I’m in Las Vegas right now and I love this town. I’m doing quite well at the tables and my friend Dave Mendoza and I had an amazing dinner at Prime in the Bellagio. It worked out nice because on the way to the restaurant I felt a real pull from one of the black jack tables. I go with my gut so there I went. I sat down and before I knew what happened, Dinner at Prime was taken care of completely by the Bellagio.

I’m in Vegas now because my good friend John Sumser put on something called the Recruiting Roadshow. It’s a series of conferences being put on almost every month in a different city throughout the United States. My recruiting network RecruitingBlogs.com is a sponsor and it a very good way for me to meet recruiters.

Today Doug Geinzer who runs a company called Recruiting Nevada, Rich Becker who runs a company called Copywrite Ink and Don Ramer who is the CEO of Arbita along with John Sumser gave real interesting presentations. It’s quite staggering what is going to take place in about 12 months with respect to recruiting here in Las Vegas. Doug had a very eye opening slide show and I will put it up here as soon as he sends it to me. Should be soon.

The room was filled with close to 150 recruiters and it’s amazing how when that happens, the energy becomes contagious. It made me want to sell my house and come live in the land of bells and dreams. I guess though, you can’t just play, you need to work so, I changed my mind after I suggested to my wife we move here and she said “sure sweety, whatever you say”

Tonight I am having a networking party at the MGM and it looks like it will be amazing. There are 60 people who have confirmed and I have a sneaking suspicion that there will be more. It’s too late to worry about it now. If you are a Fordyce reader and you happen to see this and want to come hang out, send me an email. Jason@ere.net

Here is a video I did with Craig Campbell who is a director of Recruiting at the MGM. I need to go to bed. Good Night or good morning.

Find more videos like this on RecruitingBlogs.com

Sourcing is one of the most misunderstood concepts in the field of recruiting.

The “boards” are always trying to sell their “sourcing systems” by appealing to the

“You will never have to source again if you use our system”. Because many recruiters secretly don’t want to source, they readily buy into the too-good-to-be-true, no-sourcing-required philosophy.  It’s an excuse filled existence in the recruiting business.  Buying into the myth of these sourcing-free systems, failing to learn sound sourcing approaches and abandoning the need to continually develop new skills, is the sure-fire route to endangering your recruiting livelihood.

Sourcing may be defined as “seeking a potential candidate, with a vision of success.”

“Seeking” is an action word.  “Action words” are high-impact words; they avoid the passive sense of being.  “Wishing” and “waiting” and “hoping” for something to come of the candidates procured “off the boards” are activities used by those who employ passive vocabularies and minds sets.

Sourcing = Seeking

Sourcing involves finding people who can fill your open positions.  It requires an active tool set.  It also requires that you have, as our definition spells out, “a vision of success”.

Sourcing requires positive expectations.  This is aligned exactly with a positive mindset requirement – mostly to overcome all the nay-saying recruiters who don’t source, who don’t value it and are always on-hand to denigrate it, you and your vision.

As a new Sourcer in 1996, I knew very little about the arcane subject except what I brought to it from my years and years of experience in the real estate industry.  I knew then that in order to “sell” something I had to have it on the shelf.  In the real estate business, having something “on the shelf” means you have good listings.  I always concentrated my efforts in obtaining a lot of good listings and success always followed those numbers.

As recently as only a couple years (3-4) back, there wasn’t much talk on the boards about “sourcing”.  Sure, once in a while it was mentioned, but there wasn’t much “buzz” around it and for the most part it seemed to be treated like a red-headed stepchild. Furious trumpet debate would sound when the subject would come up; fingers would point and wagging tongues would trash talk the subject.  I remember being appalled by how the subject was received (and perceived) in the community.  At about the same time, it seems, several of us made a decision and a commitment to talk about the subject, realizing (on my part, for selfish reasons) that if the subject was not illuminated it would continue to occupy the same shadowy corner post it had been relegated to.  My commitment hasn’t changed and is only bolstered by the commitment and fine contributions made by the thought leaders in this newly recognized Industry.
What Sourcing Is:

Process Organization
Calling into companies to find potential candidates that might fill your open positions
Calling people in your own influence sphere who might connect you to others who might fill your open positions
Learning, always learning, new ways
Speaking up and out in your community on the subject – you can do this in a variety of ways

Utilizing imaginative and innovative Internet search techniques that take you deeper, and more fully, in contact with potential candidates than anyone else

Hard work
Long hours
Concentration
Tenacity
Bull-doggedness
Mostly “lone” wolf work
The pathway to recruiting success

What Sourcing Isn’t:

A 9 to 5 activity
A lot of yakkity-yak
Pulling candidates off the boards
These days, pulling potential candidates off the “first layers” of the Internet
Pushing paperwork around your desk (or your ‘puter) so you “look” busy
Setting up a website and expecting it to do the hard work for you
Paying to get placed into search engines so you can be “found” – once they find you, what’re you going to do then if you don’t know how to do it?
Cutesy mimicking marketing
Gang warfare
Joining organizations just to be “listed” as a Sourcer
Relying on e-mail to contact potential candidates – this goes along with:

Relying on leaving VoiceMails and then “waiting” for call backs from the potential candidates
The pathway to recruiting mediocrity
In the recruiting business, you can’t make a placement if you don’t have those listings “on the shelf”.  “Listings”, in the recruiting business, are candidates.  Go getchya’ some.

This last week I had a couple of good conversations with Dave Staats. Dave sent me an email early last week because he felt a real connection to the Fordyce Letter and he was interested in having his current blog located over at ERE moved over somehow to this site.

I loved the idea and we are going to get all of his past writing into the Fordyce Letter website. Dave will have his own link on this site and he will be featured as a regular contributor. Fantastic – We will all benefit.

Now, Dave is a real recruiter, he makes real money. I can say this with certainty because he is a member of the Pinnacle Society. You have to generate real money to get access. I think having someone like Dave contribute here will add an added dimension to the content.

Here are three posts Dave has written in the past.

I’d love some comments on this situation
More on TimeStamps vs ButFors
Nothing like a little humiliation

I look forward to reading your upcoming thoughts and perspectives.

Dave and I had a discussion about being friends and I think I made him laugh so I guess we may very well be friends now or as they say in Jamaica, Soon Come. He will be at the Fordyce Forum in Las Vegas this June along with many other very successful recruiters looking to learn more and to share the knowledge.

Most Emailed Articles

1. Why Recruiters Are Worth What They Charge
2. $1 Million Time Management
3. Three Questions For Every New Client
4. Consistent Marketing
5. Bonuses, Stock Options Boost Recruiters’ Pay
6. Stop Kidding Yourself – The Numbers Matter
7. Candidate Leadership In The Qualifying Call
8. Three Steps To Raising Fees
9. Creating Compelling Presentation
10. Building Motivation To Get On The Phone

There is certainly something to be said for the sometimes-stubborn belief that there is only one way to be a successful recruiter. You may disagree, but I don’t. I feel there is only one way to be a successful recruiter.

There is something else that you need to do. Every so often, you need to take inventory. If you know that hundreds of people in your database will change jobs this year, and you know that you are not getting any money for it, I guarantee you will find and collect some of that money. If you are the kind of recruiter who markets candidates and submits more than three candidates for every hire made, there are checks waiting to be cut. Lots of checks.

I remember when I was running my search firm, there was at one point almost 25 recruiters in the office. Every time we collected one of these lost checks, I always said to myself it would make sense for me to hire someone full time to take inventory. I never did but I should have.

Today is your lucky day because below is exactly what you need to do when you find yourself in a position to go collect a fee. Compliments of Jeff Allen.

“It doesn’t matter what the story is – the Internet, an employer database, the newspaper, a trade publication, a convention, an internal referral, another recruiter, a related company, etc. What matters is that you referred them and they’re there.” Read The Rest – You really should.

Are you registered for the Fordyce Forum?

Jeff Allen celebrates his 25^th year this month writing with Paul for the Fordyce Letter

How many recruiters every morning wake up and read the press releases for the industry they work in? You should, because the guys being quoted in those press releases want to talk. You should call them.

The guy is going to feel great because you let him know that you read it and found it interesting. Sure you can recruit the guy but I’m not a fan of the instaRecruit
This guy may be your next great client so this call should be a great call.

Ask the guy being quoted why is this news significant and how it will impact their company and the market they compete in. It must be difficult for them like everyone else in the industry to hire, right? You should say that. It will be amazing where that takes you.

At some point you want to find out if he has hiring responsibilities and if so, you would love to discuss helping him with his urgent searches. Dig on this one and really discuss it or at least find out who he thinks you should talk to at their company.

The point here is that there is an abundance of industry information almost every day. It’s not hard to find. If you’re on the phone an hour every day letting the world know you are watching and taking note, amazing things will happen.

Part of the goal of the Fordyce Letter is to bring together some online dialogue amongst third party recruiters. Right now, there are enough readers every day here on the Fordyce Letter to have some good conversation but like most blogs, it rarely ever happens in any sort of meaningful way.

I have a couple of questions to ask and they will not be the kinds of questions that the current readership knows nothing about. I think the answers to these questions would be a fantastic read and helpful to the readers here.

1. What’s it like to make a placement and the fee is 250k? How do you celebrate?

2. What is the best piece of advice you can tell someone just getting into the recruiting business

In the last few weeks, a number of people have contacted me about contributing articles and thoughts to this site. I will absolutely publish any original material that relates to the recruiting industry unless it’s terrible. Even then, it’s sometimes interesting to publish that stuff too.

If you want to contribute original blog posts about the recruiting industry, send it my way.