A sourcing stack can be a duck-billed platypus, a liger, a hippocampus (part horse part fish), or have you saying “What the duck was that?”
https://giphy.com/gifs/images-platypus-billed-glOFdYSP6r4dy
When I started out hunting passive candidates, it was a job board focused market. I remember using keywords to search Monster and CareerBuilder, geez that was so long ago it seems. However it was pretty linear back then, you searched the boards, post a job, made all kinds of cold calls. Then 15 years fly by me.
Today, there’s so much on social media, so many sites, so many apps and tech emerging; one can get lost. Like a duck stuck in the muck.
You, the reader, tie it all together.
A tool deck should be the narrative, connecting the dots of the journey to the ideal outcome. If you fail, you start the story over or try a different pathway.
Seriously that’s exactly how I tackle a sourcing effort, and not just because I work at a publishing company.
Build a Bridge You Weird Animal
There are certain sourcers bridging the gap and crossing the boundary of programming. Tech is getting so smart, that now you can use apps to code and automate. That’s where bubble.is, Zapier, and AirTable comes in. That’s where we step away from Codeacademy and build our own tool. We are on the tail end of it, but once we learn how to use it, it will be super functional. That’s what we are doing now:
Streaming tech, searching APIs, new growth hacking tools, and ya’ll this was Thursday. And there is so much more.
You give a nerd a keyboard and let them experiment, and that’s when the mad science starts. In this world of metrics data-driven results, my most significant breakthroughs come when I’m goofing around, trying to automate a task, or seeing if I can find a quick hack. We learn to swim, use our tools (or tails). We build the bridge, then close the gap and break the mold.
And we will build that bridge, even if we have to crowdsource or stream it live via Twitch/YouTube:
OBS Open Broadcaster Software (streaming software recommended by Mark Lundgren)
Xsplit (streaming software recommended by Jess Roberts)
Joinme and Loom (recording software recommended by Michael Crouse)
Windows Media Player (recording software recommended by Susanna Frazier)
Zoom (recording software recommended by Mark Lundgren)
Screencast-O-Matic (recording software used by me, great and free option for beginners)
And the thing that I’m most excited about is Streamlabs. You can add multiple screens, feeds (including the chat feed), a wide array of widgets, any and everything a streamer needs. It’s wicked scary how much you can do with software, and how simple it was for me to get up and to run compared to the others. This one includes streaming, recording, exporting to your Twitch and YouTube Channels, and I would have never known about it if not for Mark Lundgren. Dude, you rock! I’d love to see tech like this at upcoming conferences with sourcers showing their setup.
Other Tools on the WatchList:
Postman (and quite possibly how to use it)
Upcoming SourcingIRL Stream (coming soon, consider this a spoiler alert)!
There’s Facebook Live; there are Instagram stories. However, you get your message across, do it.
The point is, you don’t have to be a programme to build a sourcing process, you don’t have to have a DevOps to develop your app, scraper, or website. When there’s a gap, discover a tech that can help you build the bridge. If I gave up after my first CSE broke, I’d never find three other ways to create them or understand how to pull several sites into one.
We’d never see people like Stephanie Proto collect, create, and share more CSEs than one can imagine:
She told me she’s a fan of my stuff, but the payback is that I’m a big fan of her work.
The “bridge” is innovation, exploration, experimentation, not just with oneself but with their neighbors. We get stronger by learning from one another. This year is big for me, I turn the big 4-0 in December, but what I’ve found also is a deep passion for writing about sourcing (and Hogwarts). I’ve discovered a group of remarkable people I can be a nerd around and not fear judgment (except maybe in hackathons). I never thought I’d ever had enough brainpower to write several articles about this stuff, but this one you are reading right now is also the big 4-0.
The most significant achievement that a writer has is not the number of articles; it’s the chance to share knowledge and inspire you to teach us something new. Like Proto, I have seen others explore and grow as I have. I can see those “whoa” moments and experience new ones you folks bring us.
For the Platypus’s sake, share! When I stopped being a cubicle dweller and branched out of my cave, starting to share my ideas, that’s where the massive innovations came out. When I finished worrying about hitting numbers and started thinking how I could streamline my time and workflows, i.e., hack the system, that’s when the numbers were blown entirely out of the water.
I don’t know if and when I’ll ever get to stand in front of an audience and share something else, but whenever I get the chance, I come out learning more from the readers, attendees, participants and gurus than I ever thought possible.
It’s the reader that ties it all together.
Whether you read a blog, ask a question, or turn the gears in one of our minds, each one of you inspires is in ways you don’t even realize. In fact, some of us now come out of our cave and write stuff.
Keep it up nerds; you make us all super proud.
Here are some pictures of upcoming stuff and random fun I’ve had the last few days working on this.
Stalking my friends with Hiretual 3.0:
The beard is real (testing streaming tech):
Messing with Dataminer and Github, Hey look emails. No coding required. Thanks, whoever you are Razza!
Got Steve Levy to do the “Hufflepuff” pose, invented by that hackathon winning Susanna Conway Frazier.
Remember to stop and have fun, as hard as those purple squirrels are to find; the sourcing community is here to help you laugh as well as source the heck outta stuff.