There was a LOT of great feedback from my post on why recruiters should care about marketing, advertising, and PR. I hope that everyone who read it got some new knowledge and possibly some ideas on how to improve your overall recruitment strategy by grasping the functions (and the benefit) of each of these important components of running a successful business.

There was one particular comment I wanted to pull out and focus on, because it takes the importance of marketing and ties right back to my original love, which is research. The commenter, Steve, is a former executive VP of Sales and Marketing for a Fortune 500 company (and he’s also my boyfriend’s dad!). Here is what he said:

“…I am only going to touch on the marketing phase. The true function of marketing is research. The job of the marketing department is to search for products or services needed by the end user(the customer). It is their job to work closely with the engineering and sales departments, giving these the departments the proper research and data needed to have a successful launch of a product. Of course there is the glitz of coming up with the proper slogan, packaging and promotional items, but these are very minor compared to the mountain of research which must be done first if a product or service is going to be successful.“

You can’t read this assessment and not fit it right into recruiting! The glitz of recruiting is building the relationships with the candidates and the clients, and ultimately making the hire, but there would be no candidates if there were no research done to find them. Anyone who functions as a researcher knows and can absolutely relate to the vision of a mountain of research, whether for leads or for industry knowledge. These are both vital for a recruiter to perform at his/her peak potential and match ideal candidates to their clients. Having said this, we know that the research would be worthless if it weren’t put to good use, such as a recruiter turning it into a hire. Researcher needs recruiter as much as recruiter needs researcher. So, as Steve observed, all parts of the business operation must work closely together and in harmony in order to have a ’successful launch’ – i.e. a new employee.

Thanks for your keen observation Mr. D!

Networking knowledge is being beaten to death these days. Everyone has an opinion, everyone wants to get better at it, and it seems like everyone has some product or training seminar they want to sell you on how to get buh-zillions of leads from networking. There are the creepy networkers (you know, the guy who seriously violates the rules of personal space), the shy connectors (thanks Sacha Chua, I LOVE this definition!), the woman who knows everyone, the guy whose boss told him he HAD to attend the event, the person who walks around and leaves business cards on the tables without talking to anyone, the list goes on and on. So – how about being that person who makes connections for OTHERS? Or the person who makes time for someone who wants to learn from you?

When I was still living in Cincinnati, I was introduced to a guy who works in mobile marketing. We knew of each other through our social media networks but had never gotten a chance to meet. When I joined AT&T, I wanted to learn more about mobile marketing, so I reached out to this guy and asked if he would be willing to share some of his knowledge of mobile marketing and how it fits into the way we communicate today. Even though I know he’s a busy guy, he agreed to meet me an hour before one of our Jelly Cincy Tweetups. What was supposed to be a brief encounter ended up turning into over an hour of him sharing his passion for mobile marketing with me. I can’t tell you how much I appreciated his time. Recently a colleague of mine expressed interest in this type of work, and guess who the first person was that came to my mind? The person who took a moment out of their busy schedule to share with me.

A similar story with a fellow recruiter: we discovered a mutual love for business books. We started having phone calls on a semi-regular basis just to talk about business strategy, proper mindset for achieving success, and how it applies to our respective industries – he, PR and me, now telecom. There was no hidden agenda from this guy (if there was, I would have seen it a mile away) – all he wanted was to talk about a personal interest we discovered we both shared. When some of my colleagues who work in PR reach out to me looking for new opportunities, guess who I send them to first. He shared moments of his life with me, and as a result I will send him referrals because I appreciate that.

One of my favorite things to do is to introduce individuals who should know each other, but don’t. I know lots of you do this too – you meet someone at a gathering, learn a little about them, and at another event you meet someone else and think, “I just HAVE to introduce so-and-so to this person!” I recently had a friend move to Chicago, and I introduced him to another friend of mine who already lives there (finding out that they now live about 10 minutes from each other – bonus!). Reasons for the introduction:

• They’re both guys (a poor reason for an intro by itself)
• They’re both tall and athletic (I understand a meetup to play some hoops was arranged)
• They’re both in their mid 20s
• They’re both big time into social media

My hope is that a new friendship is developed. It’s up to them of course, but chances are these two guys may never have met otherwise. What’s the personal benefit to me? Not much really, outside of knowing that two people I like can now be friends. I kinda enjoy that.

If you go into every new situation with an agenda, you’re going to end up being disappointed a lot of the time. There are some things to remember when you’re networking that will help to make you memorable to others and often results in situations like the ones above:

• Listen. It is often said that those who are perceived as the best conversationalists are the ones who listen the most. People remember how much you pay attention when they share with you.
• Ask, and then Listen (again). Ask probing questions to learn more about someone, but then make sure you pay attention to the response. Don’t just ask a question to appear interested.
• Connect. Try to make it a goal to make a new connection for someone. If they mention they enjoy cooking, say “Oh, I know so-and-so who also works in your field who loves it too – I’d be happy to introduce you!” If they say their company is looking to hire a social media coordinator, say “I just met someone the other day who might be great for that. I’ll connect the two of you if you’d like!” People remember gestures like this with fondness and appreciation.
• Make Time. I know you’re busy – we all are. But nothing resonates more than making time to meet with someone who asks for it. Of course, you can’t do this for everyone who asks if they can “pick your brain” and you would be wise to qualify these types of requests by asking what specifically they’d like to know. But taking an hour even once a week to have coffee with someone who is new in your business or someone looking to gain some knowledge shows that you are a giver. And go into these situations with the expectation that you are going to do all of the giving.
• Respond. (I feel hypocritical even putting this in the list because I am TERRIBLE about email responses. To those who I’ve yet to reply to, please forgive me. And please email me multiple times, that does help me!) Responding to people validates the outreach. I recently began gathering information on a very ambitious article I’m writing and hope to have published in a prominent news publication. (*hint hint to anyone reading this who works at any such business!) I reached out to about 30 high profile individuals to ask for their participation in this project. Realizing that they must receive thousands of emails each day, I am eternally grateful to those who took the time to respond to me. It showed me that they read what I was doing and saw the value in the project. And they will forever have an advocate in me for their own endeavors because of the kindness they showed to me.

As the holiday season is upon us, we should remind ourselves that it truly is greater to give than to receive. For in giving with no expectation of receiving anything in return, our returns eventually become greater. Remember this when you network. Give selflessly, and you will find a lifetime of return on your investment.

These days, everything is a mashup – our gadgets and gizmos aren’t worth purchasing unless they perform a million different functions. So no big surprise that our jobs are becoming mashups as well, and I think that as recruiting professionals, our roles within our companies are about as complex as they get. I wrote a post earlier this year discussing the various roles that recruiters play in our daily duties. There are certain aspects of this job however that are becoming more and more important, but I don’t think a lot of recruiting professionals really understand the impact and the value of these components of our jobs.

Our jobs are all about building relationships. Such is the case with marketers, advertisers, and PR professionals. Our desired end result of building the relationship is really what separates us. Here are some very simple definitions:

• Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.
• Advertising is a paid communication in which the message is controlled by the sponsor, and is designed to gain attention and motivate action.
• Public Relations is planned and sustained effort to establish and maintain goodwill and mutual understanding between an organization and its public by telling an organization’s story to its public.

Subtle differences between the three, but the basic premise with all of these functions is to establish a line of communication between two or more entities.

Recruiting professionals would do themselves a favor to understand some of the job responsibilities that come with being in marketing, advertising, and public relations. For example: there is much more to candidate advertising (aka job posting) than simply plopping a boring job description into a post template and slapping it up on some job board. There is more to recruitment marketing than bulk emailing a spammy message with an e-newsletter attachment to your entire prospective client database in the hopes of gaining one or two additional job orders. And there is certainly more to creating good PR for your company than simply having a Twitter account or a Facebook fan page.

What I would like to do with this post is invite professionals who perform these unique functions to leave a piece of advice for recruiters to incorporate into their job function. Yes, I did work at a PR agency for a little bit, but that doesn’t make me a good source for PR strategy by any stretch of the imagination. I learned a lot while I was there, and I use that knowledge in my daily function now with AT&T, but I’m looking forward to hearing from the marketers, the advertisers, and the PR pros who are out there in the trenches on a daily basis. How do we, as recruiting professionals, utilize the strategies you exercise daily in our own efforts in finding, attracting, and hiring talent for our companies?

When leaving a comment, please let us know what job function you perform, and the industry in which you work. I look forward to an interactive discussion!

I was going through some of my old blog posts when I stumbled across one of the very first series of articles that I wrote, discussing the role researchers and sourcers play in their companies. I have decided to update and re-post them over the next few weeks. In this final week, we’ll discuss and dispel some common myths associated with the role of the researcher/sourcer on a recruitment team. Enjoy!

So, I’ve talked about what a researcher does and doesn’t do. I’ve given you some of my thoughts on where to look for a researcher for your office, and what qualities in an individual might lead them to be a good researcher. I’ve also given you some insight into the day in the life of a researcher. What’s left? How about some fun things: some common misconceptions of what a researcher is. Yes, I believe every researcher has beaten this topic to death at some point or another. But now, it’s my turn! The goal of this is to shed some light on some of the things that are incorrectly associated with internet research, and hopefully offer some suggestions on the correct way to classify this increasingly vital part of a recruiting operation.

Myth #1: “The researcher will find you candidates.”

You may think, ‘How is this incorrect? That’s what researchers do isn’t it? Source candidates?’ Not exactly….as I’ve mentioned in prior postings, a researcher’s duty is to source leads. YOUR job, as a recruiter, is to turn them into candidates. Now, there are times with this does apply; for example if you have a researcher who also pre-screens the contacts/leads they source before passing them along to the recruiter. But for the most part, we researchers generate the leads, and you recruiters qualify them and turn them into candidates. Call this a simple play on words or whatever you like, but I felt it needed to be included here.

Myth #2: “Just find me resumes.”

Sure, your researcher will find you resumes. Some of the time. But depending on what resources they are provided, the majority of the leads that your researcher can and will provide you with might just be a name, title, and method of contact. Perhaps also a short bio. When doing high-volume searches, I do use pay-for job boards (Monster, CareerBuilder, HotJobs, etc.) for portions of the search, however when working on one-off searches, I will typically start with social networks. Most (good) researchers do not rely solely on resume boards. Should I even go so far as to say a good researcher will not only also use professional networking sites like LinkedIn to source? I might get some hate mail for saying that, but it’s true. Researchers will from time to time come across an HTML resume or a personal website with a resume posted on it. But most of their leads may be simply names and contact information. Just be realistic, and get excited if your researcher DOES give you a resume! Don’t get salty if ‘all’ they give you is a list of 50 names and contact information. Get pumped about all the networking you can do when you call those people!

Myth #3: Being an internet researcher is a ground-level starting point for becoming a recruiter.

Not in every case! Recruiting professionals across the board talk about this concept of the “junior recruiter” – some stating this as correct and others calling it a false assumption. This label is as dumb as thinking that all tall kids want to grow up to be professional basketball players. I for one have no desire to recruit. I enjoy the thrill of hunting down leads. Other researchers I know partake in some of the recruiting process and yes, they would aspire to be a recruiter one day. But don’t pigeonhole your researcher into being fast tracked to the divine status of “recruiter”. Take a few moments to find out what excites them and encourage them to develop their skills and pursue their own career goals.

Myth #4: I can do my own research. I don’t need to waste money on hiring a researcher.

Um, I’m curious how you successfully keep up with your own industry and not work 24/7 if this is your attitude toward research! In a conversation I had with a recruiter who had taken some time off, he mentioned that for two weeks prior to getting back on the phones he spent at least 10 hours a day researching the latest news in his industry. Yes, you read that correctly – 10 hours a day, for two weeks. And this recruiter still uses researchers on a daily basis! I presented this question to my LinkedIn network and was shocked at the number of responses I got that said “No, I do not use a researcher; I do my own research.” In my personal (honest) opinion, this is very cocky and I can’t imagine that many of those recruiters are big billers (as I prepare to be sent more hate mail for saying so!). As a recruiter, your bread and butter is earned by being on the phones during the day, not searching news sites and conducting research. I’ll bet the majority of those who do their own research do this on their own time – in the evenings and on the weekends – thus sacrificing family time and any resemblance of a personal life to do so. So, tell me again that research is easy and doesn’t take much time and that hiring a researcher wouldn’t be beneficial? Okay then…

Myth #5: 23 ways a researcher will help you make more placements in less time

I don’t think any explanation is needed here. This post is ALLLLLL kindsa wrong, IMHO! Please just read the list of what duties the author thinks a researcher can be responsible for and see if it doesn’t steam you. My favorite in this list has to be “watering plants”…

Myth #6: Researcher = data entry/PC troubleshooter/anything-I-don’t-feel-like-doing person

Yes, I think most researchers have a love for technology, which predisposes them to being good at all things computer-related. However, know that the more you ask your researcher to deviate from their research duties, the less time they will be able to spend on what you hired them to do – research! The last thing in the world you should be asking your researcher to spend a great deal of time on is data entry. This is a job for which you can hire someone at $8/hour. While it’s definitely part of what the job entails, using your researcher to do a large amount of data entry is, quite honestly, wasteful of your payroll dollars. A good friend of mine and former fellow researcher stated once that his job description was “All duties that no one else in the office wants to do.” Turning your researcher into a gopher is a gross misuse of talent and will inevitably turn your researcher off.

Remember – research is a vital part of your recruiting operation. There are four foundational parts of a successful recruiting office:

• Process (Operations)
• Client Relationships (and/or Business Development in agency settings)
• Recruitment
• Research

Eliminating any one of these components will cause your recruiting operation to run inefficiently, and research is an especially vital part of this foundation. Research is the backbone of the recruiting body; it supports and facilitates necessary information to reach the rest of the parts.

Don’t let the myths of what research is cloud its importance in the functioning of your recruiting practice. If you’re unsure how research will play an important role in your office, I urge you to contact someone who does use research and talk to them. Or you can call or email me; I’ll be more than happy to share my thoughts with you!

I hope this series of articles has helped you get ‘warm and fuzzy’ with research. My intent was to help the recruiting community better understand what research is and also learn about the thought process that goes behind it. Remember: researchers are real people too, and real important in the recruiting process! Even though we’re not actively generating the dollars, you really can’t put a price tag on the value that we bring to a recruiting operation.

Ugh – some of the things that people do online I just do not understand. Things that absolutely would not be socially acceptable in real life. Just this past weekend, I was witness to one of the rudest ones I’ve seen to date…

I received a DM from an individual I shall call John, changing his name to protect the, um, anti-social. John apparently had recently been conducting a job search and had been using Twitter as a resource to do so. Good job! Twitter I believe is a great resource when you’re job hunting – it’s not the ONLY thing you should use, but I think there are definitely some benefits. Well, John got himself a new job – good for him! But his next action was pretty rude, from my viewpoint. I, along with several others I would imagine, received this DM from John:

“The purpose of this account has changed. I started a new job. As such, I have un-followed you and ask that you do the same. Thank you.”

As well, in the bio section of his profile -

“The purpose of this account has changed. I will be un-following job search related accounts and asking them by DM to do the same. Please see @<otheraccount>”

Translate to the real-life version and it would go something like this: John attends a networking event for job search professionals and makes friends with several people who offer to help him with his own job search. John eventually finds himself a job, and promptly calls over his new friends to inform them that as he has no further use for their friendship, would they please delete his number from their cell and forget they ever met him. Rude, no?

I realize that people have every right to use Twitter for whatever purpose they desire. All John apparently wanted to do with Twitter was use it to help him find a job, as evident in the number of tweets on his page and their subject. No problems there. But I believe in this particular situation John COMPLETELY  missed the concept of “social” media. There are several other things he could have done to be less abrupt, crass, rude, etc. He could have sent a DM saying something like “I’ve found a job! I’ll be tweeting from here on out at @<otheraccount>”, or he could have simply deleted the account and started over again. But his words were rather harsh and carried the message “now that I have no further use for you, be gone!” Not the idea of social media at all.

Use social media – yes. Use people – no.

Last Thursday I drove down to Seattle to attend a luncheon put on by the Northwest Recruiters’ Association. The guest speakers were Kat Drum and Matthew Guiste from Starbucks. They are both involved in social media and digital strategy there, and they spoke to a room of recruiting professionals about the way that Starbucks has integrated social media strategy into its recruitment plans over the last 18 months. In this video are some of the highlights from their discussion:

It’s no secret that I’m a big believer in the power of social media in recruiting. At AT&T, we utilize Twitter, Facebook, SMS, SEO/SEM, and lots of other social technologies to find and attract talent. There’s a place for it in every recruiting strategy, but you’ve got to figure out the best method for you and your company. I always appreciate having the opportunity to learn from others. I hope to be able to attend more luncheons and seminars like this in Seattle now that I’m out here!

I was going through some of my old blog posts when I stumbled across one of the very first series of articles that I wrote, discussing the role researchers and sourcers play in their companies. I have decided to update and re-post them over the next few weeks. This week, the article is about some of the daily activities that keep us researchers occupied. Hope you enjoy!

Bob: You see, what we’re actually trying to do here is, we’re trying to get a feel for how people spend their day at work… so, if you would, would you walk us through a typical day, for you?
Peter: Well, I generally come in at least fifteen minutes late; I use the side door – that way Lumbergh can’t see me…and after that I just sort of space out for about an hour. I just stare at my desk; but it looks like I’m working. I do that for probably another hour after lunch, too. I’d say in a given week I probably only do about fifteen minutes of real, actual, work.

Sound like what a lot of people think you do as a researcher? Well, don’t feel alone! There are a lot of people out there in the recruiting community who have no clue what a day consists of for a researcher. I’ve had people ask me if I just stare at my screen all day or surf websites or just sit there and basically do nothing! While I do ‘stare at my screen’ a lot (been known to go cross-eyed on occasion!) what I do all day is not simply surfing websites. It’s more complicated than that, and in this posting I would like to walk you through a typical day (if that in fact even exists!!) of a researcher.

First of all, I think that it’s worth mentioning an article I wrote on my own blog, Effectively Managing Your Research Projects, at this point. The reason I think this is worth mentioning here is because it provides a rough guideline of how I actually (attempt to) organize myself each day. Now, as any researcher knows, you can plan the activities you want to do as much as possible, but there is always going to be something new that crosses your desk every day that will need your immediate attention. So – I think it’s a good idea to plan as much of your day as possible; but you must be willing to be flexible and take on new tasks as they come to you. Here are a couple of suggestions on how to determine what takes priority for new projects based on what I do personally:

1. Who has given you the new assignment, and what is their track record? If the person giving you a new/urgent assignment is someone who does so on a regular basis, you may want to question the actual urgency of what they need. If it’s from someone who normally follows your procedure for submitting search requests, then it’s probably something that does require your immediate attention. Also, if it is a request coming from the person who makes out your paycheck, you should probably do it first.
2. Is the client expecting results within a given timeframe? If the client company has been promised certain results by a certain time, then it might be a good idea to bump the new assignment to the top of your list. Now, if the timeframe is a bit unrealistic, it might be a good thing to speak to the recruiter about setting realistic expectations with their clients. But if your client, who will be the one cutting the placement fee check should you find them a good candidate, is expecting results, best to get them some.
3. What is the amount of time you’ll need to complete the project? If someone hands me an urgent project that is going to take 15 minutes or less to complete, then I’ll usually do it right then and there. If it’s a search assignment or another project that will take more than 30 minutes, then it gets FIFO’ed (first in, first out). There is no reason to put a bunch of 5-minute assignments in sequential order; you might as well just do them and get them out of the way.

OK – now that we’ve dealt with the ‘emergency projects’ which will more than likely be a daily occurrence, let’s move on to what is actually on the plan of attack to begin with. Here’s what a normal day is like for me:

1. I read through my RSS feeds. This gets me up to speed on today’s goings-on. I have an RSS feed specifically for recruiting/researching topics. I also have several other RSS categories for business, social media, telecommunications, and new technologies. This way I can not only stay on top of industry news and forward my coworkers good articles, but I can also find good passive candidates who might be quoted in a press release that comes through my feed.
2. I check my emails. I check to see if any new searches have come in since the previous day or if there are any responses to questions I may have asked of one of my associates. At this point, a lot of people like to close down their email and not touch it again until lunchtime, or the end of the day. I personally check my email periodically all day long due to the nature of what I do. It’s personal preference here. If you think you’re easily distracted by returning email messages, then I’d shut it down. But for most researchers, email is a main method of communication so it stays open all the time.
3. I look at my weekly project log. What did I decide last week that I needed to complete this week? How far have I gotten, and have the most important tasks at least been started?
4. I look at my Search Request Forms in my inbox. I use FIFO to complete my assignments. On a good day when I have very few interruptions, I can complete 2-3 search assignments. A lot of this is dependent on the difficulty of the assignment and/or the other activities I have to complete over the course of the day.
5. I check my search agents and saved searches. Currently I am working on several high-volume searches, and I utilize AIRS SourcePoint to manage search agents for my high-volume searches. I check these as well as several of my saved LinkedIn searches for new matches to my jobs, and to make sure they’re still yielding results. If the results have fallen off, I’ll take a moment to tweak the search.
6. I check in on Twitter and Facebook. Since AT&T has both Facebook and Twitter accounts that I help out with, I monitor these each day to see who’s been interacting with us. I’ll send replies as necessary, post interesting articles, and update our employee spotlights when needed.
7. I work on organizing my own research database as well as coming up with ways to keep our company databases in working order. This in itself could be a full time job! My goal is to spend a little time each day on database organization since in large quantities it is a pretty daunting task. Breaking it down into bite-sized pieces makes it a more manageable daily task.
8. At least once a week I try to learn something new in the realm of research. This could either be through a webinar I sign up for or perhaps a conversation with a more experienced research mentor.
9. Other random tasks that come up from time to time: email marketing campaigns, introduction to new employees, non-recruiting related research projects for my manager, corporate organization brain-storming sessions, reviewing and recommending new technology products, etc. These are not typically daily tasks but they are worth mentioning as they do come up frequently.

So, for those of you who thought your researcher just sits and stares blankly at their computer screen all day, think again! There are A LOT of things that researchers do on a daily basis, not the least of which is conducting search assignments. This is just one of many tasks for which a researcher is responsible. So the next time you think you catch your researcher “spacing out” at their desk, they are probably just trying to re-focus their eyes after having gone cross-eyed from looking at too much information.

I recently received a phone call from an old colleague of mine at a company we both used to work for. It was great to hear from him and to get caught up on the last several years. In our discussion, I discovered that the company has had a difficult time finding (and keeping) researchers who produced any kind of quality for the recruiters. There have been at least 3 researchers that have come and gone since I left and unfortunately they haven’t lasted long. I asked a little about the researchers and discovered that they were all fresh out of college when brought on. Which got me thinking about a couple of things…

This post is not to say that people who are fresh out of school can’t do recruiting research. They certainly can, and they can excel at it as well. But there are a couple of considerations that must be taken when you are looking to build your internet research team, the most important of which is this: you WILL get what you pay for. I have 2 suggestions for making investments in your research and ensuring that you don’t have a revolving door of researchers in your organization:

• If you need research and you need it now, hire for experience. Invest in a seasoned, experienced researcher who comes with knowledge of resources, procedures, recruiting tools, and industry. This will cost you however; good researchers typically command anywhere from $50,000 on up for base salary, based on how experienced they are. The return on your investment is that you will have a person who needs little training and who can hit the ground running upon being hired.
• If you need immediate cost effectiveness, go ahead and hire the new college graduate. But you will need to provide them with proper training, tools, and resources in order to protect your investment. Without proper training, you are setting a newbie up for failure from the get-go, and you are starting a revolving-door process that will end up costing you more in the long-run than if you invest a little initially to get your new researcher up to speed. Sending a soldier into battle with no armor will almost guarantee them not to return alive.

Sadly, a lot of what I have seen over the years is the cheap hybrid of these two: hire a new college graduate, and expect them to be a great researcher with just a cheat sheet and a free LinkedIn account. While one in a million will find a way to make it happen (and if you have that individual – they deserve a raise or you’ll lose them fast), most will flounder without appropriate training and resources. You really can’t have your cake and eat it too in this situation. Research is not, and should not be, an afterthought on a recruiting team. It’s not something that, upon signing up for a free LinkedIn account or running someone through one free “Sourcing 101″ webinar, will yield much quality. If you care for the success of your researcher, and your company, you need to invest – either by hiring experience or investing in appropriate training for your brand new researcher.

I was going through some of my old blog posts when I stumbled across one of the very first series of articles that I wrote, discussing the role researchers and sourcers play in their companies. I have decided to update and re-post them over the next few weeks. This week, the article is about some of the skills a good researcher/sourcer should possess and some ways to determine a good researcher in an interview. Hope you enjoy!

One of the most common questions I get asked by recruiting firm owners is “What should I look for when I want to hire a researcher?” As I outlined in my first post, I would like to go through some details of what I believe to be good qualities an excellent researcher might have. This will not be a complete list, however I think that as you conduct your search, you will find that your most qualified candidates will possess several of these particular skills.

Before I get into this, I would like to first give you a couple of examples of the kind of value that can be derived from hiring a researcher into your office:

• Many recruiting offices have accounted for between $200,000 – $800,000 in placements in a given year from candidates sourced through research
• Researchers I have spoken with have told me that their total billing dollars made up between 20% – 60% of their total office billings.

In 2005, I myself was responsible for over $400,000 in billings for my office at the time which was about 33% of our total office billings, so you can see the value that can be brought to your office by having a full time researcher. Keep in mind these numbers do not even reflect the billings that come about from 2^nd and 3^rd degree candidates which could account for millions more. Please keep this in mind as you’re considering bringing on a full time, dedicated researcher.

On to the meat and potatoes: What should you look for when screening potential sourcers? Everyone has their own opinion on what makes a good researcher; these are simply what I have seen as common qualities in the good researchers whom I know.

1. Paralegal or Library Science background. I have found that some of the best researchers have these kind of backgrounds – why is that? Well a colleague of mine is a graduate of Dominican University’s Graduate School of Library and Information Science. I looked at some of the courses offered in this program, and they include such things as ‘Organization of Knowledge’, ‘Reference and Online Services’, ‘Subject Analysis’, ‘Online Information Systems’, ‘Searching Electronic Databases’, ‘Collection Management’, ‘Research Methods’, and the list goes on and on. In my opinion anyone who has studied the Organization of Knowledge at the collegiate level would probably make a good researcher. From a paralegal perspective, you’ve got to know how to research and be thorough to be a good paralegal; both qualities carry over into becoming a good researcher.
2. Speed reader. I don’t necessarily think that ‘speed reading’ is the important factor here, but someone who can scan and summarize an article quickly would make a great researcher. What I do all day long is….read. So in order to maximize my efficiency, I must read quickly without missing important information. Bottom line – a good researcher scans quickly but knows what buzzwords to look for.
3. Addicted to information. Almost all good researchers that I’ve talked to have RSS feeds that they read on a daily basis. Someone who loves to learn and loves information will certainly excel as a researcher. RSS feeds have made it easy for us addicts to get our daily fix without spending all day looking at blogs, news releases, and article reviews. A person who likes to read books in their spare time would also be included in this category. I’m not talking about Danielle Steele novels here – I’m talking about industry related reading, success principles, history, technology, etc. Constantly in the learning mode. One of my favorite quotes is “If you’re not green and growing, then you are red and rotting.”
4. Can “connect the dots”. I also like to call this ‘following the White Rabbit’. Sometimes as a researcher you will be given incomplete information. A good researcher will be able to take the bits and pieces they have been given and create a complete picture from it.
5. “Outside of the box” thinker. Yes, incredibly cliché, I know. But, when you consider that researchers will have to rely sometimes on crumbs of clues to find the perfect candidate, they must have creative minds in order to find what they need. Let’s take a look at the definition of “outside the box”: according to Webster’s New Millennium™ Dictionary of English, the definition is ‘beyond conventional thought or practice; creative and unorthodox in thought or practice’. We are an odd bunch, aren’t we? But that’s what makes us excellent at what we do – we can look at a resource and see things that others cannot.
6. Familiarity with current technology, especially technology pertinent to recruiting and/or sourcing. Good research candidates will not look at you like a cow looking at a new gate if you mention the words LinkedIn, social networking, blogosphere, technorati, etc. Let’s face it, everyone is familiar with Google, so if you ask anyone if they know how to ‘Google’, they will say yes. They will tell you that they typed in a word in Google once and ‘conducted research’. WRONG!! I made the mistake of asking this in an interview, and after the lady got hired I had to show her how to bring up Google in a web browser. Needless to say, she did not last long.
7. Well networked. Good researchers know everybody. They have a friend who mountain bikes with this guy who works at a company that manufactures XYZ and he reports to…you get the picture. Not only do they know everybody, but those they don’t know, they know where to look to find them. Using public records, white pages, Zoom Info and similar resources, or simply going to Yahoo, they can find the unfindable people. These folks will typically have over 200 people in their cell phone as well.
8. Good data entry skills. I look forward to the day when misinterpretation of research responsibilities is squashed forever. Even though, as I mentioned earlier, I don’t believe that it is the sole responsibility of a researcher to do data entry, this is a skill that needs to be present. It would behoove a researcher to have better keyboarding skills than the classic “hunt and peck” method.
9. Prior experience in recruiting OR human resources. Not at the top of my list, but I think a potential candidate should get a couple brownie points for having prior experience. This was not the case for me of course: the job I held right before I began researching, believe it or not, was waiting tables. I always considered the ‘must have experience’ clause in a job description to be a bit of a Catch-22 – how am I supposed to gain experience if no one will give me the opportunity to earn it? But if your candidate has been in a recruiting environment or has worked in human resources before, they at least know how the operation works.
10. Specific certifications and/or training. AIRS has a ‘Certified Internet Recruiter’ designation. Anyone who has taken this certification course should have a good beginning foundation for becoming a researcher (however, experience speaks louder than a certification!). If anyone else knows of other specific research-geared certifications, I’d love to know about them!

A lot of you at this point are thinking “Well this is all great stuff, but how do you find out in an interview if a candidate possesses these skills?” Here are a couple of quick suggestions I can offer for some good screening techniques:

1. Ask for specific examples of information they stay current with – what interests them, what they enjoy reading (if they like to read, that is!), etc.
2. In talking with a fellow researcher while writing this, we came up with a great test to give potential research candidates: give an article, maybe two pages in length, and set a time limit in which it must be read, and then ask the candidate to summarize. The catch in this exercise would be to put a vital piece of information buried in the middle, and perhaps another at the very end, so that someone who could scan quickly yet pick up important details would see it.
3. Give them a simple search task. Either ask them to verbally walk you through their course of action, or give it to them to complete while they are there, or as a ‘homework assignment’.
4. Ask them what they think would be the most interesting aspect of conducting internet research.
5. Find out what the breadth of their social media presence is – what networks are they part of, and how active are they in online communities.
6. A fun screening technique: Rob McIntosh and Jim Stroud each put out a challenge for sourcers to “find their dog”. I know that Rob used his puzzle back in 2005 to help identify potential sourcing candidates for his company. (by the way, I did find Jim’s dog, and no, I won’t tell you how J)

I speak from experience here: finding the right candidate to be a researcher can be a daunting task. I’ve had to interview potential research candidates in the past and there’s no one “cookie cutter” type of candidate you can look for. These listed skills however should help you in looking for the right mix of skill and experience that will work within your office. Just keep in mind that as researchers, we don’t really carry a ‘book of business’ or have a set educational path or really even a universal job description, so it may be tough to gauge from just one interview if your candidate would work. You may even consider asking someone you know who already employs a researcher if you could borrow that person for a telephone interview.

Regardless, for those of you out there who have been teetering on the fence about whether or not to hire a researcher, I hope you will consider it more now. A dedicated researcher can bring a lot of revenue to your office – you just have to know what to look for!

In my next post, I would like to walk you through a typical day of a typical researcher (if one were to exist!). I will do my best to tackle the job description aspect of internet research – we don’t just stare at our computer screens all day like a lot of people think. Honest!

This post is gonna get kind of ranty. Consider yourselves warned.

When you look at an iceberg, you’re seeing only a small portion of the whole iceberg above the water. In fact, it’s estimated that as much as 80-90% of an iceberg is below the surface of the water. You never see 80-90% of the iceberg. Success is much the same. When you look at someone who has achieved it, you’re only seeing a small portion of what’s behind it. You don’t see humble beginnings, taking chances and failing, bankruptcies, or wrong choices. So it’s easy to attribute someone’s success to “luck” or some other ridiculous excuse as to why they’re there and you’re not.

Luck happens when opportunity meets preparedness. Success is found traveling a narrow, difficult, and rarely traversed road. For this reason alone, not many people achieve true success. In the Declaration of Independence, we are guaranteed the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. What we are NOT guaranteed is happiness itself. If you choose to pursue it, you have the opportunity and the freedom to do so. But it does NOT mean that you’ll necessarily find it. I think a lot of people today feel like they have a right to happiness. But if it were handed to you without having to work for it, you would neither appreciate it nor place appropriate value on it. That’s why success and happiness must be worked for.

We look at others who are deemed successful – people like Bill Gates, Anne Mulcahy (former CEO of Xerox), Warren Buffet, Vera Wang, and others, and see what we consider finished products, people who’ve amassed incredible wealth and success in their careers. What we so often do not see are the years and years of learning, hardship, trial and error, and failure, which got these people to where they’re at. And what many so often sadly do is judge, and even resent, the success these people have achieved simply because they’ve achieved it, saying things like “They ought to be giving more to charity” or “It’s just wrong for someone to make that much money”.

Give me a freakin’ break. Take off your robe and put down your gavel and take a look in the mirror instead.

The only reason you say that is because it’s not YOU. If YOU were in that position of success, you would applaud the success of others instead of resenting it. The people who wag their fingers in the face of successful people and tell them how ’selfish’ they are, how they aren’t ‘doing their part’  to give back to society, or that it’s a sin for someone to have so much, are probably not doing a whole lot themselves. The reason I say this is that every successful person I’ve ever met in my life knows how hard it is to work toward and reach goals, and they respect those who’ve set and achieved goals and found personal success. They don’t sit around coveting what others have or declaring that it’s not deserved; they go out and get it for themselves.

I’ll get really transparent here. The fact of the matter is that I’ve been at the low end of the totem pole. I’ve been in situations where I literally had $6 to my name, and that had to last me through the end of the month and had to put gas in my car to get to work and food on my plate. I’ve been in the situation where I racked up a large amount of credit card debt from making poor choices. I had academic scholarships to pay for my college tuition, but I had to work a full-time job all through school to pay for room and board because my mother had no income for the entire first year I was in school due to a serious work injury and Worker’s Comp’s refusal to handle the situation (another topic for another time). I’ve had to work two jobs, 16 hours a day, 6 days a week to save enough to move out on my own. I’ve had to couch-surf at my brother’s place because I couldn’t afford to rent my own apartment for two months after I moved to Cincinnati. And I am grateful for every single one of these difficult situations in my life because it made me appreciate reaching my goals that much more. I rose above my situations and found my own success. I’m not done yet, but I’m pretty damned proud of where I’ve gotten to today.

As a result, I am someone who believes that achievement, not entitlement, should be rewarded. This ‘Robin Hood’ mentality that so many have today I think is misguided. People who have taken steps to better their lifestyle and are currently in a place where they are seeing the fruits of their labor should not be penalized (like being taxed a third of their income) for doing so. None of us is guaranteed happiness. We’re guaranteed the right to pursue it. Some choose to pursue it, others don’t. And those who choose to pursue it are all at different points in their pursuit. Some are at the beginning and still struggling, but they have hope. Others have achieved some goals and should be allowed to enjoy what they’ve accomplished. I dislike when people take a look at, and then choose to criticize, an end product and don’t ever take into consideration the time and heartache that went into achieving that success. We all have to start somewhere.

The quote at the bottom of my email signature says ‘Remember where you came from, and always reach back.’ I have the honor and privilege of giving back from my own abundance to some wonderful causes that encourage and uplift people to help them get through tough times and achieve success again in their lives. I am inspired by people who struggle, and fail, but who get back up and make things work. I’ve worked very hard to get where I am and I will not apologize for what I have, nor will I be made to feel guilty for it either.

In my honest opinion, those who complain about how unfair it is for some people to achieve and be rewarded for that achievement while others struggle don’t have any aspirations of getting any further than where they are today and are just looking for someone to blame for their lack of drive. You cannot look at another’s success and judge them based only on what you see. Behind that success inevitably is a story of struggle, and a person who appreciates the hard work it took to get where they’re at, as well as a person who generally wants to assist others in finding similar success.

If you’re currently in that place where you’re struggling – keep moving forward. You’re going to fail sometimes, but you must get back up and continue. When you achieve your goals, the reward we be that much sweeter. And look to those who’ve achieved success not with resentment or jealousy, but as a source of inspiration. After all, they were once where you are.