidate: "How did you find me?"
Sourcer: "Sourcer."

13. "It’s more fun to be a
pirate than to join the
navy."
- Steve Jobs, 1982

14. why pirates?
"A pirate can function without a bureaucracy. Pirates support one
another and support their leader in the accomplishment of a goal. A
pirate can stay creative and on task in a difficult or hostile environment.
A pirate can act independently and take intelligent risks, but always
within the scope of the greater vision and the needs of the greater
team."
"Pirates are more likely to embrace change and challenge convention.
'Being aggressive, egocentric, or antisocial makes it easier to ponder
ideas in solitude or challenge convention,' says Dean Keith Simonton, a
University of California psychology professor and an expert on
creativity."
"So Steve’s message was: if you’re bright, but you prefer the size and
structure and traditions of the navy, go join IBM. If you’re bright and
think different and are willing to go for it as part of a special, unified,
and unconventional team, become a pirate."
Source: What Would Steve Jobs Do?: How the Steve Jobs Way Can Inspire Anyone to
Think Differently and Win by Peter Sander (McGraw Hill)]

15. diversity
Steve Jobs appreciated a breadth of background and experience
when selecting team members.
"Picasso had a saying. He said, 'Good artists copy, great artists
steal.’ And we have always been shameless about stealing great
ideas and I think part of what made the Macintosh great was that
the people working on it were musicians and poets and artists
and zoologists and historians who also happened to be the best
computer scientists in the world."
— Steve jobs, PBS’s "Triumph of the Nerds: The Rise of Accidental Empires” (1996)
"He also liked entrepreneurship and signs of success at other
endeavors. People who show the ability to get things done in
other fields, to synthesize their experiences, and to take a
broader view of the human experience are more likely to be the
pirates that Steve was searching out."
Source: What Would Steve Jobs Do?: How the Steve Jobs Way Can Inspire Anyone to
Think Differently and Win by Peter Sander (McGraw Hill)]

16. sourcing pirates
• (Laude or "phi beta kappa" or Honor* or scholar* or Deans or "Dean’s" or GPA
or "G.P.A.") and (exceeded or most or highest or reached or attained or
increased or lead or led or top or best or quota*)
• (research* or data or analy* or statistic*) and (captain or lead* or led or
president* or manag* or supervise* or football or basketball or baseball or
softball or volleyball or lacrosse or tennis or golf or soccer or swimming or
Debate or Volunteer* or Varsity or Society or Fraternity or Sorority) and (Laude
or "phi beta kappa" or Honor* or scholar* or Deans or "Dean’s" or GPA or
"G.P.A.") and (exceeded or most or highest or reached or attained or increased
or lead or led or top or best or quota*)
• laude (intern OR extern OR junior OR student)
• (hardworking OR "work ethic" OR "hard working" OR exceed OR ambition or
gold OR platinum OR top OR quota* OR exceeded OR exceeding OR highest OR
most OR best OR winner) (research OR researching OR researched OR Boolean
OR data OR database OR databases OR researcher OR analysis OR analyze OR
analyzed OR math OR mathematics OR calculus OR statistics OR statistical OR
"problem solving" OR logic OR logical OR analytical OR analytics OR competitive
OR physics)

17. diversity
Education Multi-lingual
• 8 University of Georgia graduates • 14 multi-lingual associates
• 4 Georgia Tech graduates • 4 Spanish
• 1 Emory graduate • 2 German
• 27 Bachelors degrees • 6 French
• 3 Masters degrees • Other languages represented:
• 1 JD Bosnian, Bengali, Cantonese,
• 21 GPAs 3.0 or higher Russian, Polish, Italian, Korean
• 9 GPAs 3.5 or higher
Professional Experience
Degree Diversity
• 0-30 years of work experience
• Astrophysics • Substance abuse counselor
• Biomedical Engineering • Democratic party fund raiser
• Intelligence Studies & Counter- • Legal Analyst
Terrorism • Research Analyst with GA Tech
• Juris Doctorate • U-Verse Premise Technician
• Psychology • Team Leader at Target
• Masters of Divinity • Realtor

18. example resumes

19. example resumes

20. example resumes

21. example resumes

22. group interviews
• Interview sessions were in
group sessions ranging
from 7 – 12 candidates at
a time and included
exercises/questions
focusing on problem
solving, sourcing
approach, and creating
sample search strings.
• The group interview
approach saved our team
over 60 hours of interview
time.

23. training & development

24. performance expectations
measure daily daily performance expectations (min)
• leads • 40 find & engage, 80 find only
• phone screens • 8
• candidate submittals • 2
• referrals

25. roles sourced for
loan processor vp, compensation & benefits
lead surface wellhead engineer drill sustaining engineer
sr accountant parallel switchgear engineer
fraud initiation analyst engineering manager
fund controller sr. flow control engineer
sales manager medical coders
mechanical A/C assembly sr. account executive (ecm)
structural engineer regional sales executive
manufacturing engineer product compliance engineer
direct sales rep ap/ar accountant
field auditor engineering program manager
plant security investigator manufacturing manager
quality assurance engine starting & operability
netapp engineer regional sales manager
embedded sw engineer underwriter

26. grow your own
"hire for attitude, train to retain"
interviewing experienced sourcers?
• leverage whiteboarding and live sourcing exercises – focusing on roles
the person has never worked before
• thought process and methodology are more important than tools,
technology, and syntax

27. talent code

28. talent code
short version
• myelin (neural insulator) is key "skill is a cellular insulation
that wraps neural circuits and
• deep (deliberate) practice
that grows in response to
• struggling is critical certain signals" *
• ignition
• master coaching
*Source: Talent Code by Daniel Coyle

29. mistake focused practice
Q: why is targeted, mistake focused practice so effective?
A: because the best way to build a good circuit is to fire it,
attend to mistakes, then fire it again, over and over.
Struggle is not an option: it's a biological requirement
Q: why are passion and persistence key ingredients of
talent?
A: because wrapping myelin around a big circuit requires
immense energy and time. If you don't love it, you'll never
work hard enough to be great.
*Source: Talent Code by Daniel Coyle

30. myelin
myelin wraps – it doesn't unwrap
• "Once a skill circuit is insulated, you can't un-insulate it (except
through age or disease). That's why habits are hard to break. The
only way to change them is to build new habits by repeating new
behaviors – by myelinating new circuits"
• "You can’t teach an old dog new tricks"
neural circuits can be developed like muscles
• "If you use your muscles in a certain way – trying hard to life things
you can barely lift – those muscles will respond by getting stronger.
If you fire your skill circuits the right way – by trying hard to do
things you can barely do, in deep practice – then your skill circuits
will respond by getting faster and more fluent."
*Source: Talent Code by Daniel Coyle

31. deep practice
"deep practice is built on a paradox: struggling in certain
targeted ways – operating at the edges of your ability –
where you make mistakes – makes you smarter"
"it's important to be forced to slow down, make errors, and
correct them"
"we think of effortless performance as desirable, but it's
really a terrible way to learn"
- Robert Bjork, Ph.D., Stanford
- Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Cognitive Psychology @ UCLA
*Source: Talent Code by Daniel Coyle

32. talent is overrated
deliberate practice
• improves performance by design
• high repetition
• continuous feedback
• mentally challenging
• hard work
• focus on the process, not end result
• metacognition
• continuous improvement

33. grow your own
research in occupational training shows that people retain
• 10% of what they read
• 20% of what they hear
• 30% of what they see
• 50% of what they hear and use
• 70% of what they say
• 90% of what they say and do
develop
• do not assume experience = ability
• must be hands-on and interactive to establish habits
• verify ability!

34. sourcing challenges
what is this person's full name?
how many mechatronics engineers are on Monster in a 50 mile
radius of Watkins, CO?
how would you find a substation engineer that doesn't mention
the term "substation?
what searches would you use to find storage engineers with
significant NetApp experience?
use google or bing to find a list that contains contact
information (phone and email) for oil and gas professionals,
including at least one process engineer in Houston

35. leverage perspective
ask for input!
• processes
• sell sheets
• boolean builder
• screening form
• sharepoint site for knowledge management
• search string library

36. knowledge management

37. discussion