Paul Smith who catches the big fish (I mean literally) unleashed this morning on the very basic aspect of sourcing which most corporate recruiters miss everyday, everytime. Here's a cut n paste of his rant this morning on sourcers_unleashed -yahoogroups.com.

Paul Smith heads the SearchPath location for New England area. His 20 years of experience and ability to find top notch candidates coupled with his ability to present career opportunities made him the "go to" recruiter for his client companies.
As a firm believer in the Internet as a recruiting and networking tool,Paul is the owner/moderator of five Internet listservs for the advancement of recruiting and sourcing skills and a contributor and member to quite a few others networking groups.

Here he goes-
Good Morning all,

Some of you may consider this heresay. For those that do, it probably wasn't meant for you.

I have a real problem with many of the "advanced" methods of sourcing posted here at times. I think that Glenn, Shally, et al have a ton to offer for really experienced professional sourcers. From what I read and hear, though, their teachings is like going into advanced calculus having just barely completed Algebra 1.

Maureen, you amaze me. I started sourcing 20 years ago. Back then Al Gore hadn't invented the internet yet. The Web was a dream that almost no one even had. Monsters were something from nightmares. When I had to go out of my own network to source, I had 2 tools. My voice and my phone. Back then we didn't have GateKeepers, we had Receptionists. If you could make her (that's right, her) smile, you were half way there. A simple "Can you help me" after she smiled was about all you needed. Over the last year, I have done a bunch of phone sourcing and was a bit surprised to find that the old ways were still very effective. I even tried a bunch of your stuff and that worked also.

So here's the rub. I hear from you and others that "I don't use the Internet because I don't want to duplicate my clients efforts." From other, "I never use job boards". If you work in a very tight specialty you might even convince me. Many of you rightfully claim that you can do things on the phone that your client's can't. In most cases, I'm sure that is true but it also suggests that your client's CAN effectively use the internet. I feel that is flawed. I know that Bernie S. is very effective in his sourcing efforts. Believe me, that does not mean that all the sourcers or recruiters at Kaiser are as proficient or that Bernie supports all of them.
I do talk to people inside KP and know that many don't have a clue about sourcing candidates.

As you all know, I DO use the boards, in particular Monster. I DO use LinkedIn. I DO use the Internet. I also use Lexis Nexis (If you are going to use one of the directories, you might as well use the best ). IF and
WHEN these don't work, I go to "the Magic in the Method".
What I do totally different is question my client about their use of the net and boards. Because I am often using their access, I also look at their saved or previous searches. That alone tells me volumes about their skills.
If they have deficient skills in the use of the boards, why should I pass on using them. If they are deficient in using boolean strings, why should I not use the net? And if they really have little understanding of what their
company does or at least what the needed candidates do, why should I not use available methods? I'm the one they are paying to evaluated the candidates skills and or screen them in/out. I don't care where the info comes from, if these aren't A players, they are not getting in front of my client.

A recent client was looking for some software developers / very high end customer support people that had to be able to write code. Superior skills with C++, Visual C++ and MFC were an absolute necessity. The hiring manager
also believed that a commute of over 40 miles was a guarantee of failure or rapid turnover. They had 2 internal "recruiters" searching the boards and internet daily. They were searching for what I would expect a corporate
recruiter to be searching for. C++ AND VC++ AND MFC within 50 miles of their zip code. Shear rocket science. No searching for "microsoft foundation classes", no search for "Visual C++", no search for " Visual Studio". And for sure nothing to indicate that they might be qualified to be custome facing. If a prospective candidate lived out of the area but wanted to live where they were, they didn't see them. If a qualified candidate was living in an apartment with no visual ties to that area, they never saw them. As a test, I sent them 60 reformatted resumes from Monster.
Of the 60, the recruiting director thought he may have seen one of them in the last year.

When I source I know what I am looking for and why I am looking for it. In many instances I know where I will find them. I do not agree that I will be duplicating effort, because I don't believe my client has a clue. The
simple fact that they have gone outside says a lot.

So, shouldn't we spend a bit more time  on the basics of sourcing? It amazes me how often in talking to a corporate recruiter and sometimes even another Sourcer or TPR, when I ask the question, "what will the candidate be doing?" I see a blank stare or total silence on the other end of the phone. If I am dealing with Corporate HR, I know that the chances of them ever telling me are slim to none if they didn't already know. If the sourcer knows what the skill sets that are needed are and if the sourcer knows how to identify them when they see them and if the sourcer knows where to find people with those skills and even if the sourcer knows what the candidate will be doing then the skills taught here are a major benefit. But, if they don't, they seem to me to just be nice to haves or talk abouts or put one ones resume and I do feel that a good proportion of us don't have these basic skills.

My 52 cents.

Paul

I have to say If only more and more recruiters read this and understand what he means; they could be a better recruiter. The foremost aspect of starting your search is knowing your requirement, the job function. Sourcing is not about writing crazy boolean searches everytime rather knowing your search. The "How to" source comes after ...

Well written Paul- Stay Tuned ..