I spent a good amount of time trying to post what follows to the original post in reply to a rebuff from John.  To no avail. Apparently a plug-in on John’s site may have become unplugged. Feel free to post your comments here or there, at this point it may not matter.

Anyway, reluctant to break the thread, or retire for the night with this undone, here is my closing argument…

John,

I think we can agree that postulating, while helping us work through our thinking on the subject, is unlikely to result in our synthesizing a new paradigm for the industry, let alone rock the world for any employer who might be reading this. So, if you’ll indulge my replying to your comments it is only because I have been reflecting on these things of late and your post provides a safe place for me to fall, not because I want to engage you in a sisyphean debate which will have us both pooped-out before Sunday brunch.

You say, “Sometimes we fall into the trap of confusing sourcing (candidate flow) with recruiting (the right candidates).” That is, indeed, true. I would not split hairs except to say that sourcing is a function of identifying talent while candidate flow is as a result of attraction and engagement. Perhaps it is in the hairline difference between those kinds of thing that has us perplexed.

If research drives sourcing then branding drives attraction and engagement. Clearly, both activities contribute to the volume and quality of candidate flow but attraction and engagement alone carries things to, and beyond, the assessment phase. If qualifying candidates is a function of Sourcing [even up to the point of transitioning a person from candidate to applicant] then it is Recruiting’s responsibility to validate Sourcing’s product through candidate assessment. In other words, Recruiting regulates candidate flow and, ultimately, owns quality control too.

I guess these are the types of distinction some people make describing sourcing [as in talent pool and supply] versus candidate flow [as in talent pipeline/recruiting demand]. No doubt, for others it is yet another source of process-driven befuddlement.  Dare we completely alienate them by distinguishing the difference between recruiting, employer branding, sales and marketing so that at some point those things might be effectively integrated? God, no! What am I thinking!

Perhaps some of our confusion comes about because we don’t have an universal process-speak that describes where and when things like sourcing stop and recruiting kicks in, or how candidate sourcing might be different from sales prospecting, and so on.  Do we argue the toss about what those things mean in effect because we are still undecided on what they mean in practice?

We could split hairs ad infinitum but I sense some may be given to pulling their hair out if I did — or worse kick me in the follicles — and before we resolve other areas of persistent puzzlement. Questions like, “Whose brand is it anyway?” and “How does this brand thing scale/translate?” comes to mind when we talk about RPO and TPR outsourcing for example, if we ever ask those essential questions at all.

I’d like to propose an alternative reading for “the more candidates you have, the more qualification and screening you have to do.” If we can agree that, like it or not, recruiting is hard work can we also agree that, like farmers, it is our process and practice that ultimately decides whether we break our backs whacking weeds or do it reaping a bumper crop. Either way, it’s back breaking work, no less exhausting than changing an employer’s orientation from a reactive to a proactive one.

When I read, “The trouble with your argument is that it ignores the cost of discovering the gems in your database,” I am comforted that you don’t point out the other half-dozen flaws in my argument. In my defense, when it comes to the cost of mining gems, it is not something I ignore. As it happens, I’ll be the first to admit I have wasted a hundred-fold and more on “banner ads, reciprocal links, targeted content, search engine placement, keyword development, job board advertising and outright traffic purchases.” Hell, I’ve spent literally millions of other people’s dollars running full-page ads in USA TODAY and still daydream about what I could do with that money now.

Like you, I haven’t found “a tool that effectively does the right level of screening at effectively zero cost,” and I have long since given up looking for one. Experience tells me that “zero cost” in recruiting is a misnomer. Having failed spectacularly on more than one occasion to build databases and tracking systems for next-to-nothing I am persuaded that, like in any other business, in recruiting you get what you pay for.

Moving on, [and just between you and me, John] the only thing “Boolean hay” is good for is finding an occasional needle and elevating straw men to logical beings. What can I tell you about my progress in that department? Suffice it to say, I’m still rollicking, follicles firmly in hand.

As far as databases go, it is true the efficacy of search remains unproven. However, I don’t think failures to deploy enterprise-wide search in recruiting necessarily indicates a shortcoming in the search tools or techniques themselves. Rather it highlights one of the problems of a misaligned sourcing strategy and branding effort. That misalignment leads to enough “garbage in” to guarantee a good measure of “garbage out.” But don’t blame the messenger.

You are also right to point out that dedicated data mining is not something any Tom, Dick or Harriett can do. You say, “That a focused player can sift some crap in or out of the database is not the question,” and again we are agreed. But sifting crap in or out of the database is not the answer to anything either.

Suppose our distraction with perennial problems keeps us from focusing on sustainable solutions, and the resulting systems we implement continue to fall short of what the lowest common denominator needs. How hard would it be then for us to cost justify acquiring the more evolved recruiting skills we obviously need to get the job done? Surely, if we can increase the volumes of crap being sifted in an 8-hour shift, based on the premise of your argument, that would result in our surfacing a gem or two more than before. We might even find success in this department will afford us the development dollars to eventually come up with a dumbed-down search tool for the masses.

Conceding my personal opinion and amnesia-ridden experience is no substitute for hard facts, the issue is not so much how our resume databases are structured, populated and/or what operators we use to run queries, generate reports or surface talent.  And it certainly isn’t about clinging to arcane methods of deductive reasoning either.

While all of the above may help define our present reality, compounding the problems you infer are intractable, I believe we can expect to see changes soon. I imagine things like data visualization and analytics, intuitive data exploration, semantic search, conceptual linking, and AI will start to better facilitate the information needs of our increasingly complex recruiting, and justify, at last, our continued obsession for employing the lowest common denominators to mechanize and staff our mission-critical operations.

I cannot fault your thinking about “limiting your outreach to people who might actually give a crap about a job,” any more than I could defend “employer of choice” aggrandizement in place of that being something that is objectively measured and independently validated.

Demonstrating a workplace environment that is valued by its employees — be that a chicken factory in Arkansas or a Silicon Valley powerhouse — is an altogether different form of branding than the chicanery promulgated by magazine publishers and assorted plaque pushers.  Traditionally aided and abetted by recruitment advertising agencies and boiler-room sales operations, they feed a brand’s vested stakeholders’ addiction to chintzy blog-bling, vacuous press coverage, and hanging adornments.  Like everyone else who profits from selling impressions and delivering eyeballs, they further cloud the real issues ensuring we remain…confused.

Again, John, thanks for providing a safe place for me to fall and indulging my thinking out loud.

In a wildly dangerous post entitled 22 Tutorials and Insight Posts on #Recruiting with #Linkedin sourcing specialist Ryan Leary highlights the problem. He links to a potpourri of posts that may have been useful at the time of their publication but are, as they age, a depreciating asset and thus, a waste of any self-respecting researchers’ time. Worse, for the untutored recruiter they pose a serious threat. The assumption is, validated by the expert’s pen and more that 25 tweets for endorsement, this stuff must be good for consumption — wrong!

Now, before anyone gets their loincloth in a twist, I admit it: I’ve compiled a list or two where inevitably the links did rot and the content may have putrefied a bit. And no, I don’t always update them before sharing them even now but I have never knowingly lead a would-be hack up the garden path with things like Threat 7001: “If the Swami said it, you can take it to the bank.” No, Baba, not me.

In fairness to Ryan he does clearly indicate the broken links in his post by striking them through.  I have to question why they would be included in the first place. Is this an historical record or what? Perhaps it has something to do with bloat, I don’t know. However, their presence would suggest that the other links are all good but they’re not — they pose hidden  threats!

Oh, Swami, what are you doing?

Ryan points to a Shally Steckerl classic,  Becoming A Promiscuous Linker on LinkedIn, [Oops, my bad!...Daggit!]. Hypothetical questions like “Yeah OK Shally, BIG DEAL… why should I care?” aside, the underlying premise of the post has long-passed its expiration date. It seems to me the time and effort required to sleep with every recruiter in Seattle serves very little purpose today [as if it ever did] given search results are no longer proportionate to the size of your member, network that is. Things change, including the Swami.

Contrasting the hopelessly out-of-date stuff we have other threats lurking within the contemporaneous posts. Among them a Glen Cathey piece, LinkedIn X-Ray Search Results Change: Update Your Strings.

Not that I would question Guru Glenn’s syntax but the extent to which advanced operators are so liberally used [for example: site:linkedin.com (inurl:pub OR inurl:in) -intitle:directory "Charlotte, North Carolina Area" "current * controller"] it won’t be long, with repeated use, that Google sees you as threat and slams on the brakes with a CAPTCHA page [or two]. Threat 4487: “The Internet changes faster than you can update your technique/posts, refresh your links or catch your breath” comes to mind, doesn’t it?

So, somewhere between the dynamic nature of the internet and its ever-complex web of links, and Threat 2092: “Online, one things leads to another but it’s rarely a real lead” notwithstanding, there are potential hazards that every digital traveler should be aware of.

I hope Ryan will take the time to revise his list and reorder the entries by threat level. That would be a useful. For me, I will look forward to hearing how these issues are resolved at decidedly chaste gatherings like SourceCon, continuing my own search online.

1. John Sumser under the influence?…Shocking but true
   
2. Has Glen Cathey gone native? OMG, we’ve lost him…Dancing with wolves
   
3. This blogger gets the pink Caddie for raising the bar…Lisa Kaye, we salute you!
   
4. To SEO or not to SEO? That is the question.

John suggests that “Former sourcing luminaries will be familiarizing themselves with the alarm on the French fry machine and the relative difference between Rare, Medium and Well done.”

Oh, dear.

I imagine in years to come when the names of those “sourcing luminaries” have been long forgotten there will still be those recruiters who would like to know how to find leads and resumes online. Poor souls, who will teach them?

It pains me to think of the years of hard graft that these forgotten fry cooks have put into researching search syntax and Boolean strings to advance the profession, all for naught. So sad that they are gone now, forgotten.

In the hours of my darkest depression, lamenting the impending death of so many beautiful minds, my own demise too perhaps, I decided I would erect a monument to the “Unkown Cybersleuth.”

In so doing I hope that for generations to come, recruiters every would add job titles like “Accountant” or skill sets like “Java” to the etched names memorialized there and click “Keywords” to miraculously find code left by the masters to cut and paste directly into their browsers.

Long after punditry has gone the way of sourcing, I imagine recruiters everywhere thumbing their noses at Mr. Sumser saying:

Sourcing is Dead! Long Live Google!

Our apostolic neighbor got to work and in no time was possessed. She began uttering some unknown prayer that was only coherent to God and herself.

While it seemed quite possible that everyone else in the room was being transported to a higher place, I found myself being teleported to the Appalachian foothills where one imagines spirits of a different sort give voice to an equally unintelligible, if not distilled, form of incantation.

Somehow, in my befuddled Hebraic interpretation of what was going on I confused the “charismatic church” with the “charismatic me” and foolishly decided to apply the lessons of the day to some healing of my own.

Without going in to the pathetic details of my amorous overtures — or my completely missing the point with the snake metaphor — suffice it to say, getting lickered up, and my own very clumsy “laying on of hands,” resulted in my waking up the next day with a thick head and a lip to match. Go figure.

Steve Levy recently posted Learn Boolean, Start a Business. In a catholic defense of modern day mediums he says:

In the 10+ years that I’ve been part of the online recruiting community, I’ve never seen a time when it was possible to learn a rudimentary skill and then pawn oneself off as an expert. Shally and G-Man have been internet search wonks for this period and have the experience to bolster their skills teaching with a range of specific examples; El Dave isn’t too far behind…

Alas during the past year, I’ve seen several neophytes learn to write a Boolean – or more precisely, to copy one that the true experts freely share – and suddenly they’re self-appointed experts selling themselves as Internet search gurus.

Oh dearie, dearie me. Let’s apply my befuddled Hebraic interpretation to this one now, shall we?

First, it occurs to me that nothing could be easier than passing oneself off as “an expert” when the skill is “rudimentary.”  I mean, honestly: AND, OR, and NOT — how much simpler could it be?

Next, as one of the neophytes let me clarify a couple of things…

One (NOT first): If the experts “freely share” why can’t I freely copy, share in kind? Of course, “if” covers a multitude of sins, doesn’t it? In reality if most of what is being “freely shared” has been available in the public domain since, well, before googling, who’s copying who; where’s the hanky-panky? Maybe the question here is one of attribution, maybe that’s it.

Two (NEAR:One): “…and then pawn oneself off as an expert” — golly! And, “..suddenly they’re self-appointed experts selling themselves as Internet search gurus” — that’s a bit strong, don’t you think?

I might consider myself a neophyte in the esteemed company of the liturgical high-priests of cybersleuthing — unworthy even — but in the company of lay folk my bible-thumping is enough to save a few sinners with the sacrament of sourcing know-how. Sure, the cacophony of hand-clappin,’ foot-stoppin’ music is a far cry from a reverential Latin Mass but for the recruiting riff-raff it’s an experience worth the price of admission.

Three (-wise.men) Just to be clear, only a fool would suggest that the 12 Apostles of George: Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, [no, no, no -- that was John The Baptist!] and the rest of them, have not enabled a few scruffy-looking lay-preachers like me to schlep from one congregation to another but, Mr. Levy, gimme a break! Am I the one to be weighed in the balance, found wanting?

This week another hillbilly church has sprung up, this time on the slopes of RecruitingBlogs.com. I wonder if the Apostles will come down to share in a snake-whoopie-woo or two, sip a little poison at the Congregation of Boolean Strings. Whatever…

One of the things that has been interesting to me for some time is the codification of language and the subsequent value placed on its interpretation by a litany of coders and their assigns. Historically, all that has been a source of power so, why not now?

In some convoluted way I think the communication of Boolean syntax for surfacing leads and resumes is like bottling water. We have to contain it, brand it, sell it and defend our share of it to give it value despite the fact that, like water, the means to quench our thirst exists everywhere. Maybe Steve Levy see’s it slightly differently.

Experts, priests, shamans and snake-charmers all hold a special place in our communities because they [purportedly] hold the key to unlocking the knowledge we seek, and it’s practical application for a better life.

Is it any wonder that when the status quo gets “status skewed” those with the most to loose get shirty? Can I get an “Amen!” Brother?

Several days after our neighbors visit and my wife’s miraculous healing her pain returned, this time with a vengeance.  When I tried lightening things up with a drooling “I’ll be darn’d!” she told me to “Put a sock in it!” Hmmm…maybe in our house if we’re not speaking in tongues were talking at cross purposes? Nah, that’s just too obtuse, isn’t it? I don’t know, maybe not…