Advanced Online Recruiting Techniques: Phone sourcing

When Phone Sourcing Doesn't Work, and What to Do

Mon, 11 Dec 2006 16:06:27 GMT

Q: I am an Internet-focused sourcer who sometimes gets primary phone sourced data to expand upon. However, there are times I get high-profile names from high-profile companies, and I still can't find anything about them, whether I use major search engines and resume databases, ZoomInfo, etc. Why is this, and what can I do?

A: Aha! You have encountered the only quality problem in name-gen by telephone (a/k/a telesourcing): misspellings. Unless the phone researcher is being very careful to validate spellings, name errors will creep into their deliverables. Sometimes it's because the source is providing names very quickly, has a strong accent or unclear speaking style. However, when someone is spitting out gold, the researcher may not want to interrupt that conversational rhythm, which asking for spellings might create.

In your case -- since the leads are apparently high-profile ones who should have a decent Internet presence -- searching online later just by the name that was least likely to be misspelled (sometimes it's the first/given name, sometimes it's the last/surname) along with the job title, function and/or company name info will typically turn up links with the proper spelling that you need to fill the blanks. Ironically, this is typically the opposite of most sourcing functions that break out sourcing specialties: the online researcher supplies the phone researcher initially with data. The online deliverables may contain more instances of dated information and thus need validation, but you typically don't encounter the spelling errors that can cause the grief you cited!

The only other quality problem that sometimes (very rarely) occurs with phone sourcing is purposely-misleading information. In this case, the employees of a targeted company have been warned that researchers are after certain passive prospects. They turn over such calls to designated competitive intelligence (CI) personnel who will cleverly feed the researcher false information. A good phone sourcer's radar will perk up when this happens, and cross-check the data with other sources to validate before submitting their deliverables. However, a relative newbie or a sourcer under a tight deadline to deliver a name-gen project may not take the extra step, and this shortcut comes back to bite them! Of course, this false info tactic can also be done online (e.g., posting false rumors to blogs, newsgroups, etc.) so every researcher must be careful to validate.

I do not want this blog post to come across as anything against phone sourcing. As anyone I've worked with knows, I have the utmost respect for smart name-gen phone researchers, and can't imagine doing a comprehensive sourcing project without having at least one such person on my team. On a related note, I had the pleasure to meet a top third-party name-gen professional for the first time face-to-face last week, Krista Bradford. She participated with Shally and me as panelists for AOEP's Challenge of the Sourcing Sleuths last week. Her information on phone sourcing was excellent, and she uses it in combination with online methods. Analogous to Shally's excellent Google and LinkedIn cheatsheets, Krista has just created a cheatsheet of sorts for phone sourcing. Maybe some would call it a white paper, but it's written in a very user-friendly way. She gave it as a freebie to the AOEP attendees (who paid to come), so I don't know what she'll do for others who request it, but I recommend you ping her and ask nicely!

--Glenn Gutmacher

categories: phone sourcing, telesourcing, name-gen, name generation, lead generation, internet recruiting, internet sourcing, cybersleuthing

Check out the updated Glossary of (Phone) Sourcing

Fri, 18 Aug 2006 04:13:51 GMT

Maureen Sharib just updated her free Glossary of Sourcing Terms. It probably should be renamed Glossary of Phone Sourcing, since very few online sourcing terms are included (understandable, as she admits her bias to phone sourcing).

Nevertheless, it is a largely enjoyable read, as she puts her trademark anecdotal treatment on many definitions. However, since she obviously started down that road, I would have hoped for that treatment to be applied universally, and especially with more injections of humor. (But you'll crack up on her definition for Executive Vice President -- largely repeated for VP and Senior VP.)

You will need to join the Sourcers Unleashed discussion group (also free and an active list) to access it here.

I would suggest additions of these terms, which are fairly well-known among those in telesourcing circles:

phone phreaking
prompting (since she referenced it under the term "spilling")
qualify
trampolining
and in the list of social networks under the LinkedIn term, add a link to the great list

All in all, a good effort worth continuing, especially since I don't think there's another one out there like it -- looking forward to the next update. Indeed, Maureen's initiative may have inspired me to create a comprehensive Internet sourcing glossary to complement my online sourcing course much as this glossary complements her phone sourcing one. The online glossaries I've seen like Taleo's are lame, and the ones in books like Donna Graham's and John Sumser's are 5+ years old, so maybe the competition isn't much greater than for Maureen's!

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Three Old-School Strategies for Phone Sourcing

Tue, 15 Aug 2006 20:17:56 GMT

This guest post is part of the Recruiting.com Blog Swap. The author is Jim Durbin of StlRecruiting.com

I cut my teeth in sales the old way - on the phone selling mini-vacations out of Florida. This was my first job that wasn't in a mall or didn't leave me smelling like food at the end of the night, so I wasn't about to fail at it and go back to the kitchen for another night of scrape the cheese off a quesadilla sampler platter.

My job was to set up 30 minute appointments for outside salespeople to come in and sell marketing promotions utilizing 3 day/2 night vacations at premium hotels. You've probably had a hapless salesman try to close you on your mortgage or car with one of these beauties - you might even have been working on my promotion.

The job was equal parts cold calls and equal parts sourcing. We were required to make 125 phone calls a day, and the only way to do so was to build call lists at home out of available materials. We paid 7.5 cents for every lead from ABI, which included car dealerships, banks, wholesalers, HVAC, home improvement and furniture stores. The problem was we bought leads every couple of years, and the leads went bad, fast.

To compensate, I learned to source business owner names and numbers out of newspapers, phone books, directories, and advertisements. Referrals were gold in those days, as was on-the-ground intelligence derived from our outside sales reps who sent in "care packages" with phone books, chamber guides, local newspapers ads, and hastily scribbled lists of businesses written down by cruising through business districts.

Once we obtained the names of the businesses, we had to find the decision maker, which almost always was the president or the owner. To get that name, we employed one of three strategies.

Strategy 1: Come right out and ask.

If you want the answer to a question, oftentimes the best way to get it is to be direct and ask. Call the gatekeeper and ask one of the following questions:

"Who is the owner of this car dealership?"
"Who hires web developers for your company?"

Giving the respondent a chance to think about who is doing the asking allows them to put up their shields and deflect your questions. Some people prefer the polite approach, but as you're sourcing names to pull those people out of a company, the job of the gatekeeper is to prevent you from getting that information. Giving a gatekeeper time to think gives them time to wonder if telling you what you want to hear is a good idea or not. This strategy is good when you are under pressure and know next to nothing about an industry. It also gets you warmed up in the morning when 4 out of 5 people hang up on you.

Strategy 2: Give Them What They Want

A second strategy for sourcing names is to recognize the fundamental desire of the gatekeeper and help them achieve that desire. What is that fundamental desire? They want to get off the phone. This strategy works best when you have partial information or information you need verified.

"Perhaps you can help me - one of my reps called in your company and told me to speak to the big man - I think his name was Paul, but I can't find my notes. Is that your owner's name? How do you spell that?"
"I met a guy at the developer conference last week and he told me to call him to get the name of a reference book. I can't remember the guy's name, but I know he wore glasses and had a great accent. Can you send me to someone in the IT department so I can track them down?"

The goal here is to give the gatekeeper an easy task they can accomplish, then let them get off the phone. They still haven't taken the time to think about why you are calling, and the task is easy enough to do, but it's a valuable first step towards cracking the company code.

Strategy 3: Misdirection

Sometimes gatekeepers have the experience to keep you away from the low-hanging fruit. If you have had particular problems with a company, try asking for a different department and moving on from there.

"Can you transfer me to the Service Department?"
"Can you switch me over to someone in Enterprise Sales?"
When you get the person in these departments, tell them the receptionist made a mistake and you were supposed to be sent to your target.
"Service? They were supposed to send me to your GM. That's the second time they messed this up, and he's waiting for my call. Can you switch me over to Paul, please?
"Sales? I was supposed to be talking to the Director of Interactive Development to set up an interview. Can you transfer me to him?"

Each of these strategies is phone-based, and has the advantage of giving you 100% accurate information. More important, they sharpen your phone skills and keep you light on your feet for other calls. The internet is great, but every once in a while, let's remember the good old days of leafing through Phone Books late at night to build up our call lists. These kids today don't know how good they have it.

Jim Durbin is the Director, Corporate Communication for Durbin Media Group, an interactive marketing firm specializing in blog consulting. He blogs at BrandStorming for blog marketing, and StlRecruiting.com for online employment.

Editor's Note: We do not advocate rusing, which is misrepresenting yourself in the process of obtaining information (e.g., saying you work for the organization running a particular industry conference and asking which employees of the target company are attending) and can get you into legal hot water. Jim's examples do not do this, but if you are uncomfortable with any particular phone sourcing method you ever come across, trust your instincts and don't use it. Staying 100% ethical is the best policy for your career and long-term reputation, as well as for your employer's. There are plenty of third-party firms that will push the envelope, which is one of the reasons (besides time/cost/expertise) why many corporations prefer to outsource this work: In case someone violates any ethical guidelines, it's likely to have fewer legal repurcusions for the company if the violator is a vendor rather than an employee.

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