Sourcing is an important part of any recruiting, but particularly so for technical recruiting. Many people started their career in technical recruiting as a sourcer. We’d like to take a look at some possible career paths in technical recruiting for sourcers.
Today, we’re very lucky to have a chance to sit down with Amybeth Quinn, Global Strategic Sourcing Manager for Hewlett Packard Enterprise Cloud and President of Sourcing 7 (a special interest group of Northwest Recruiters Association) to discuss this topic.
Please tell us about your career progression
I started working in the recruitment industry in 2002 as an Internet Researcher with a Management Recruiters International (MRI) franchise in Cincinnati, OH. I spent four years with this company, learning about recruitment research and applicant tracking systems. I took a role with another agency franchisor, this time with its corporate team as the manager for Internet Research. Here, I was in charge of training franchise owners on proper ATS setup and categorization as well as Internet research topics and personal branding (“digital recruiting” was a relatively new thing at this time).
After this, I joined the corporate recruiting world and took a role with a PR agency as a strategic sourcer. I also worked hand-in-hand with the company’s Marketing department to drive more of a digital recruiting strategy during this time, via Facebook and Twitter. From here, I worked a couple of contract opportunities in both sourcing and full-cycle recruiting.
During this time as well I spent a total of five years as the editor for SourceCon – three as a volunteer and two as an employee of ERE Media. I joined HP in 2014 as a full-cycle recruiter but returned to my sourcing roots and became a sourcing manager for the Cloud business. Today with HPE, I manage the technical sourcing team for our Americas region.
What’s the core skill set of a sourcer?
- Excellent Communication skills
- Sales / customer service
- Networking and relationship management
- Whatever-it-takes attitude
- Creative thinking
- Curiosity
- Scientific method approach to search
What are some paths you’ve seen people take on after working as a sourcer?
A natural progression is for a sourcer to take on a different role somewhere in the talent acquisition organization. The following are some career directions I’ve seen:
- Recruiting – This is probably the most common path – making a lateral transition into a recruiter role. I’d like to make a point to say that moving to a recruiter role isn’t necessary a “step-up” or “step-down” because the two roles are closely related and not obvious that one role is “better” than the other.Transferable skills:
- Search
- Sales
- Communication
Skills needed for transition:
- Client management
- Closing skills
- Comp and benefits
- Marketing – I’ve also seen people going from sourcing to digital media, either being in charge of social media marketing or marketing analytics.Transferable skills:
- Depth of industry knowledge
- Specific talent community understanding
- Networking and relationship management
- Research
- Sales
- Communication
Skills needed for transition:
- Marketing experience (market analysis, product placement/distribution, customer insights, etc.)
- Content creation / distribution
- Marketing analytics
- Product Management – Also, some people have gone into product management after sourcing, which is an interesting transition. Skills for product management are very similar to marketing (see above).
- Employer Branding – Employer branding often goes hand-in-hand with sourcing effort. I’ve seen a few people made the transition from sourcing to employer branding.Transferable skills:
- Depth of industry knowledge
- Specific talent community understanding
- Research
- Communication
- Social media tools use
Skills needed for transition:
- Employer branding specifics (social media management, events, media, etc.)
- Content creation / distribution
- Marketing / social media analytics analysis
- Competitive Intelligence – Another path for sourcers is moving into competitive intelligence, which can also be considered a natural career progression. It could be with companies doing their own internal competitive intelligence work or with firms specializing in providing competitive intelligence products or services, like Gild.Transferable skills:
- Networking and relationship management
- Whatever-it-takes attitude
- Creative thinking
- Curiosity
- Scientific method approach to search
Skills needed for transition:
- Pen-testing and/or white hat hacking practices
- Pattern identification
- Talent Community – This is an interesting and newer path for people to move from sourcing into community evangelism. I know someone who became deeply involved with the communities she was doing technical recruiting and sourcing with. She transitioned into a technical community evangelist.Transferable skills:
- Depth of industry knowledge
- Specific talent community understanding
- Networking and relationship management
- Research
- Sales
- Communication
Skills needed for transition:
- Intimate knowledge of internal products/services offered
- Specific technical product knowledge (company products/services)
- People Management – There is always a linear path for people to go from an individual contributor role to become managers and lead teams, like myself.Transferrable skills:
- Excellent Communication skills
- Networking and relationship management
- Whatever-it-takes attitude
Skills needed for transition:
- Influence and negotiation
- Leadership and project management
- Business management/planning and acumen
- Finance / P&L responsibility
Final Thoughts and Advice
In conclusion, there are many different career paths for sourcers to take. Depending on your interest and goal, you can choose to move across different areas or move linearly in a talent acquisition organization.
Take the path that will satisfy your goals in life, regardless of what people tell you it should be.
Talk to others who’ve taken the career path you’re considering before making the change; ask them the plusses and minuses of their decision.
Be prepared for learning curves; don’t give up!
Don’t forget to sign up for our newsletter and follow us on Twitter@g33kology to get more articles like this to help you learn more geek language.