The Sourcing Riff

SourceCon Hooray

noreply@blogger.com (Josh) — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 17:57:00 +0000

Hello to anyone coming here from SourceCon's announcement of me as the first winner of the 2008 sourcing challenges. Welcome to my wee blog such as it is. As you can see the previous post to this one was from August of 07 so I wouldn't say I've been prolific with the content of late. All the same here hopefully there's some content here you'll find useful.

Thanks again to the SourceCon folks who did a phenomenal job of setting this thing up. I greatly look forward to the challenge at the conference and hope you'll all be there.

In the meantime feel free to connect with me on Linkedin here

Cheers,

Josh

8 things

noreply@blogger.com (Josh) — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 13:36:00 +0000

Thank you Moises for tagging me. Here's the eight things you don't know about me. I was also tagged similarly a long time ago by Steven from Collegerecruiter.com, but like a bad social networker never posted it. So this hopefully honors my debt of Guanxi there as well.

1. I have a degree in Traditional Chinese Medicine. It's a "Master's equivalent" degree from Northwestern Health Sciences University in Bloomington, MN. I practiced acupuncture and herbal medicine for a few years until it became painfully apparent that I had no idea how to handle the business side of being in practice. Complicating my business ineptitude was the newness of Oriental Medicine to main street, U.S.A. After a few years of struggling, and working long hours for little pay, I had to change direction in my career. I learned a tremendous amount about people, health, and an the value of different paradigms. More than that I learned a lot about communicating a complicated and completely foreign systems of concepts (chinese medicine) to surgeons, M.D.s, and patients. The best part of this failure is I can still apply the concepts behind Chinese Medicine to the work I do now. This will require another post to explain.

2. My mother was a nun. When I ask my mom about the 60's she says "I don't remember that, I was in the convent." Granted, she was smoking behind the furnace in the convent boiler room, but nonetheless insulated from outside society. She's now doing massage at a local spot in Eagan, MN. Interesting twist, she's now married to a guy who was in the seminary (my dad is agnostic). Also, her twin sister, who was also in the convent, also married a guy who was in the seminary. They are still married, have two grown children and several grandchildren, and about as far from monastic life as you can get. Great people.

3. I'm a U2 fanatic. At one point was probably in need of talking to someone about it, but am recovered a bit. I still think they are a phenomenal band, and still want to buy Bono and the lads a beer at some point in my life, but have broadened my horizon's musically.

4. Outside of my family, my next greatest love is golf. If I was independently wealthy, I would golf alot, everyday, twice a day, or more. I have saved countless dollars, and hours on psychotherapy, by instead going to the driving range, or chipping in my yard. My boys both have hit real golf balls since they were in diapers, and hopefully will grow to enjoy golf along with my daughter. My wife used to play in high school and has a great swing. I look forward to playing St. Andrews with my kids some day.

5. I am an Aikidoka. Wha? It means I practice the Japanese martial art of Aikido. I started in College at the University of Minnesota Duluth. It, along with Traditional Chinese Medicine has been one of the biggest philosophical influences in my life.

6. My wife is also in sourcing/recruiting. She works for a small IT consulting firm locally. She isn't as active in social media as I am, but she is an absolute rock star when it comes to sourcing and search.

7. My dad has no TV or cell phone. Not too many people out there who have neither of these by choice. He still has only a dial-up connection. Amazing since my dad is essentially a portfolio manager in practice for himself. He works on the stock portfolio's of a small group of friends and their referrals. He's made a go of it since being laid off from Control Data almost 20 years ago. My dad is a serious intellectual and reader and has influenced me through his ability to think clearly and always encourage me to find the answer, as opposed to telling me the answer.

8. I have a friend who was injured in the I-35W bridge collapse a few weeks ago. She works at Best Buy for Accenture. Her fiance is a good friend who used to work here in staffing as well. Jake and Mercedes are great people, huge music fanatics (Jake is also an award-winning local DJ) whose lives have been turned upside down since the collapse. Go here to read their story, Mercedes is still one of only 7 left in the hospital, and will be for another 2.5 weeks at least. Her injuries are consistent with someone having jumped out of an airplane with no parachute. She's alive and will likely walk again, but has a long road to get there.

Great San Francisco jobs are at San Fran Jobs.

Developer Job, work in your underwear

noreply@blogger.com (Josh) — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 20:30:00 +0000

Do you like to work in your pajamas/underwear/shorts/?
Do you prefer dark enclosed places to being outdoors?
Would you like to report directly to this guy....

...as part of a small, rapid software prototyping team charged with the design and programming of small "alpha" and "beta" level software proof of concepts?

Have you participated in any or all of the following:
WoW
LAN parties
Topcoder competitions
MMPORGs?
Do you speak C++ OR Java OR AJAX OR .NET?
Are you comfortable with Penguins and Windows?
Do you know what UI is and how it relates to the above?
Want to get paid for these qualities? Know someone who does?

Just submit a comment to this post and we'll talk...

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Geek Squad fixes Mandroid, no more Whistle S!!

noreply@blogger.com (Josh) — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 13:57:00 +0000

Does your Mandroid suffer from that annoying 'whistle S' bug? The Geek Squad can help.

thanks SplendAd, kudos to Crispin Porter + Bogusky as well. Enjoy!

The road to your job search leads to Job Central.

Turning the Haters -Chief Inspector shows us how...

noreply@blogger.com (Josh) — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 21:06:00 +0000

This is what makes it cool to work at Best Buy/Geek Squad. This is also the epitome of lead by example, and shows the value of turning the haters. The Consumerist has been posting anti-Geek Squad stuff for awhile, some legit (GS isn't perfect, yet) some flaming stuff. T. GS Chief Inspector, Robert Stephens stepped up and is personally doing something about it.....check it. Previously the comments have been very hostile toward GS. Now, follow the link to the original post, and you'll see the comments now are quite in favor of Geek Squad. Hmm. Maybe there'd be a way to 'Recruit the Haters?' After all, they have passion around the subject, and in some cases are quite knowledgeable. Anyone doing this?

clipped from consumerist.com

UPDATE: Geek Squad CEO Promises To Resolve Any Consumerist Reader Complaint He Receives, And Then Does So 4,718 Views

Geek Squad CEO Robert Stephens just emailed us:

I have some good news... I am building a full time dedicated team just for The Geek Squad to help with any service issues. We have also setup a system to manage the volume.

Email info@geeksquadcentral.com with the subject line, "For Robert"

Stephens says your email will go directly into a trouble ticket system that, "hassles me and the other execs until the stuff gets resolved."

He gave us an email address like this before, and it's worked wonders for readers who used it, but Stephens says the new address will get to him even faster than before. — BEN POPKEN

Accountant Careers.co.uk provides accounting jobs in the UK via its employment Web site.

C++ is the language of love, just ask Fabio

noreply@blogger.com (Josh) — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 21:33:00 +0000

Has the gap between the jocks and the geeks finally been bridged?

Check out the video, you may pick up some tips on how to romance that special developer in your life...

Do you have a special developer in your life?

Refer them to these positions with the Geek Squad an earn some cash

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Dot Com openings at Best Buy, update

noreply@blogger.com (Josh) — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 12:52:00 +0000

Quick update on the post from the other day. We have a couple of openings now posted to H3. Both positions are within our dotcom department and involve work with our affiliate programs and Search Engine Marketing, if one has SEO in their background, that's gravy.

Follow the link below if you're interested for yourself or to refer others, $2000 referral reward for each position.

Dot Com Referrals

Cheers,

Josh

Find call center jobs at Jobs In Call Centers.com.

eCommerce opening at Best Buy, refer a friend, get $2000

noreply@blogger.com (Josh) — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 13:37:00 +0000

Bestbuy.com has been doing well from a traffic standpoint lately. More exciting is that our website is going through a phase of growth and development right now. Becoming part of the BestBuy.com organization is a great opportunity for anyone who wants to be a part of what promises to be a Best in Class site, from a traffic standpoint, from a usability standpoint, and other, um standpoints. Changes are afoot behind the scenes and we'd love to talk with top talent about it.

Overall, our organization is growing like crazy, our China operation is already showing phenomenal results, after only a few months of the first Best Buy store in China (Shanghai) opening up. This growth into a global organization will affect our dot com department as well. Right now we are in the process of seeking conversations with top talent from the ecommerce industry. If you know someone in the industry or know people who know people in the industry, we'll pay you for who you know. Go here to refer a friend, get $2k. Pass it on to the people you know, even if the aren't in eCommerce themselves, if they know someone who is, send it to 'em.

Cheers,

Josh

You'll find physician jobs on The Recruiter.com.

Doodads! New Blog SCroll

noreply@blogger.com (Josh) — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 15:44:00 +0000

So my blog is really the place I can experiment with creating something online using any widgety, gadgety, doodad I can find. Despite my lack of posts of late, I have been discovering a few new things that I will goof around with on the blog here. Exhibit A is the new LinkedIn a box bit on the right there. Those who caught El Dave's post on this are familiar already, love the subtle reference to the infamous JT bit on SNL. Much improved over the 'my profile' stuff provided by Blogger. I encourage you to roll over some of the stuff there and check it out for yourself. Combines me, at least professionally, with an ability to network with me as well via LinkedIn. Neato.

Exhibit B, would be my latest discovery thanks to PSFK.com. This is the Springwidget dealio over there. I just finished putting it into my code and figuring out the correct pixel width to fit my sidebar. All in all it took me about 10 minutes of goofing around to get it there in its current form. It's not perfect since you, gentle reader, will have to interact with it to see who I'm reading, but the cool thing is you can get a quick lookie at what those cats are saying by viewing their posts. I like it, I think. We'll see if it stays after my widget buzz wears off. More interesting to me is some of the other stuff that Springwidget has in their quiver, and their underlying stratgey. You can download the Springwidget platform, and it allow you to pick up any widget for your desktop whenever you are on a site and see one of their little green cog logos. For the creation of these widgets they are opening the creative to the world. Another example of the crowdsourcing phenomenon that has become commonplace. Basically its another take on the way that Google allows user to create their Google homepage. In this case however its on your desktop. They appear to be new entrants into this game, so we'll see what happens. The next widget I'm looking for is the PGA tour gadget that updates me real time on the major tournaments as they happen, right to my desktop.

Exhibit C, Snap.com preview anywhere, this has been here for a bit, but I definitely dig it. The Snap.com preview bit on any of my links in my posts. Both of my readers will have noticed by now that when you roll over any links in my posts, the handy preview window pops up. Snap has been making some noise lately as well with other stuff. Check out their search engine, pretty cool features. Someone smarter than me will have to check out the robustness(?) of the search capability there, but I love the presentation of results.

The great thing about all these is that you can add these to yer stuff without being a code wizard. Clearly I am more like Mickey Mouse in Fantasia than the wizard. Look for lots of brooms running amok soon.

"That's great, Josh", you say, "but what does any of this have to do with recruiting?"

Good question. I don't know for sure yet, but I do know that these all relate to presenting and or delivering content in new ways. Content of course can be job content (DING).
Cheers,

Josh

JobCentral helps with yourjob search online.

Competition for Alexa?

noreply@blogger.com (Josh) — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 18:20:00 +0000

For a long time my secret, to recruiting outsiders anyway- weapon was Alexa. Most folks that would read this posting know of Alexa. To my knowledge its stood alone as the standard for tracking traffic to most any site on the web. Thanks to my very functional google reader and Greg Sterling at Search Engine Journal, I've discovered a few competitors.

The first, directly mentioned in the posting on SEJ is Snapshot from Compete. Compete was started by Bill Gross, of 'Goto', and 'Overture' fame. I could bore you with my rendition of the features of this product, but why? When they've created this neato video complete with Blue Man Group background music.

The second Alexa competitor is mentioned in a comment on the SEJ blogpost mentioned above. This one is Quantcast, developed by engineers from NASA, Stanford, and Altavista. Co-founded by Konrad Feldman, former CEO of Searchspace, "until 2005. During this time Searchspace grew to be the largest vendor of anti-money laundering and terrorist financing detection software to the world’s financial industry."

What I like about Quantcast is the way the info is presented, go here to see what they say about Alexa.com

If you are looking to target a certain purchasing demographic for instance, Quantcast has a graph for that. If you are wondering about the diversity of the audience for a particular site, they have a graph for that as well. They seem to be a bit newer than the other sites but I prefer their presentation of the data. Go check 'em out and decide for yourselves.

Cheers,

Josh

CollegeRecruiter.com offers the latest on internships and entry level jobs.

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Trendspotting at Trendwatching.com

noreply@blogger.com (Josh) — Mon, 09 Oct 2006 19:42:00 +0000

If you are like me and are distracted by....er.. interested in new ways of doing things, or branding or marketing or servicing or anything, keep an eye or at least an RSS subscription to trendwatching.com. This site offers a number of cool features including their monthly trend briefing on new business ideas, new technologies, new services or new ways to advertise.

The bit I like the best is the springspotter network. Speaking of trends, this takes advantage of a recent trend, crowdsourcing. The springspotters are a network of trend spotters from around the world, "from Iceland to Argentina". To be a trendspotter you need only be curious and have an ounce of business experience and/or acumen. Then when you spot those bullet proof business suits let trendwatching.com know about it. What does one get in return? Gifts of course, and the fame that goes with outing the next Youtube or Myspace or bullet proof evening wear. In addition, for those looking for innovative people for the innovative jobs they have, there is a job board.

The site was started by Reinier Evers, veteran of Agency.com, and Urbanbite. If one were to start a job board for niche roles, they could stand to follow his model of getting content placed before a targeted crowd, and then have a job board to run along side it for jobs in that targeted industry. I don't believe that was the original intention but it certainly seems to make sense.

Cheers,

Josh

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Net Junkies Achtung! Web 2.0 Directory

noreply@blogger.com (Josh) — Fri, 06 Oct 2006 12:04:00 +0000

Ever feel like there's no way to keep up with the myriad new widgets, tools, programs, websites, services, networks, and plug-ins that have come out of the big bang of Web 2.0? I do. You and I are not alone. And thanks to Christian Mayaud we no longer have to be overwhelmed. He's started an open directory for all things web 2.0. Its called, "All Things Web 2.0" (Love the sensible titles.)

Here's Christian on why:

First, there is no way any single person can keep up with something as dynamic (and ill-defined) as Web 2.0 (and there was no way I was going to even try.)
Secondly, it made sense to create a vehicule to facilitate aggregate of community-based knowledge tid-bits, to help guide others engaged in trying to keep track of all things web 2.0.

If you lurk and wander about the web as I do this is one of those sites you go to and you know immediately it will be on your favorites and become a resource to go back to again and again. Its open source so anyone can contribute ratings to any of the web 2.0 knick-knacks listed there. Or if its not listed, get it listed. Everything is categorized on the site and as clearly laid out as possible. You can also vote on your favorites. Kudos Christian, Good on you!

Thanks to Des Walsh, author of "Happy About LinkedIn for Recruiting" and moderator of the LinkedIn Bloggers group on Yahoo for talking about it.

Cheers,

Josh

For everything recruiting, checkout ERE.net.

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SEO SEM opportunity at Best Buy Co.

noreply@blogger.com (Josh) — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 12:38:00 +0000

Thanks for your interest in the SEO opportunity at Best Buy corporate. Click the job title to go right to the description and application for the Manager of Online Direct Response.

As a recruiter I am always trying to be creative in finding new ways to reach the right people. If you have an SEO background and are reading this, maybe its working! Forgive the use of my personal blog as a pathway to this description and application, but its easier for me to track how effective some of my new approaches are that way.

Best Buy.com is actually the biggest store that Best Buy has. Right now we are looking for someone with experience in the realm of SEO/SEM to join our ranks. Check the description for the nuts and bolts. Keep reading for more info on working at Best Buy corporate.

If I were looking for a new gig, I would want to gather as much info about the experience of being there and the work environment. To that end I decided to repost my top ten reasons for why its cool and fun to work at Best Buy. One additional reason is R.O.W.E. (Click on it to see the TIME magazine article about ROWE.) Google "ROWE and Best Buy" to see more. Oh wait! As an SEO/SEM expert you'd already figure that wouldn't you - silly me! Feel free to post comments with questions about the gig if you like! Here's the top ten;

Top 10 fringe benefits to working at the Best Buy campus:
1. Get your car detailed and oil changed in the employee parking ramp.
2. Caribou Coffee is on site!
3. Outstanding lunches for $5.00 on average.
4. Break area has stand-up models of X-Box 360, PS2 (Until PS3 arrives) and gamecube, as well as a pool table, foosball tables, and chess area.
5. You might run into current celebrities on site such as (Will Smith, Ice Cube, Magic Johnson, or local sports stars)
6. You might see/hear has-been celebrities (Stephen Pearcy of Ratt, Janie Lane of Warrant, Firehouse, Don Dokken of Dokken, and Kip Winger of Winger) play acoustic sets of their eighties hits in Sandy's Place (the eating area) while eating a burrito.
7. You may be in the line for the salad of the day with Geek Squad founder, and Chief Inspector Robert Stephens.
8. You may get to see traffic stopping national musical acts in the south parking lot (Lenny Kravitz, Sheryl Crow, or John Mellencamp, for example)
9. Award winning onsite full-service health club
10. You might get to hear Dave Matthews speak in the onsite theater.

Cheers,

Josh

Visit Recruit.net to find Australia jobs.

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Recruiting/Sourcing Opportunity with Best Buy and Accenture

noreply@blogger.com (Josh) — Mon, 11 Sep 2006 14:14:00 +0000

Ok, trying out this blog board thing, sort of....

We have an opening on our team in recruiting here at the Best Buy campus in Richfield, MN (a suburb of Minneapolis). Click here to get to the description and application if you like. Remember, since Accenture handles the recruiting function for Best Buy corporate, you will be an Accenture employee, which has benefits of its own. Besides which being onsite at the fabulous Best Buy campus has other fringe benefits that you won't find in any job description. Here's my top ten....

Top 10 fringe benefits to working at the Best Buy campus:
1. Get your car detailed and oil changed in the employee parking ramp.
2. Caribou Coffee is on site!
3. Outstanding lunches for $5.00 on average.
4. Break area has stand-up models of X-Box 360, PS2 (Until PS3 arrives) and gamecube, as well as a pool table, foosball tables, and chess area.
5. You might run into current celebrities on site such as (Will Smith, Ice Cube, Magic Johnson, or local sports stars)
6. You might see/hear has-been celebrities (Stephen Pearcy of Ratt, Janie Lane of Warrant, Firehouse, Don Dokken of Dokken, and Kip Winger of Winger) play acoustic sets of their eighties hits in Sandy's Place (the eating area) while eating a burrito.
7. You may be in the line for the salad of the day with Geek Squad founder, and Chief Inspector Robert Stephens.
8. You may get to see traffic stopping national musical acts in the south parking lot (Lenny Kravitz, Sheryl Crow, or John Mellencamp, for example)
9. Award winning onsite full-service health club
10. You might get to hear Dave Matthews speak in the onsite theater.

So there it is. Its not to tough to come to work with all that going on. Check out the link if you are interested.

Cheers,

Josh

Checkout London jobs at CanaryWharfJobs.com.

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Creepy Cool Sitepal Avatars

noreply@blogger.com (Josh) — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 13:52:00 +0000

Interactivity and a sense of user ownership, or at least user control seems to be where alot of web-gadgetry is headed. Not exactly breaking news to anyone not living under a rock, but its interesting to think about how that might apply to recruiting/sourcing.

Let's take the typical job posting say. The look of it hasn't changed all that much from the old classified ad bit, right? Sure, its electronic, and cheaper by and large, and you link to the application and what not, but the content is communicated the same way, a few paragraphs of a job description, then qualifications, (yawn). Rather boring look and feel usually. what if there were a way to make these darn things a bit more exciting, and up the connection factor and employment branding factor as well? Enter the folks at Oddcast with their product Sitepal. Sitepal is an avatar that can speak, either from pre-recorded material, or from text. It also will follow your mouse pointer as it moves around the avatar. This is slightly creepy but kind of cool at the same time. Think if you could have this avatar be a part of a posting. You could have IM features with it, ala Ikea's ASK ANNA (from the link, click ASK ANNA) so that you could pose questions to the avatar about the job which it could respond to with text in the IM window, or via pre-recorded stuff from someone actually working in that job. There are a number of different iterations here, ranging from complex to simple, but you get the gist of it.

Its an interesting opportunity to craft your employment brand, and interact with potential candidates in new ways. Plus, if you do it right, think of the word of mouth on something like that! 'DING' and very likely word of mouth via other people in each person's network that may share a similar background! 'DING-DING'

Personally, I think this has potential to be an interesting topic, and as I write this I really haven't done my research on who else might be thinking, talking, or doing something about this, but I will.

Cheers,

Josh

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You'll find marketing jobs in Canada at HigherBracket.ca

Chock Full of Sourcing Goodness: Top 5 useful blog posts on sourcing

noreply@blogger.com (Josh) — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 12:48:00 +0000

As a sourcer and denizen of the internet and cool-idea addict, there are those moments when you discover something that expands your perspective on what's possible. This has happened alot for me over the last year and I owe the credit to the many generous information purveyors out there in blogland. I thought it might be useful to revisit those, and repost to the benefit of anyone new to the sourcing world looking for a bit of inspiration. Here's my top five(for now)most useful blog posts I've read.

1. Glenn Gutmacher Internet Sourcing at Lightspeed

Careful! This one is like sitting down to a an entire cheesecake all by your lonesome, very rich and a lot to digest. How does Glenn get all these tools into his toolbelt without it pulling his pants down?

2. Shally : Ain't Yo Mama's People Search

This one is actually two posts from November 05. If you don't have these arrows in your quiver, you should. No question.

3. Jim Stroud : Recruiting Lessons from a Subservient Chicken

Warning! This is a visionary blog post, if you have a small mind don't read it as your head will explode from its implications. What Jim Stroud grasps in crystal clarity, the rest of us barely discern in the darkest of our dreams.

4. Shally : (Again!? I know, what can I say? He's the grand poobah) How I keep up with all the blogs

This one is a cool, and very Shally-licious take on managing your RSS feeds, like the one you undoubtedly have to this blog.

5. Rob McIntosh : Building Creative and Aggressive Sourcing Strategies

My first view on what is possible for a career in sourcing.

So that's it. I hope you enjoyed this stroll down memory lane with me. For you experienced and avid sourcing blog readers, might be some repeats in there for you. If you are new to sourcing or still just stick to the usual resume banks, follow all the possible links from the above posts. That oughta keep you busy for awhile and expand your awareness of what's possible in sourcing.

PS - it's not lost on me that all these people are from the same company. I don't think its because they have the market cornered on sourcing skill necessarily, but they actively promote, share, and talk about it so extensively and rigorously that the perception is that they do. Thanks guys for sharing!

Cheers,

Josh

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BIS provides background checks to global employers.

MEEBO! Riff with me

noreply@blogger.com (Josh) — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 16:06:00 +0000

I am so glad I popped over to Exceler8ion. First, its an amazing blog that I had previously not paid near enough attention to. Second, Julian and Shannon have wicked cool doodads on their site. The coolest of which is Meebo.

"Say what monkey? Meebo?" Look on the right hand side of the page you are looking at, see the RiffMeebo deal? Anyone visiting The Sourcing Riff site can send me a real time instant message (provided I'm available) without being a member of an IM service, no need for any login info or such nonsense. How cool is that?!? Maybe I'm late to the game on this, but better late than never.

Back to J&S and Exceler8ion, so I checked out who is linking to my wee blog via Technorati. Lo and behold the newest linker to my site is exceler8ion. "Hmm, cool. I heard of that site before, don't know it from Adam, let's have a looky." Wow! Lot's of cool blog related widgets, funky pictures, and cool design. Then I saw Meebo. I clicked in there and typed a little "hello". 2 seconds later, I get a 'hi' back! What proceeded was a quick convo with Julian. Thanked him for the link to my wee blog. Some small talk, a bit of education on Meebo message length. Then off to bed, but alas not to sleep, but to run over in my mind all the possible uses for this Meebo deal, related to recruiting of course 'ding'.

By the way, the folks at Meebo make it exceedingly easy to put this thing on your site. Took all of five minutes for little 'ol me to get it up and functional.

Thanks again Julian, Shannon and Exceler8ion. So Riff with me via RiffMeebo on the right.

Cheers

Checkout search engine optimization jobs at Oaseo.

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Geek Squad City recruiting video

noreply@blogger.com (Josh) — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 12:50:00 +0000

Recruitment advertising has become not only part of my job, but something I'm keenly interested in. Partly because its important to know how to find the right eyeballs for your message, but also because of the chance to be creative. Being in corporate staffing at Best Buy Corporate has allowed me contact with some of the brightest and most creative minds in advertising; the Geek Squad creative team. You'll hear more from me on this later, but for now check out this recruiting video for Geek Squad City.

Cheers

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Shiny New Exalead

noreply@blogger.com (Josh) — Tue, 08 Aug 2006 13:02:00 +0000

Exalead, the french search engine that some people know about, but I wonder how many people use, has a new version. I like their presentation of search results, and the beta has some easy search refining tools. I thought it would be cool to use it for searching web resumes, and it is, but not in the way I want it to be. Exalead has that little preview window next to each result from a search. Great, but unless you have microscopic vision, its relatively useless. To see the image you still have to click into it. What would be cool is if they could have the image expand to a readable size when you rolled over it. That would be super useful from a recruiters perspective (i.e. when your results are resumes or CVs) and would make that neat little feature more than just a useless neat little feature. But that's just the lazy sourcer in me talking. All that clickin' around gets tiresome.

One thing I do like is the ability to scroll through results by clicking on the arrow to either the next result or the previous result. If you have your web resume search refined just right, this is useful.

Thanks to Resourceshelf for the tip. Go here to take a ride yourself. Login 'beta'.

Technorati Tags:
exalead beta, exalead, beta, new exalead version, search engine

Are you a tag dummy?

noreply@blogger.com (Josh) — Thu, 03 Aug 2006 20:07:00 +0000

As a sourcer enthralled with all the new web 2.0 technology and widgets out there, I'm always wondering how this stuff can be used in sourcing. Tags being the topic of this and future riffs. I've been trying to discover a practical way for tags to be useful to the sourcer. Jobster has been doing some cool things of late, and for a company playing in the recruiting/employment technology arena, I think they're on the right track for how tags can be used in the employment/recruiting arena. As a bit of a neo-phyte when it comes to tags and how I can personally get them into my blog and use them to up my exposure etc. I've been looking for something comprehensive for a 'Tag Dummy' like me. Here it is. Whoever this cat is, a brit I think, this post is a great primer on tags & Technorati for the newbie. It also references another great tool for 'html dummies' (like me) that will help you generate the necessary html code to get tags into your blog postings. More to come from me as I find other ways to use tags for finding folks. Cheers.

You'll find entry level jobs at CollegeRecruiter.com.

Technorati Tags:tag, tags, technorati, how to tag your blog posts, html code for tags, tags for dummies, html for dummies, recruiting, sourcing, jobster tags

Must-have Accessory for Jason Goldberg

noreply@blogger.com (Josh) — Thu, 03 Aug 2006 13:53:00 +0000

We've been considering using Jobster now for awhile, (lot's of hemming and hawing on our end.) I dig what they're doing, and they're enthusiasm for pushing the envelope. Had 'lunch' with Jason, and subscribe to the blog, and follow the news. Anyone who has emailed with him, or read his blog knows he has a solid relationship with his Blackberry. Well, for anyone trying to get into his good graces, or maybe as insurance for the folks providing the recent round of funding for his company, this would be a great gift.

must-have blackberry accessory

Technorati Tags:Jobster, Jason Goldberg, Blackberry Helmet

Hucka-what?

noreply@blogger.com (Josh) — Thu, 20 Jul 2006 18:09:00 +0000

Found this reading Seth Godin, a new meta-search engine with some neat presentation and search tweaking options. Huckabuck has a search 'tuning' function that is kind of neat. As of right now they search via Google, Yahoo, MSN, Digg, Del.icio.us, and Technorati. There are some presets that you can choose to tune your results, i.e. relevant to shopping, or blogs or technology by the engines that return the most relevant results. You can also choose to custom tune it yourself. I'm at a loss for how to tune it for resume, name, or bio searching. If I figure it out or someone else wants to contribute, I'll post it in the future. Look for (Huckabuck part 2.) For now check out the search engine named for a southern frozen treat. One cool thing is part of the profits they earn go to helping to rebuild New Orleans, the home city for the Huckabuckers.

Why sourcing is the place to be

noreply@blogger.com (Josh) — Thu, 22 Jun 2006 12:40:00 +0000

There's so many things I like about sourcing, not the least of which is having the opportunity to be creative in a job that hasn't traditionally (at least in the corporate sense) had much creativity to it.

For clarity's sake, sourcing to me is the new recruiting. Sourcing encompasses active searching, talent networks and pipelining, and also can include recruitment advertising. The first two are obvious, the last one in that list may be debated by some. Here's why I think sourcer's should be involved in recruitment advertising.

First off, to be an effective sourcer requires creativity. Creativity in the sense of a good detective. Obviously to 'source' you have to know where to look, or find your sources. This means knowing your target candidate, where they hang out, the associations, organizations, and other social networks where you may be able to connect with them.

Recruitment advertising (and I don't mean job board postings, yawn) is about knowing your target audience. Knowing them on a basic level yes (qualifications, education, experience, etc.) but also knowing them on a psychological or maybe behavioural level. The perfect example of this is the Google Billboard . I'm convinced someone with the heart of a sourcer was in on that idea along with Crispin Porter + Bogusky .

Jim Stroud knows what I'm talking about with this riff. Beyond his usual sourcing , web 2.0 wonkishness, and recruiting comic genius, he has outdone himself with the recent subservient chicken rant (Its almost as though he's had our offices bugged here) and also today's post. It strikes at what I'm getting at and think about alot and what makes it fun and interesting to be in sourcing.

Finding people, and recruiting people is all about being specific, being individual. Knowing the details of what a group of individuals does, has in their background, does in their spare time, and how to connect with those people is what sourcing is all about. Isn't that also what advertising is all about? This is why sourcing is the place to be for me, and why I'm excited to be a part of what's next.

Sourcing Greenhorn Speaks

noreply@blogger.com (Josh) — Thu, 27 Apr 2006 13:12:00 +0000

"Um.... Ahem, Hello World, are you there?"

Questions:
Does relevant, useful, and interesting content about a profession have to come from a seasoned expert?

Would people pay attention if the material met all the above except that it came from a relative newcomer to the field?

Does the merit of the content speak for itself?

These are a few of the many questions I had when considering whether or not to jump into the blogosphere with my little page on Sourcing.

I have a total of about 3.5 years in the recruiting/staffing field, and a rather twisted career path prior (more later). Some agency experience, and most recently corporate sourcing experience for two very cool, Fortune 1000 companies. So does this qualify me as an expert? Probably not, no. But I love the detective work involved in finding people and especially all the neat-o techie tricks and techniques that I have picked up from Uber Sourcers/researchers/bloggers Shally Steckerl, Jim Stroud, and Senior Queso (Joel Cheeseman), among others. Occasionally I will discover some cool stuff on my own and blab to my colleagues to equal parts glazed eyes and the occaisional, "wow". So my thought was I bet people would listen if I could find a way to share my learning experiences as I mature in the sourcing world in a way that is interesting, useful, and relevant. If I can successfully heed the advice of Aaron Macgruder via Joel Cheesman, "don't suck", than maybe the fact that I'm not an expert won't matter. I guess that's the point of the exercise for me and to be determined by you. So, I hope you'll pay attention, even if its only morbid curiosity and you like watching people fall down, that's fine too.