Sourcing Outsourcing

Why do you think staffing agencies are not finding much success with off-shore sourcing teams?

It is neither the time difference nor the perceived language barrier (there are more English speakers in India than the US) that hinders your success in using off-shore resources. It is the fact that we do not celebrate sourcing as the most important task in the staffing process flow.

I believe that the size of one’s staffing database, is irrelevant. A good recruiter can staff up any opportunity, if she has the aptitude and tenacity to know what and where to look. I am sure you also have numerous examples of your own recruiting success because your sourcing strategy was better than the internal and external competition’s. Sourcing is everything that stands in your way of putting the right person on project and generating billing dollars. 

 

My two step recommendati0n to underscore the importance of sourcing for you is to:

1. Accept that sourcing is the most important task in the staffing workflow
2. Find tenacious people and train and retrain them in sourcing strategies

 

ACCEPTANCE:

Recruiting success begins with your acknowledgment that sourcing is the most important task in the staffing workflow. Make no mistake, it is absolutely the most important task in the staffing workflow. Sourcing is what separates the wheat from the chaff. Good sourcing relies on an individual’s tenacity and aptitude, which are excellent skills for any person to possess. Such an individual is also a hard-worker with a focus on results. So finding someone that can demonstrate good sourcing skills, will help you find top notch recruiters, even if you are hiring from outside our industry.

Acceptance of “the sourcing mantra” starts with:

1. Acknowleding that sourcing is an “intelligence function”, not grunt work
2. Spending more time and effort on identifying the right sourcers
3. Setting and rewarding a good source-to-deal ratio (example – 20:1)

 

TRAINING

 

As you know, recruiting is an art and practising and learning about it only makes recruiters better at their work. Since there is not much science to it, you need to try various strategies and ideas to find a path to success. You may know of many companies, and yours may be one as well, where recruiters are hired, given initial training and then left to fend for themselves. You don’t find the the time to retrain them or hold round-table discussions to talk about ideas, strategies or problem-solving. When you expand this approach to your outsourced sourcers, it only gets more sticky.

While you may plan to retrain your recruiters on a regular basis, you can experience tremendous sourcing success as well by:

1. Prefering sourcers with a Master’s degree and some staffing experience 
2. Reviewing every resume submitted to your recruiters
3. Meeting weekly to discuss performance issues

I believe that staffing success begins with both the acceptance of the importance of sourcing and being dedicated to (re)training sourcers regularly. Sourcing is not grunt work, even if it feels like the heavy lifting you don’t want to do. While it sounds great if you or your team came to work in the morning and had a nice list of 10 people per requisition to call on, it is a simplistic view that dilutes the importance of having the correct 10 candidates on that list.

Advertisement

Happy 30th Birthday To Me

I am giving myself the CEO spot on UAC Inc.

The New Global We

Presenting to you, The New Global We. This is a new era, where no matter who you are, life has changed.

I had been quite sick with the layout of my blog for a while. Then this morning I decided to change it all to reflect the changes in my own life.

The New Global We is a significant phrase. “We” because “Us” sounds more apathetic to the new world we live in today. “We” symbolizes a group of people huddled closely together with a feeling of connectedness. Speaking of that, here is a post by Seth Godin (someone I don’t particularly like) that was, I think, a nice way to sum up common sense about the power of the Internet.

My friend Rajesh Setty is writing a new book called “Facing the Layoff AND doing it anyway” and is looking for tips, so please send some to him. This is another “We” experiment. If it were “Us”, then he’d write a book and tell you to do things a certain way.

Welcome to The New Global We. This is where the guys who elbowed the rest of us out of the way, sorely lose. Today, during these layoffs, the power of “We” is much greater. Plus the new theme helps me cover much more than just experiments in my life!

Thank you for your patronage.

Hillarious Recording!

A customer trying to teach the poor Verizon folks some basic math!

Enjoy!

Free At Last

I was laid off just this past Friday. But I’ve got to say that it was a relief after the crazy 4 years spent building it into one of the fastest-growing private companies in the US as recognized by Inc Magazine.

Hopefully I’ll find time to put together a set of lessons learned from my time there and it will be of some value to you.

Send your best wishes my way!

Absolutely hillarious about me

One of the very few genuinely cool About Me’s I’ve ever seen!

Bank of America Customer Service Issue – Update

Someone has been listening at the Bank of America corporation.

Last night, I got a call from Tara ***** (last name blanked out to protect identity), from the Executive Relations and Office of the Chairman. She read my blog after receiving the email from the PR/Communications team and called me to profusely apologize for the issue. She said that the 0% APR reinstatement and the $39 fee are unrelated, i.e., just because the 0% was reinstated, it doesn’t mean that the $39 fee cannot be refunded. She also said that the representatives (the one that threw me off the line and the other who would only give me 1/2 fee off because he was not “authorized” to refund the whole fee) AND the manager who never called me back, will be coached. Apparently, representatives are permitted to refund this fee.

Not only did Bank of America refund the other half of the fee, but it also has extended a $50 Amazon gift card as an apology for the inconvenience. Of course, Tara also made sure that I understood that I will need to make payments after the 22nd, which believe me, I will not forget! And if I do forget and end up committing the same mistake, then shame on me.

Here are some take-aways from this situation and I think it applies to both small and large businesses:

1. People generally at the top (either as pure managers or as owner/managers) care about what others say.

2. Everything is radically transparent: Information on LinkedIn helped me contact Bank’s Communications team

3. Don’t be a brat when trying to solve a problem – remember the person at the other end is just like you.

4. The web is POWERFUL!

I say the take-aways are similar for large and small companies because I faced a similar situation a month ago. A client of my employer’s wanted us to make good on a consulting engagement that was not completed as promised. While they had approved the work after it was done, they soon realized that it was actually incomplete. Now, I could have hemmed and hawed like a colleague of mine did when she heard this news, but my focus was crystal clear – we have to do what it takes to satisfy this client because it is about the overall relationship. It is never about this one transaction so while in the short run we lost some money, in the mid to long term, we have generated extremely positive brand recognition.

So, thank you Tara for the pleasant call last night and acknowledging that there was no logic behind what transpired. You are the right person to call in such situations because you could have been nonchalant about it, but you were not. You said the right things and hopefully learned a little from this situation as well. Please feel free to send in a comment on the issue.

A hearty thank you for everyone who commented on the previous posts – I believe in the power of us.

The Google Browser

Chrome, is the new project that Google is working on, set to deliver a new browser that will take advantage of the media rich internet.

I am a little intimidated because as of today, Google is able to track my search patterns and tries to deliver advertisements that it thinks I might click on. You have my word that I have NEVER clicked on even one, intentionally anyways. But now with a dedicated Google browser, how deep is their view into my browsing habits? While many books and theories out there suggest that people are irrational and can be directed to move in a certain way (and marketers thrive on this notion), I find it hard to imagine that Google and it’s data driven analysis of my searches makes my browsing and Internet experience any better. While it is undeniable that Google opened up the Internet through search, I am not so sure it improves or customizes my search experience.

In any case, as a one-trick pony, what is next for Google? How long can they continue feeding off of their ad revenue and funding these pursuits? Or is there nothing to be worried about?

Hyperbole

I apologize, I think calling my Bank of America situation a ‘tragedy’ is a travesty. It is more like ‘problem’ or ‘issue’. I should not have engaged in this hyperbole. My bad, especially because two things on my list of “things I detest” are:

1. Hyperbole

2. Megalomania

Bank of America Customer Service Tragedy – Update

Based on my recent problem with the bank, I wrote it’s PR/Communications team to give them a chance to respond. This is what one of them had to say:

Harsha – neither **** or I are in customer service.  I did forward your email to our customer relations team.  I will let you know what we hear back.

The reason I reached out to the PR team was because one cannot “buy” this kind of publicity (negative or positive) for 39 bucks. You’d imagine that a PR person would take notice – little drops make an ocean.  I also figured that they are probably the ones authorized to make a statement and I wanted them to have a chance to respond.

(I have blanked out the other person’s name in the email)