"Qualified Referral" or "Potential Candidate"?
By Maureen Sharib
This thing we do, this product we provide, “sourced names” – the process surrounding it - seems to have a whole bunch of angst accompanying it in the recruiting community as to what cranny to assign it to. There’s a contingency calling for definitions and there’s a mighty struggle beginning to evolve over on Sourcers Unleashed about it.
I don't care what you call it as long as you recognize the amount of great time it takes to "dig out" these individuals and the great value they represent on the front end of any search. This is what gets overlooked in the general melee of a staffing organization – and because "sourcers" and "researchers" are usually "quiet" folk by nature many of them "go along" with the program that's usually created by some Director level who doesn't "get" what it is a sourcer/researcher does and how they do it. They don't get what
makes a sourcer "tick" and it is this general forgetfulness in the respect afforded a sourcing organization that causes so many of the breakdowns in functioning we are hearing about today.
To refer back to the real estate industry and the role of a great lister: A great lister is rare, he doesn't even have to "sell" - that function will naturally be taken care of by the greater horde of agents that don't "get" how to list. That old adage I mentioned earlier, "You can't sell it if it's not on the shelf" is SO TRUE. A
listing agent's percentage is usually as great or greater than a selling agent's commission and many times in an office you will see the income of a great lister far outstrip the earnings of the selling agents.
We have a model that is viewed as turned on its head by most staffing organizations only because most staffing organizations really don't get what it is a sourcer brings to the table. That is the critical reason the Sourcers Unleashed and the ASK Maureen groups were formed and is the driving force behind my involvement in getting the word out about sourcing. I think my comrades-in-arms (Shally, Glenn, Barbara and Jim) feel this way as well. A long time ago we used to refer to sourcing as the "red-headed stepchild", beatings applied regularly though needed or not. Today it is slowly gaining the respect that many first-born children born into large families teem with – the recognition of the Type A personality and what it can bring to the drive component of an organization.
As Shally's call for specialization just reminded, focusing on the talents and skill sets of the individuals in an organization is critically important in staffing, just as it is in any department. Sourcing/research brings a wild value to an organization and it's way past time it be accorded the respect it deserves.
“No one understands that you have given everything. You must give more.” ~ Antonio Porchia, Voces, 1943, translated from Spanish by W.S. Merwin
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Maureen Sharib is a seasoned telephone names sourcer, names sourcing since 1997. She and her husband Bob own the names sourcing firm TechTrak.com and Maureen telephone-names sources daily as well as teaches telephone-names sourcing in her online telephone names sourcing course "The Magic In The Method." She can be reached by email at Maureen at techtrak.com or by phone at (513) 899-9628. Maureen will come on-site to your company to teach telephone names sourcing to your sourcers.
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