This week I am attending SourceCon ‘08 in Atlanta. If you have any interest in research and sourcing from a recruitment capacity, this is the place to be! I’ll be tweeting throughout the event so if you want an SC play-by-play, feel free to follow me on Twitter or check out the hashtag #sourcecon. If you’re attending, please come and say hi to me!

Thank you SO much to all of the attendees of LinkedCincinnatiLIVE! last night - you made it a fantastic event. People started rolling in around 15 minutes til 6 and we had a line waiting to register for nearly an hour! There were still people hanging around well after 9pm as well - the networking was that good! I saw lots of tweets following the event from people who really enjoyed themselves, and already people are asking when the next one will be. For the record, the person to ask that question of is Jennifer McClure, the lady without whom this event might never have happened, as she is the LinkedCincinnati group moderator. So - THANKS JENNIFER!

We have not tallied up the total number of attendees yet but I believe it was well over 200 people. The room we had reserved was fantastic - we had our auction tables lining the left side and a beautiful appetizer table in the middle of the room with a fountain! (I didn’t know we were going to have that!) Our cash bar was to the right of the entrance and the room was dotted with tall and short tables for mingling. Jennifer and I had many people come up to us over the course of the evening to compliment us on the event, the venue, and the cause for which we were raising money. When it was all said and done, we were able to raise just over $1000 for the trip to South Africa!

Which brings me to some exciting news: since not all of our auction items were bid on last night, we have the pleasure of opening up some fantastic opportunities to bid for those who could not attend, both local AND everywhere else! We are putting the remainder of our auction items on an online auction site. We are starting off with some time-sensitive items such as conference admission tickets, and will be added the others in the next week. Please visit the auction site here - all proceeds from these items will go to the South Africa trip fund-raising efforts.

Our first items up for bid (I feel like Bob Barker saying that!!) are three FANTASTIC recruiting event tickets: we have all-access passes for ERE’s Fall Expo in South Florida, RecruitFest! in Toronto, and SourceCon08 in Atlanta (which is NEXT WEEK so get it while it’s hot!)

LINKEDCINCINNATILIVE! AUCTION SITE

My friend Jeff’s oldest daughter was learning one day in kindergarten a lesson that I’m sure all of us learned - that you are not supposed to talk to strangers. Having been taught something different, she raised her hand during this lesson and said, “Teacher, my daddy says that’s not right!” Confused, and a little alarmed by this, the teacher asked her to explain. She continued to say, “My daddy says that if you never talk to strangers, you won’t make any new friends. He says it’s OK to say hello to strangers, but you’re not supposed to go anywhere with them or take anything from them.” The teacher was impressed with this thought process and thus changed the lesson of the day in the class.

If you think about it, this lesson is so deeply ingrained in most of us that we tend to not acknowledge or go out of our way to say hello to or meet new people. Is it any wonder why as adults we tend to have fears in going up to a perfect stranger and introducing ourselves? Since we’ve been taught all our lives that strangers are bad and aren’t to be communicated with, as adults that lesson has been written deeply into our brains, and thus we miss out on so many opportunities to meet new people, make new friends, create new business relationships, etc.

From a recruitment, and sourcing, standpoint, this is the dumbest and most crippling lesson we could have learned. Being unwilling or scared to reach out to prospective candidates, you might as well find a different career.

And guess what? LinkedIn’s new user agreement basically telling us not to talk to strangers. Not only that, communicating with strangers on LinkedIn can potentially get you slapped on the wrist and kicked off. Thanks a lot, LinkedIn. You’re that good-intentioned kindergarten teacher who scared us into not communicating with other people.

So - those of you with small children, learn from your mistakes and don’t handicap them for life by teaching them bad lessons. Equip them with appropriate levels of caution toward people they don’t know, but don’t cripple them socially, and potentially professionally down the road, by scaring them away from making new friends.

In the spirit of the Beijing Olympics that have just concluded, I wanted to re-post my article from last June which compares researching to an Olympic relay team - with some added highlights from this year’s most incredible relay moments. Enjoy!

Learning about greatness in research by looking at the makings of an Olympic relay team:

• Swimming: while many people know how to swim, only a few have the discipline to make it to the Olympics, and just a small handful win Olympic medals.
• Just about anyone can call themselves a researcher, but only a small handful have the discipline and skill level to be considered exceptional. 

• It takes time to become good enough to swim in the Olympics.
• It takes time to become a great researcher. Success does not happen overnight.

• Track: Training consists of running lap after lap after lap after lap…
• Training in research consists of practicing the basics over and over and over again.

• Members of the relay team all know how to swim, but each contributes to the team effort by swimming a leg of the race in their specialty stroke.
• Great researchers all know the basics of research but each has a niche market in which they specialize. 

• An Olympic-caliber swimmer always has a one or two select events in which they excel more than others.
• A great researcher has one, perhaps two (related), industries in which they excel; generalist researchers rarely become great at any of the industries in which they search.

• Olympic-caliber swimmers get better at their best stroke by spending a lot of time working on that stroke, refining and perfecting techniques.
• Great researchers become great within their niche market by spending a lot of time researching associations, networking with industry contacts, and learning everything they possibly can about the industry.

Hat-tips to two memorable USA relay moments of the 2008 games:

• Let your performance do the talking.  Talking smack before the event usually results in you getting your you-know-what handed to you. (hint hint, France!)
• In research, let your skills speak for you. Professing to be an expert will oftentimes get you into trouble! The experts are those who let their clients and successes do the talking for them…

• If you aren’t careful, you could muff the pass-off and ruin the whole race, not just for yourself but for the whole team. (2 US track relay teams drop the baton)
• In research, make sure there is clear communication as to where your duties end and the recruiters’ duties start. Otherwise, there will be confusion and time-to-fill will take longer than needed.

All of these research examples can also be applied to recruiting as well.

If you have not signed up for LinkedCincinnatiLIVE this coming Wednesday, August 27^th, you need to do so right away! We are reaching 200 attendees who have pre-registered, and we’ve got some seriously incredible items up for grabs in the silent auction.

For those in the local recruiting community, we have a FULL ADMISSION ticket to SourceCon 2008 in Atlanta in just one week for auction, a FULL ACCESS ticket to ERE’s Fall Expo in Hollywood Beach, FL at the end of October, AND a ticket to RecruitFest coming up in Toronto on Sept. 19^th. The RecruitFest ticket is worth $220, the SourceCon admission ticket at  $1,195 and the ERE Fall Expo ticket at over $2,000. You’ll want to make sure to come to LinkedCincinnatiLIVE and put your bid in for one of these can’t-miss events!

In addition to these event tickets, we have some really cool things that will be on the auction tables, including:

• Design/promotional/marketing consulting services
• Recruiting services
• SEO consulting services
• DBA services
• Skin consultation services
• A B&B weekend package in WV
• A guided upland hunting trip
• A week’s timeshare use
• Books written by some of our attendees
• A private flight tour from a local pilot
• …and much more!

The silent auction is optional participation, and money raised from these auctioned items will go to help fund an aid trip to South Africa being taken by two LinkedCincinnati members, Jennifer McClure and Amybeth Hale. The $5 door cover will go to offset the facility rental and refreshments. Cash bar will be available: soft drinks: $1.95, beer: $3.25-$3.75, wine: $5.00, cocktails: $5.50+.

Our auction items range in cost from around $10 all the way up to $3500 so there is something for everyone to check out. Business owners and managers, consider bidding on some of the consultative services for your company.

Don’t miss this opportunity to meet other local professionals in the Cincinnati area (and beyond – there are people from as far away as Florida attending!). Bring your business cards and get ready to mingle! Hope to see you there!

Being out of the loop a little this week while working from Chicago, I didn’t know that I was recently honored with being #16 in the top 25 of the Talent Management Blog Power Rankings, sponsored by Fistful of Talent and the HR Capitalist. Cool - I didn’t even know the Research Goddess blog was in consideration! So, many thanks for the votes and to all of you who read and comment as it is because of you that my blog was honored.

Check out the rest of the blog rankings here!

A large cruise ship can weigh 70,000 tons or more. To put that into perspective, that is the equivalent of 17,500 adult elephants (4 tons), 1,750 full-capacity 18-wheelers (40 tons), or 389 adult blue whales (180 tons). That’s a lot of weight to be moving through the water! When a cruise ship sets its course, it follows that course closely because to go even a few degrees in the wrong direction would be costly, both in time and money for fuel. If a ship goes off course, the quicker the error is discovered the less time it will take to make up lost ground and the quicker it will be to reach the final destination.

Think of your sourcing team as this cruise ship. Your final destination is the Island of Hires, and your researchers are steering the ship. To get to the Island of Hires in the least amount of time you want to put the ship on a straight path there. To accomplish this, a very thorough overview of the position and the ideal candidate qualifications is needed. The easiest way to put the ship way off course is to provide an inadequate job description/req to the shipmates. Some examples of bad job reqs include:

“I need a sales rep in New York.”

“Find me a software engineer for ABC Consulting Company.”

“I need an OR nurse in the Midwest.”

OK…..and…….? Believe it or not, I know researchers who have received search requests like these!

So, how many years of experience are needed? Is a degree necessary? Any certifications that are desirable? Are there particular companies from which to recruit? Any key skills that need to be present? What are the salary ranges of people who would be suitable for the position? Is relocation an option? Etc., etc., etc…

Each of these unanswered questions is a degree off the established course. The further off course the ship gets, the longer it’s going to take to get to the Island of Hires. The more information provided to your researcher at the beginning of the search, the quicker they will be able to provide you with quality leads.

In addition, it is important to check the course frequently over the duration of the trip. Elements such as tidal shifts and inclement weather can push the ship off the established course. In recruiting terms, these are things such as changes in the requirements provided by the hiring manager, a location change for the job, or the need for a more junior or senior individual. The sooner the sourcing team is made aware of any changes in the req, the less time they will spend looking for the wrong thing.

As well, if your researchers present you with leads that are not quite what is needed, the sooner you let them know what is lacking, the sooner they can adjust their search queries and get back on track. A researcher who is not receiving any feedback on sourced candidates could spend many hours or even days searching for the wrong people, thus leaving you high and dry for prospects to interview.

To reach the end goal of a hire, everyone must commit to working together. Your hiring managers need to understand the importance of providing an adequate and detailed job description. Recruiters need to provide the researchers with specific details of what is needed in an ideal candidate, as well as timely feedback. Researchers must check in frequently with recruiters to quality check their sourced prospects and determine if there have been any changes to the position. With all of these elements present, the trip to the Island of Hires should be fairly quick!

Attention local Cincinnati professionals!!!!

Put August 27^th 6:00 p.m. - 8:30p.m. on your calendars. Why??

LinkedCincinnatiLIVE Networking Meeting

$5 at the door to cover costs of space rental, cash bar & refreshments

Attend the first LinkedCincinnati LIVE Networking meeting to meet and network with other area business professionals where you can identify people, resources and information helpful to you in growing your professional career and business. Our first meeting will be a fun and informal networking gathering, with more opportunities to meet and connect coming in the future!

Also at the LinkedCincinnati LIVE meeting, there will also be an opportunity to bid on several fantastic Silent Auction items, with proceeds going to support two of our members (Amybeth Hale & Jennifer McClure) who are responsible for raising 100% of the cost of their trips to South Africa ($6,000) in November 2008 to build homes, plant gardens, and share business expertise and resources with the South African people. (Networking South African style!) Participation in the Silent Auction is completely voluntary, and we have some great items donated so far, including professional conference tickets (to SourceCon ‘08 – worth over $1,000!), awesome gift items, gift cards, etc.! (If you would like to donate a product or service to the Silent Auction, please contact Amybeth Hale at amybeth@researchgoddess.com or Jennifer McClure at CincyRecruiter@gmail.com.

A special thanks to Nora Rubinoff of At Your Service Cincinnati for donating her time to investigate the meeting spaces and resources that were suggested for LinkedCincinnati events! Nora came to our attention recently with some great responses to requests for resources on our LinkedCincinnati Yahoo discussion group, and she and her team have delivered fantastic results! Please check out Nora’s website, and if you have a need for Virtual Assistant services, I recommend that you contact her right away!

Nora Rubinoff of At Your Service Cincinnati, offers certified Master Virtual Assistant services include project management, customer relationship management, event management, e-mail marketing campaigns, research & analysis, productivity enhancement, social media & new media support, WordPress blog creation & support, presentations and other virtual office services. Additionally, AYS offers affordable small business web design, maintenance and hosting including green and carbon neutral web hosting. Nora is enthusiastic about the technical end of things – she enjoys architecting solutions that enable her clients to make more out of their business day.  Visit http://www.aysweb.com

We look forward to seeing you on August 27^th at the Sharonville Convention Center!

I’ve recently become a fan of the TruTV series Black Gold (by the creators of Deadliest Catch which I also love!). The show is about Texas oilfields and goes through the process of what it takes to drill a hole that could produce oil. I love the show because it’s about a bunch of tough guys, known in the oil business as roughnecks, doing hard physical work that I wouldn’t dream of doing, and also because there are so many similarities between drilling for oil and research.

When digging a hole for oil, drillers have a general idea of where they should be digging. However, there is no guarantee that their hole will produce oil. Even with the most sophisticated geological instruments, there is no guarantee that a selected site will produce any revenue.

As with research, we can come across a resource that would appear to be valuable. This resource might be a list of names or links, and is something we get excited about. However, there is no guarantee that the information we need or want is buried somewhere within the links, or can be found through further investigation.

Once a rig is set up and a hole is started, there are many things that could affect drilling and the amount of time it takes to drill that 2 mile deep hole. Faulty equipment, an inexperienced hand, rough layers of earth, and many other things can slow the process down, sometimes even to a grinding halt.

When conducting research, there are also many things which can affect the speed at which research can be conducted. Insufficient, or inefficient, sourcing tools, a new or inexperienced researcher, or simply lack of information available for a specific resource, can slow research down. Not having the appropriate tools with which to conduct research will cause the researcher to have to work much harder to find information. A newer researcher who has not learned some of the shortcuts or doesn’t know where to go for information will take longer to complete a task. And of course, if there is little or no data available, that of course makes the search harder as well.

When it’s all said and done and the crew has drilled 2 miles into the earth, even at that point in time there is still no guarantee that the work they’ve done will produce anything of value. There might be no oil in the hole and the oil company, which probably risked somewhere around $2MM, would have gambled and lost.

With research, when you’ve completed a search assignment, there is no guarantee that any contact will result in a hire. There is no guarantee that a recruiter will even use your list, reach out to those contacts, or even find what they’re looking for in your research.

So, what’s the payoff? In drilling for oil, when a supply of oil is found, it could mean millions of dollars every year and several hundred millions over the life of the well. In research, you could call the ‘black gold’ of research the networking that can result from contacts. A researched list of, let’s say, 40 contacts could result in hundreds of additional contacts that are referred from the originals. And of course, there are always the hires and placements that can result from a good contact list. BUT - you never know until you take a chance and put forth the effort.

Not every endeavor will be fruitful. But the times that do produce good results will outweigh and overshadow the times where nothing good is uncovered. Just ask anyone from Texas in the oil business. It’s risky, but the risk is worth it when you hit paydirt. The same applies to research - it can be a bit of a risk to spend time on a new resource, or an untested method but you’ll never know what good may come of it unless you give it a shot.

Ahh just like The Waitresses…or Christina Aguilera’s tasteless re-make, I know what boys like…well, not me personally. You guys continue to be a mystery to me. But apparently, there are some folks in the PR world who have determined that PR is NOT what boys like!

My co-worker pointed this article out to me yesterday, one which states that there is a serious shortage of men in the PR industry. David Mullen wrote a response to an article found in PR Week:

“…I recently visited a senior PR campaigns class as a judge for student campaign presentations. In a class of probably 35 students, there were two men. In April, I headed back to my alma mater to interview PR students for internship positions at my agency. I met with a LOT of students that day, 95 percent of whom were PR majors. Of that 95 percent, I met one man.”

Mullen wonders why the topic of gender diversity in Public Relations isn’t discussed. In the article that spurred his response, Tom Martin writes, “We need to reach out in creative, new ways…” which sounds not-surprisingly similar to a battle cry coming from the recruitment, and specifically the sourcing, communities. The only difference being that this outreach in PR needs to be directed at the “bright young men on our college campuses” to “remind them of the many attributes a career in the communications field offers”.

David Ambrose takes this one step further in his response/follow up post on the topic by saying that this need for outreach in new and creative ways needs to be coupled with a serious assessment of pay:

“Pay is lackluster within the industry standard, especially considering those who bring a certain expertise and knowledge in one subject area, when compared to classmates in other industries.”

Ambrose thinks that stagnation has caused a neglect in the development of young leaders, saying that “this industry’s thought leaders of tomorrow (I would even argue, today) are under our noses but…many professionals play the game of bureaucratic diplomacy, erring always on the side of caution.” He continues on to say, “The time is ripe for agencies to take risks, investing in young, smart and eager social capital to help drive innovation (and if they are lucky, strategy) for years to come.”

Do we need to focus more on gender diversity in public relations? Or is there another underlying issue that must be addressed first? Please feel free to share your thoughts!