Surviving Week 1, the Seattle Agenda, and Favorite Posts

I have managed to survive my first three days as Editor of SourceCon! My primary focus this week (apart from learning to use a Mac again) has centered on two themes:

One of the first things I jumped in to was preparing the agenda for SourceCon Seattle – I need your help on this… If you know of anyone that you would like to hear speak, or if you have any ideas for sessions, please be sure to email me. My predecessor, Lance, left me with a list of speakers he had started conversations with. I am continuing those conversations and reaching out to other prospective presenters. Look for more details on the final agenda early in June!
My second priority is recruiting additional contributors for SourceCon – Whether you have never blogged before, or you are a seasoned veteran, we should talk. What has made SourceCon so special over the years is that it has been a place for practitioners to share knowledge with the rest of the sourcing and recruiting community. I would love to hear from all of you interested in contributing guest posts. Are you sourcing with a new tool? Have you discovered a new way to source a site that you want to show your peers? If you aren’t sure what to write about, I would be happy to give you some ideas to get started.

Early this week I selected four of my favorite SourceCon posts that I think are timeless.

The Boolean Five All-Stars: Fame, Fortune, and a Free Happy Meal – John Childs 8/16/2011 – John Childs is a former engineer that has a unique ability to train people to write Boolean srtings. This post is an essential read for people new to Boolean search. If you’re a person responsible for training people, John’s simple logic will help you break down the process of writing Boolean search strings in to simple steps that anyone can understand.
Top 10 Candidate Sourcing Best Practices – Glen Cathey 1/10/2011 – If you’ve been around the sourcing world at all over the last 5 years you know that Glen is one of the most respected thought leaders in the space. In this piece Glen unpacks a lot of his ideas in to 10 primary best practices. You should read more of his work on your own, but this quick read will give you a great start.
10 Common Mistakes of Sourcing – Amybeth Hale 10/26/2011 – Using the opposite approach as Glen Cathey in the previous link, AmyBeth discusses the top mistakes sourcers make.
Building a Sourcing Strategy Beyond Linkedin – Lance Haun 10/16/2012 – SourceCon contributors have written a number “How To” posts over the years. Lance shares some of the best in this article.

What should you expect in the next week? I’m now fully integrated into the team and ready to go, so expect me to pick up the pace next week. I am working with military sourcing expert, Dean DaCosta, on a 3 part series about sourcing for military candidates. Expect the first post in the series early in the week. I will also be sharing sourcing tips and tricks from 2 other guest contributors.

What do you want to see more of on SourceCon? Let me know in the comments section below.