ResearchGoddess

At the Best Buy headquarters in Minneapolis last May, I gave a presentation on Marketing Yourself with Social Media…Without Being Annoying at the Social Recruiting Summit (now known as the Recruiting Innovation Summit). I was the final presenter of the day, and after I finished, I walked over to David Manaster, CEO of ERE Media. The day before, David had told me he wanted to chat with me after the conference was over. I assumed it had to do with SourceCon, since he had purchased it in July 2009 and I was voluntarily editing the newsletter. The conversation that followed led three weeks later to a really cool career change, and I just celebrated my one-year anniversary working for ERE Media as Editor of SourceCon.com and The Fordyce Letter. Continue reading “A Year Already? Time Flies When You’re Having Fun” »

Recently, I had the privilege of talking with Russ Moon on his radio podcast show, The Sourcing Samurai. We chatted about sourcing (naturally) but we also talked about some related topics such as global economy, business communication, and continual education. And, of course, we talked about SourceCon NYC! I hope you enjoy it. Russ told me we’d be doing a follow-up talk in the near future which I’m looking forward to – thanks Russ!

Click here to go to The Sourcing Samurai and listen to the radio podcast…

SourceCon ended almost two weeks ago. I am just now getting around to putting my thoughts down in a post for my blog. That’s because I spent a good amount of time last week on the phone with many of you getting your thoughts from the conference and starting the planning process for the next SourceCon. (which will be in New York City on February 8-9, 2011!) As this was my very first SourceCon in the driver’s seat, it was a new and unique experience and I think some of the lessons I learned throughout the conference are worth sharing here.

I’ve always enjoyed attending our industry conferences. Over the years, I’ve enjoyed going to MRI events, the Web 2.0 Expo, SourceCon of course, and ERE events including the Expos and the Social Recruiting Summits. Now, I have the responsibility for organizing the speakers for three industry events each year – two SourceCon conferences as well as the Fordyce Forum. Continue reading “My Thoughts From #SourceCon” »

I am now going into month #3 of working at ERE Media, Inc. as the Editor for The Fordyce Letter as well as SourceCon. This career move was a sharp right turn from the road I was previously on, but I’m finding that there are still a ton of similarities.

As an Internet researcher/soucer for eight years, some of my job functions included:

• Generating leads
• Industry/competitor research
• Assisting with employment branding initiatives
• Writing/blogging/sharing thoughts and ideas with candidates as well as colleagues
• Doing cross-department outreach for sourcing projects (getting marketing, PR, tech, etc. involved)
• Training recruiters and other sourcers on search tools and methods

One afternoon at the Fordyce Forum, just days after I officially joined ERE, I had a chance to sit down with David Manaster, my new boss, and Todd Raphael and Kate Bruener, two of my new co-workers, to discuss some of the things I would be responsible for in my new role. Some of the things we discussed included:

• Generating leads (finding authors for both websites by phone calls as well as internet search)
• Industry/competitor research (keeping up on the latest news and trends regarding recruiting and sourcing)
• Assisting with branding initiatives (using various on- and offline tools to reach target audiences and spread the word about our offerings)
• Writing/blogging/editing author articles (duh.)
• Getting other ERE employees involved in our efforts (all of our publications are truly team efforts – we help each other out all the time)
• Finding presenters for the Fordyce Forum and SourceCon to help bring relevant information on recruiting and sourcing topics to conference attendees (while I’m not doing the training, I’m tasked with finding the people who will)

So, I guess my job function hasn’t really changed all that much. Except that we’ve added in doing some phone work to find writers. And admittedly, I enjoy having conversations with people on the phone now. I know… I never thought I would admit to that either!

I’m not getting soft as a researcher. I’m just putting my skills to use in different ways and I am finding that I really love it!

As I step into my new role with ERE as Editor of The Fordyce Letter and continuing my duties as Editor of The Source Newsletter, I wanted to flesh out a couple of observations I have made in recent months regarding the sourcing world. I have heard several people, including a number of sourcers, express concern for the future of our function. These concerns have ranged from automation to irrelevance due to the vast number of social technologies at our fingertips. While I do agree that our roles are certainly changing, I would like to offer up a couple of predictions I’ve been rolling around in my mind regarding these concerns. Continue reading “Two Predictions For The Future of Sourcing” »