1. Ken Forrester Dec 2, 2009 at 9:42 am

   They say numbers dont lie, but in some cases they are meaningless. This is a perfect exmple.

2. Beverly Wilcox Dec 2, 2009 at 10:12 am

   Ken, are you just flaming, or do you have something to say?

3. Maureen Sharib Dec 2, 2009 at 10:21 am

   This is a wonderful case study. Thanks. I’d LOVE to see more!

4. Dave Pollock Dec 2, 2009 at 10:22 am

   I only see two issues here:

   1) Calling this a “study”.
   2) Equating a resume with an individual.

5. Maureen Sharib Dec 2, 2009 at 10:28 am

   Did anyone get hired?

6. Adam Zak Dec 2, 2009 at 10:30 am

   What Marty does not tell us is whether or not any of these “qualified” resumes in fact represented appropriately qualified candidates. Were any of these candidates subsequently interviewed and hired? And did the hiring managers then evaluate the performance of these individuals as successful, mediocre or dismal? Adam Zak, http://LeanRecruiter.com

7. Tammy Tamborini Dec 2, 2009 at 10:30 am

   Although the numbers are interesting, I would really like to see the results if it were the SAME position posted on both sites at the SAME time. That would have provided more meaningful stats.

8. William Ambrose Dec 2, 2009 at 10:32 am

   Am I missing something? If an accurate comparison of the two sites was the goal why were different jobs advertised, shouldn’t they have been the same job?

   Thanks for listening.

9. Maureen Sharib Dec 2, 2009 at 10:41 am

   I found the fact that Marty was willing to post DETAILS for us to wrap our minds around REFRESHING.

   SO FEW DO.

10. Brian Kevin Johnston Dec 2, 2009 at 10:41 am

    Linkedin is focused on “serving others”, and Careerbuilder is focused on “serving themselves/shareholders”… and the #’s prove this point…

    Marty- THANK YOU for taking the time to prove a point with facts, then having the vision (authentic/transparency)to share with your community…

    Best,
    Brian-
    http://www.johnstonsearch.com/about.php

11. Rachel Beck Dec 2, 2009 at 10:47 am

    Why weren’t the same positions posted on each site?

12. Todd Lempicke Dec 2, 2009 at 10:49 am

    We track this and always have better results with monster vs. CB in terms of a job board, with the best results using the resume search function rather than job postings. If you don’t find the people you want, you network with who you have. Note that Linkedin accounted for ~70% of our sourcing leads in the most recent 2 year period, especially at the higher levels.

13. Matthew Charney Dec 2, 2009 at 10:51 am

    I agree that the positions posted should be the same title to accurately gauge results; also, author posted to CB in June and July 2009 and LinkedIn in October. With the volatility of this market coupled with the normal difference in Q2-Q3 recruitment volume, this is pretty apples to oranges in terms of meaningful statistical comparison. I really like the premise, however.

14. Chad Pinkston Dec 2, 2009 at 10:55 am

    Interesting comparison. I’ve always agreed with quality over quantity. I would like to see the same posting on both sites to see how much candidate crossover exists too.

15. Elyse Williamson Dec 2, 2009 at 11:03 am

    Marty, thanks for posting such a detailed and straightforward review. It’s a good reminder that lots of factors (geography, timing, position title, etc) affect the quality of our results measured in “qualified leads.” It’s also nice to know that linkedin generated such good results for you for a geographic area such as Bourbonnais.

16. Phil Haynes Dec 2, 2009 at 11:11 am

    Please note “opinion” and “just one look”.
    Thanks Marty for sharing this data. I think it erroneous to try to translate this data to “hires” as suggested above.
    A job posting is simply designed to get you people you WANT to interview (not HIRE – that’s why we have an interview process right?). What happens to them after the go/no-go decision to interview is made is wracked with variables that absolutely do not translate to effectiveness of source. Big mistake to try to connect the two ends of the spectrum. If one of the $175 CB people got hired and none of the $18 LI people got hired would you then assume that LI was not effective? If you are going to require Marty to post the same job on the two boards at the same time, you also have to require the same interview process, interview team, time of day of interviews, candidate dress code etc…
    Let’s stop equating the channel of acquisition with the ultimate hire and simply be satisfied that we were able to get people we wanted to interview from our channel – thus doing it’s job.

17. Brian Kevin Johnston Dec 2, 2009 at 11:16 am

    Phil- Thank you… I have a confession…. You said exactly what I wanted to say, BUT I was “scared” for the backlash… So thanks so much…

    Sourcing is to “BUILD TALENT COMMUNITIES”, I really have to trust there will be a shift from the old paradigm to the new… (Phil clearly has the “vision”)

    Best to ALL,
    Brian-

18. Ken Levinson Dec 2, 2009 at 11:28 am

    I agree with some of the comments here. How can you do a comprative analysis when you’re posting different positions?

19. Todd Lempicke Dec 2, 2009 at 11:31 am

    Since we are on the topic of cost per hire, I would appreciate your thoughts on the impact on video screening and interviewing. Here is something I started (hey, I understand some of the logic and assumptions are flawed) but it would appear at a glance that at least for campus hiring, there could be a significant reduction in CPH.
    http://bit.ly/optimalcph

20. Sara Lynn Reno Dec 2, 2009 at 11:34 am

    Marty titles his article appropriately – “just one look” at cost per resume. It is not a scientific, controlled study, and there are other ways to look at cost per hire, but his article definitely provides some valuable insight. Thanks Marty!

21. Jo-Ann Hadaway Dec 2, 2009 at 11:50 am

    I also agree to the point that while the ultimate goal is a hire, the evaluation here is on what sources produces the best quality resumes. There are several factors that comes into play on whether that quality resume turnes into hire that has no reference onto the capabilities of the source used to find and locate candidates.

    However, I also would have like to see the results with the same positions posted in both places at the same time.

    That being said, thanks Marty for this information, it is always great to know what sources are working and what is worth looking into. We need more information and evaluations like this.

22. Stephanie Baudin Dec 2, 2009 at 12:01 pm

    I think this is a good article. However, I agree with the posters that I wish it were similar positions. I believe you chose a more broad category for CB: outside sales, cost estimator, and purchasing manager, With, LI it was a narrower focus: production supv, production planning supv, and plant manager. The LI searches seem to have a more narrow focus, yielding less results; while the CB searches seem to be more broad, yielding more results. In this particular situation, I think the results of the “data” have more to do with the types of searches and less to do with the sources.

23. peter leffkowitz Dec 2, 2009 at 12:24 pm

    Marty, Kudos to you for sharing.

    In a log cabin across the breezeway from my office, I have 14 brand new rookie recruiters that are a mix of 3rd party-ers and corporate recruiters from a 600 million dollar non for profit called, Boys’ Town.

    They were taught hard core phone to phone telesourcing skills in one hour using no technology other than a list of 20 companies that they had to bring and a charged cell phone. each one is recruiting for one hottest specific position on their plate…….They are at lunch right now and I am catching up on emails and this caught my eye.

    Here are their results:

    In one hour, 14 recruiters, most with less than 3 weeks in the biz generated 194 names of professionals with the target title or one step up or below the target title.

    How many of those names which were gotten by direct telesourcing do you think are listed on e-boards and what do you envision to be the difference in quality of work performance of those not advertising themselves?

    This afternoon, these same recruiters will be taught recruiting scripts for totally passive candidates and statisticall with what they will learn, they will produce 2 full phone “innerviews” for every 5 candidates they talk to……….still not a dime invested.

    One of those 2 candidates will be a submittal to the target client or have enough of a career wound coupled with high enough levels of performance to be marketed on the open market to companies that match their wish list.

    Any function that is openly available to the public without requiring human interactive skills (e-sourcing, running ads, etc) is destined to produce lower quality results than a technique that is based on the people skills needed to ethically infiltrate, with no rusing, and to connect emotively with another human. Nobody said it is easy making a lot of money. Money is connected to communicative skills and courage, non of which is necessary in using e-boards. Is it a tool?. Absolutely! Should it be anymore than 30% of a good recruiters toolbox?
    Nahhh.

    If anyone is interested, I’ll report the results of the rookies direct recruiting calls to the candidates they sourced this morning.

    Peter Leffkowitz, CEO
    http://www.morgancg.com

24. Maureen Sharib Dec 2, 2009 at 12:34 pm

    Peter! I’m VERY intereted.
    What a Bird’s Eye View you’ve presented here!

25. Steve Marsden Dec 2, 2009 at 12:41 pm

    No good deed goes unpunished, does it Marty? Good stuff.

26. Todd Lempicke Dec 2, 2009 at 12:41 pm

    Great stuff Peter! The telephone is the most overlooked form of social media. But are these 14 people working for free?

    One person can come up with 194 candidates using electronic recruiting in minutes, but surely networking is king.

27. Dave Pollock Dec 2, 2009 at 12:44 pm

    Peter –

    14 people in a building by your office, 14 cell phones, taught to make telmarketing calls, eating lunch, then taught recruiting scripts… “and still not a dime invested”. Uh… what?

28. Brian Kevin Johnston Dec 2, 2009 at 12:46 pm

    Thanks Steve Marsden… Marty is my HERO today… I bet he lays in bed at night and ask himself… “How may I serve” while others ask “How can I get”…

    PLZ Keep this conversation going… best one in months…

    Best, Brian-

29. Toby Nathan Dec 2, 2009 at 1:32 pm

    Thank you for sharing – great examples!

30. Marc Rodriguez Dec 2, 2009 at 2:15 pm

    I’d be more interested in the results of posting the exact same jobs (same job descriptions, etc) on each respective site. Then, looking at the results of resumes that came in from each site.

    I’d then be interested in seeing the total # of responses that came for each site/job, the total # of qualified responses for each site/job.

    Also, I would be interested in knowing how many common and unique responses came in–for both qualified and unqualified resumes–from each site. That is, is each site, by respective job, getting the same or different people to respond.

    Anyone got those numbers?

31. SmartBlog on Workforce » Blog Archive » Today’s bonus tracks: Does on-the-job holiday shopping pose an IT risk? Dec 2, 2009 at 2:34 pm

    [...] What’s your job-posting ROI? One HR manager finds out [...]

32. Cost per resume lower with LinkedIn job posts « Recruiting with LinkedIn Blog Dec 2, 2009 at 5:55 pm

    [...] lower with LinkedIn job posts Matt Warburton | December 2nd, 2009 | 3:55 pm ERE.net published an interesting article today on a cost per resume study conducted by Marty Brack.  Marty ran a test comparing CareerBuilder.com [...]

33. Sylvia Dahlby Dec 2, 2009 at 7:32 pm

    Interesting thread. While I also appreciate the sharing of these stats & experience, to say the methodology is subjective and non-scientific would be understatement.

    I don’t have a dog in this race, I’m not a recruiter & SmartSearch integrates with both CareerBuilder and LinkedIn for social networking. I concur with the comment this is comparing apples-to-oranges (like radio vs a job fair). Social media is the flavor of the month for job-seekers right now, any surprise that’s were the more enterprising unemployed people are gravitating?

    Besides, you’re also building an employment brand out there – and hopefully building a database of resumes where even those not qualified for a specific position may be a good fit elsewhere or in the future. The media mix of sources is always a moving target.

    Ultimately, if you only get ONE qualified resume from any source and that person was hired, it wouldn’t matter if that cost was 10x higher than another source that netted 10 qualified resumes.

    I’d be interested in an update on how this shakes out in terms of cost per hire.

34. Is Billing Analyst good first job for a finance graduate? Is it a good job title? | 2.0 Webstyle Dec 3, 2009 at 6:34 am

    [...] Just One Look at Cost Per Resume : ERE.net [...]

35. Careerbuilder wil het liefst een dinosaurus worden | Algemene vacaturesites | Recruitment Matters - Alles over online recruitment Dec 3, 2009 at 7:00 am

    [...] Angst voor sociale media Verder ziet Ferguson sociale media als een bedreiging, met als voornaamste gevaar: LinkedIn. En dat komt goed uit, want op een prijs per vacatureplaatsing scoort LinkedIn veel beter: [...]

36. Rob McIntosh Dec 3, 2009 at 10:48 am

    Interesting experiment. I agree with most that benchmarking the same position across multiple job boards would be a little more eye opening.

    I encourage all people should take the time to go through a deeper analysis of their job board strategy. I did this a few years back on comparing a few major job boards on overlap of candidates within both databases to determine where the best ROI was (see slide 79 in the deck I presented – http://www.slideshare.net/cambor/building-a-proactive-sourcing-function-to-fill-critical-positions)

    Outcome was we saved a lot of money by reducing where we posted and mined for candidates given the job family, location and complexity. I continue to go through this exercise on a regular basis as it helps build a solid strategic approach to getting the most out of job boards (particularly financially)

37. John Turnberg Dec 3, 2009 at 10:49 am

    Peter,

    I am interested to know how many of the 194 names were on Linkedin or Hoovers. Did you check to see? If you have not, I would be willing to do so and post the results here.

    John

38. Sara Lynn Reno Dec 3, 2009 at 11:02 am

    Rob,

    Would you be willing to send me your slide as an attachment? We are not able to access slide share here at the office. You can email me at sreno@rgis.com. I am curious to see more about your study.

    Thank you,

    Sara Reno
    Corporate Recruiter
    RGIS, LLC

39. Rob McIntosh Dec 3, 2009 at 11:25 am

    Apologies as the bracket at the end was included in the link. This should work for all now

    http://www.slideshare.net/cambor/building-a-proactive-sourcing-function-to-fill-critical-positions

40. Keith Halperin Dec 3, 2009 at 11:39 am

    I wish to commend Peter L on cutting through the standard assumptions. When you can get high-powered, experienced (aka, *Level II from Gen C’s terminology) telephone sourcing for $10/hr (or quality internet sourcing for $9/hr) or get a customized resume search on Monster, HotJobs, and CareerBuilder for $70-$85, WHY PLACE AN AD, PERIOD?

    Cheers,

    Keith Halperin keithsrj@sbcglobal.net

    *http://community.ere.net/groups/sourcing-techniques-and-methodologies/discussions/30666/

41. Todd Lempicke Dec 3, 2009 at 11:52 am

    Hi Keith – We get enough results with job postings that it is justified, and I suspect that some people hesitate to put their resume up on the boards for fear of the word getting out on their job search. If the recruiting fee is $15-30K+ range what’s the big deal with spending a couple hundred bucks on a job posting? You never know where the lead will come from, so why not pull out all of the stops?

42. Marty Brack Dec 3, 2009 at 1:07 pm

    Thanks for the comments, suggestions, and criticisms of my post. Several comments were made about the methodology so I thought I would respond.

    I recognize that this was not a rigorously controlled, experimental design, and that it is difficult to compare the results. I did not design this as an academic experiment, but was simply commenting on actual jobs I have recruited to fill. These are just my reflections on actual jobs I have posted using two different channels. Yes, it would have been a better comparison to post the same job at the same time on multiple sites and compare the results.

    My point is simply that LinkedIn did produce good candidates and, if you have not tried recruiting using this source or any other social networking site, it is worth taking a second look. My goal was to generate qualified candidates while minimizing the number of unrelated “drive-by” resume submittals.

    Like many of you, I learn something new every day. I’ve enjoyed reading your comments and appreciate your feedback.

    Marty Brack

43. Ken Forrester Dec 3, 2009 at 1:21 pm

    Thanks for putting an end to this thread Marty, I guess I may have mis-read your intent. I too have learned something from this: the power of social media must be managed and be respected.

44. Brian Anderson Dec 3, 2009 at 1:28 pm

    Marty

    Thanks for the post; while I appreciate the comments, at the end of the day, its time spent, cost per resume and learning which tool or tools add value to a recruiters tool box.

45. Keith Halperin Dec 3, 2009 at 3:56 pm

    Thank you, Todd. I appreciate your feedback. IMHO, there usually isn’t enough money available in the recruiting budget for everything, so instead of using it on passive/reactive, semi-relevant activities like running ads or developing branding, it is wiser to use money toward active and relevant approaches- operate under the belief that you’ll need to source every person you actually hire. For the cost of the CB ad ($360), Marty’s company could have had 36 hours of Level II direct phone sourcing, and nearly 20 hours with the LI ad ($195). I believe that the quality and perhaps quantity of candidates would be far superior than using the ads.

    Cheers,
    Keith Halperin keithsrj@sbcglobal.net

46. Maureen Sharib Dec 3, 2009 at 4:07 pm

    What is Level II direct phone sourcing? Can you explain what it is and what it costs and can you give us a verifiable “study” to support it? EXACTLY what is produced and how?

47. Keith Halperin Dec 4, 2009 at 1:10 pm

    Re: Maureen-
    What is Level II direct phone sourcing? Can you explain what it is and what it costs and can you give us a verifiable “study” to support it? EXACTLY what is produced and how?

    Better ask Glen C:

    The Two Levels of Candidate Sourcing

    Posted at October 20, 2009

    Many individuals and organizations treat the sourcing role and

    function of recruiting – searching for and identifying potential

    candidates – as an entry level position, and/or a simple and basic

    task that does not require much skill or experience.

    I agree.

    I believe that it does not take much skill or experience to simply

    transcribe job titles and required skill keywords into LinkedIn,

    Monster, or an ATS and click “search.”

    However, that oversimplified view of sourcing talent only describes

    the most basic level of talent identification, of which, I believe

    there are at least two.

    Level 1 Sourcing

    Level 1 Sourcing involves little more than taking titles and words

    from job descriptions and entering them into Internet search

    engines,

    social networks, job board resume databases, and applicant tracking

    systems to search for candidates.

    This is the proverbial “buzzword bingo,” and does not necessarily

    involve any real understanding (beyond surface level) of the roles,

    skills, responsibilities, or technologies involved in the hiring

    profiles or the candidates. These basic search terms produce search

    results that are then cursorily reviewed for keyword matching.

    Level 1 Sourcing involves a level of matching potential candidates

    to

    hiring profiles that is often superficial and generic – very little,

    if any, interpretive analysis is performed. This level of sourcing

    can

    in fact quite easily be performed by “junior” personnel/

    researchers –

    almost anyone can match keywords.

    Not only can Level 1 Sourcing be performed by junior associates, it

    can (and often is) outsourced for $5 – $7 an hour.

    However, don’t be fooled into thinking you are getting something

    fantastic for that $5 – $7 an hour – you’re getting exactly what

    you’ve paid for. Which is Level 1 Sourcing.

    In my opinion, there is no need to outsource Level 1 Sourcing,

    because

    it does not require any deep understanding of the roles being

    sourced

    for, nor does it involve any true analysis or creativity. As such,

    Level 1 Sourcing is well suited for total automation. Why pay people

    to match keywords when matching applications can do it for you for

    considerably less than $5 per hour?

    Many people are blissfully unaware of the fact that Level 1 Sourcers

    from any company will essentially find the same potential candidates

    as any other Level 1 Sourcer. It’s a simple equation: same

    keywords =

    same results. This is one of the reasons why Level 1 Sourcing

    provides

    no competitive advantage.

    Additionally, while Level 1 Sourcers can and will find SOME

    candidates, they will not and can not find ALL potentially qualified

    candidates available to them in the sources they are searching –

    that

    would be impossible, for many reasons that I’ve written about

    previously that are beyond the scope of this post.

    And finally, Level 1 Sourcers are typically unaware of the people

    that

    are in the ATS, job board resume database, or social network that

    they

    are searching that their queries did not return. In fact, to them,

    anyone that they don’t find simply doesn’t exist.

    Level 2 Sourcing

    This is the good stuff. Level 2 Sourcing moves well beyond simple

    keyword matching and most certainly beyond a basic mastery of

    Boolean

    logic.

    Boolean logic is easy to learn – after all, there’s only 3 main

    operators! However, the “magic” of leveraging databases and

    information systems for talent identification does not lie in the

    Boolean search operators themselves, but in the following process:

    Analyzing, understanding, and interpreting job opening/position

    requirements – including elements which may or may not be explicitly

    mentioned in the position description or BQ’s

    Taking that understanding and intelligently and creatively selecting

    titles, skills, technologies, companies, responsibilities, terms,

    etc., to include (or to purposefully exclude!) in a query employing

    appropriate Boolean operators and query modifiers

    Analyzing the results of the initial search to assess relevance as

    well as scanning the results for additional and alternate relevant

    search terms, phrases, and companies

    Based upon the observed relevance of and intel gained from the

    search

    results, modifying the search string appropriately and running it

    again

    Repeating steps 3 and 4 until an acceptably large volume of highly

    relevant results is achieved

    The “real” work of creating effective Boolean search strings lies in

    the interpretive analysis of the need, in determining what terms to

    include and exclude from searches and in what specific

    combination, in

    the analysis of the relevance of the initial search results, and in

    the adaptive process of learning from the results to creatively

    refine

    the Boolean search strings to find well qualified candidates –

    people

    who are highly likely to be (or know!) the right match for any

    particular hiring need.

    Unlike Level 1 Sourcing, Level 2 Sourcing involves and in fact

    requires a deeper understanding of the roles, skills,

    responsibilities, and technologies involved in the hiring profiles

    being sourced for. In this regard, Level 2 Sourcing goes well beyond

    explicit keyword matching and deep into implied experience and

    capability matching.

    In addition to finding all of the candidates that Level 1 Sourcers

    can

    find, Level 2 Sourcers can also find the candidates that Level 1

    Sourcers have access to, but can not and do not find. Interestingly,

    all Level 2 Sourcers will not find all of the same candidates,

    specifically due to their varying experience and creative and

    analytical ability.

    And unlike Level 1 Sourcers, Level 2 Sourcers are acutely aware of

    the

    candidates they have not found, because they understand that every

    Boolean string and search strategy will find some candidates, and

    exclude others.

    Level 2 Sourcing is Not a Junior Role and Cannot Be Automated

    It is precisely because of the aforementioned reasons that Level 2

    Sourcing cannot be performed by junior level associates – it is not

    an entry level role, nor can it be outsourced for $5 – $7 an hour.

    Okay, it CAN be outsourced at those rates, but you won’t get Level 2

    results. Remember, you get what you pay for.

    Level 2 sourcing cannot be automated, regardless of what the vendor

    representatives of “artificial intelligence” resume parse/match

    applications may claim. This is because Level 2 sourcing requires “a

    posteriori” knowledge – which comes from experience, which comprises

    knowledge and skill gained through involvement and exposure.

    Applications do not accumulate experience or gain knowledge or

    skill,

    in the true sense of the terms.

    AI matching applications essentially perform a form of pattern

    recognition to classify data through parsing resumes and employing a

    keyword/phrase taxonomy, which is built based on “a priori”

    knowledge/

    information extracted from the patterns and programmed into the

    matching logic.

    I recently spoke at the PDS Technology Conference and had the

    honor of

    seeing Dr. Michio Kaku present on the world of 2020 and beyond. Dr.

    Kaku believes that “Progress in artificial intelligence may come

    to a

    gradual halt around 2020. The two problems facing AI are pattern

    recognition and common sense.”

    I was happy to hear that Dr. Michio Kaku believes that the

    employment

    market of the future will be “dominated by jobs involving common

    sense

    (e.g. leadership, judgment, entertainment, art, analysis,

    creativity)

    and pattern recognition (e.g. vision and non-repetitive jobs). Jobs

    like brokers, tellers, agents, low level accountants and jobs

    involving inventory and repetition will be eliminated.”

    That’s great news for anyone performing Level 2 Sourcing, primarily

    because it requires creativity, interpretive analysis, judgment, and

    common sense (a natural understanding based upon experience) – four

    things that machines and applications are intrinsically incapable

    of.

    Unlike AI matching applications, Level 2 Sourcers intrinsically

    understand that resumes and social media profiles are imperfect and

    incomplete representations of the people who created them, and that

    they often do not explicitly mention all of their skills and

    experience. As such, Level 2 Sourcers are not only able to find

    qualified candidates based on the words they use – many can also

    specifically search for and find people who have experience that

    they

    do not mention. In other words, some Level 2 Sourcers can find

    people

    based on what they don’t say. This is a skill that can only be

    developed over time from observation and experience.

    Final Thoughts

    Level 1 Sourcing can be performed by entry level associates or be

    completely automated, as the level of matching produced is

    superficial

    and based primarily on explicit keyword and phrase matching. This

    can

    be quite sufficient for static and repetitive hiring needs for

    simple

    hiring profiles, where title searches will often suffice.

    The value and the results provided by Level 1 and Level 2 Sourcing

    is

    vastly different – this is why some organizations see the sourcing

    function as a low level or junior role, simply outsource it for $5 –

    $7 and hour, or completely automate it. Interestingly, there are

    sourcers who make $50 to over $100 an hour, and they are worth every

    penny for the competitive advantage and value they provide to the

    organizations they support.

    Dr. Michio Kaku would classify Level 1 Sourcing as ”commodity based

    capital,” in that it is a product that is the same no matter who

    produces it – man, woman, or machine.

    People who perform Level 2 Sourcing are true knowledge workers,

    whose

    value is intellectual capital – based in creativity, judgment,

    analysis, ”common sense” and “a posteriori” knowledge developed over

    time based upon experience – similar to senior Financial Analysts,

    Business Analysts, Data Analysts and Business Intelligence Analysts.

    Level 2 Sourcers produce a product that is quite different based on

    who produces it, and it cannot be reliably replicated by machines.

    To be sure, one could easily break Level 2 Sourcing out to at

    least 3

    different levels, because to lump everything more advanced and

    sophisticated than Level 1 Sourcing into one broad category is

    horribly limiting, but for the purposes of this article, it shall

    suffice.

    Human Capital Data data is the sword of the 21st century – those who

    wield it well are the Sourcing Samurai.

48. Maureen Sharib Dec 4, 2009 at 1:15 pm

    No, Keith I read that.
    I want to know where Level 2, the “good stuff” can be procured for $10/hour as you’ve been proclaiming. I’d sure like to hire my phone sourcing out at $10/hr.

49. peter leffkowitz Dec 4, 2009 at 2:55 pm

    Wow! I never though this feed would take on a life of it’s own like this. I had 31 emails sent to me through our web site, since Wed. afternoon.This is great. But what I am finding out is, there are an incredibly large amount of recruiters out there that really have no concept of cold call sourcing or are shy of doing it because it involves real voice to voice strategy on the phone to verbally pull an org chart out of an admin.

    The clear cut advantage is that the majority of names/titles that are gleaned are not listed on the classic general big boards: Monster, CareerBuilder, Dice, Workopolis, etc. Sure, tons of “passives” are found through LinkedIn, and well planned search strings…that’s why I recommend them as one tool for my students of Morgan Method Training (www.morgancg.com) as well as my own search firm (www.morgan2020.net). But only at 30%. The 70% is spent by taking one half hour everyday, from 1:30pm to 2:00pm to call as many companies that are applicable to the search, as one can and ask, Who is the Director of Whatever?”… “and in her absence who is second in command?”….”and as I understand it, there are 2 or 3 department heads that report to her. Is that correct?”

    Skillfully taught recruiters can drill all the way down WITHOUT lying or rusing. At least the way we teach it. Of course there are skillful rebuttals and ways “out” of being 3rd degreed and ways to turn the call into an in-bound marketing call.

    Recruiters taught these techniques average almost one name per minute. Employed, heads down, buried in strong work, professionals who 70% of the time are not being bulldozed by a thousand recruiters. It’s one of the reasons that we have 3rd party first year rookie recruiters billing 200+K during this recession.

    I think it’s all about watching the crowd and moving in the opposite direction.

    Tom, Keith and Maureen, to your questions;
    On Wednesday, 14 recruiters spent one hour in tele-sourcing training (learning what an IT org chart looks like in a large classic company, an accounting dept, nursing and GeoThermal manufacturing…they were taught who reports to whom).

    I demo’ed 4 calls: producing an average of 6 names per call. We role played and then I sent them out on their cell phones to keep calling until lunch time.

    Results: 194 names, in 55 mins., of which 14 were admins, net:180 appropriate titles within one level up or down of targeted search.

    Observations: 171 sourced names came from 3rd party recruiters, 9 from corporate recruiters. 6 out of the 9 came from people they knew inside the firm who gave them names. Highly uncomfortable with the excercise and for the most part chose not to participate. (of course this is a program designed for 3rd party recruiters. Corporate recruiters got much more benefit out of the recruiting call and interviewing training modules on day 2 and 3)

    Fast forward to Thursday.

    Assignment: from 10:30 to 12pm call as many of the sourced names as you can, delivering our version of a “PREcruiting call” without discussing a position. Find out if the candidate is positioned for growth at this time and if so, set a full fledged one hour “innerview” to determine strengths, career wounds and wishlists for future.

    Results: (again participation limited to 3rd party recruiters, corp recruiters, with exception of one, didnt have enough names to fill an hour, nor didnt take to the idea of building candidate relationship without a job to pitch)

    14 recruiter participants conducted
    21 full recruiting conversations, resulting in 9 arranged “innerviews” for Friday and following Monday.

    Tom, per your question of how many of the 180 viable sourced titles were on LinkIn or Hoovers? I had Cindy run it (which by itself took almost2 hours in between handling phone calls)and the results were…ready?

    61 on LinkIn (we don’t have Hoovers.)

    119 professional, roughly between 60K and 250K (my guess only) were not found on Linkin. I thought it would be higher than that. But that’s the number.

    Scientific? Hell no.
    Moral of the story? There is none. Sourcing should be a mixed bag of tricks. Everyone teaches e-sourcing, so everyone e-sources. 2 trainers, maureen and myself teach tele-sourcing.

    About 1200 recruiters a year come to Tall Pony Ranch to add ‘Old school’ uniqueness to their new school methodologies. It’s all about mix, brother, and not Overdosing on what comes easiest.

    I am not much of a bloger. I don’t expect to return here daily, but feel free to communicate through morgancg.com. which I do check daily.
    Thanks for letting me participate.
    p

50. Diggings » A Good Case For Rethinking Your Thinking… Dec 15, 2009 at 3:21 pm

    [...] to a friend Marty Brack, in a recent ERE post, provides an excellent case study in rethinking traditional methods of recruitment advertising. In [...]

51. Toby Dayton Dec 16, 2009 at 11:03 pm

    I posted a few additional comments about this article in my blog. Here is the post…

    Marty Brack, in a recent ERE post, provides an excellent case study in rethinking traditional methods of recruitment advertising. In the test, he analyzed the cost per quality resume using both Careerbuilder and LinkedIn. Not surprisingly, given how horrendously Careerbuilder and Monster (the 2 most bloated, polluted, antiquated, pay-to-post behemoths) typically perform for employers, LinkedIn delivered far superior results. LinkedIn provided almost as many applicants as Careerbuilder, but a higher percentage of their candidates were qualified for the positions advertised. This resulted in a much lower cost per quality candidate and therefore a much higher ROI. In addition to just providing solid information, the article delivers 3 important lessons for recruiters, employers, and even job seekers.

    1) While the hype can seem excessive, and in some cases it probably is, social media has become an essential, mandatory component of recruiting efforts and companies must be thinking both strategically and tactically about how they can best leverage it. (One simple example would include automatically publishing jobs from a company’s career portal on their corporate website onto their company’s Facebook Fan Page using the Facebook application Current Jobs At Our Company).

    2) Just because someone has used Careerbuilder and Monster forever (and maybe, circa 1997, they even worked), it doesn’t automatically mean that the decision to continue using pay-to-post job boards is a good one or makes any sense in today’s environment. As people used to say about the daily newspaper, no one ever got fired for placing an employment classified in the daily newspaper. That is, until someone else eventually looked at the recruitment advertising budget, questioned why the company was spending $750 or more per week for a black and white liner ad that no one saw, and decided that it was time to bring in some fresh thinking regarding talent acquisition strategies. The same thing is happening now with the job boards.

    Only 3% of jobs are filled by ‘mega’ job boards such as Monster, Careerbuilder, and HotJobs. They are not only expensive and bloated, but they simply do not deliver quality candidates. Equally as detrimental for employers, the pay-to-post job boards are filled with old, outdated job listings, work-at-home scams, phishing jobs, scam jobs, identity theft postings, and other garbage listings which seriously erode the user experience and potentially a company’s employment branding. This means, as well, that aggregators such as Indeed and Simplyhired that do nothing more than mash all of those bloated, polluted databases into a giant pile of garbage are equally as counter-productive.

    There are better, cheaper, more efficient, more effective, and more transparent ways to advertise for jobs. And job search engines such as LinkUp, which only indexes jobs from company websites, offer a performance-based, per-click model so employers only pay for those job seekers that are delivered straight to the company’s career portal on their company website.

52. Ayez des Planches de Travail a Sauté le Requin et Voir Comment Nick Corcodilos Aide général X/Y en Exposant Un de Leurs Conseillers | Ce qui Irait le Papa Dire Dec 29, 2009 at 11:31 am

    [...] Brack, dans un récent AVANT le poste, fournit une étude de cas excellente dans le fait de repenser des méthodes traditionnelles pour la [...]

53. Sam Jobs Mar 18, 2010 at 7:05 am

    I some how feel that the future of this industry lies in providing SaaS (Pay per action) based services only.. There are companies already that are doing it but on a grand scale.. Lets see, which company innovates here..

Post a comment