First European SourceCon: what was it like

Recently, we have participated in the largest sourcing conference SourceCon in a new location — in Hungary. In the follow-up of the trip, our friends and colleagues from GMS, the IT recruiting agency, Alex Isaev, and Mary Migunof shared their impressions and summarized the most interesting reports.

Atmosphere and organization

Maisha L. Cannon at SourceCon Budapest

Just like the last time, the scale of the conference and the level of organization were quite impressive, even despite the fact that SourceCon was held in Europe for the first time. More than 350 sourcing professionals from 37 countries took part in the conference.

Most prominent leaders of the sourcing community made presentations, the atmosphere of the event was very warm and friendly, there were several networking activities to let sourcers from all over the world get to know each other and share their experience. The startups demonstrated the latest innovations simplifying the work of sourcing specialists work at the Innovation Labs HR Tech panel.

The most discussed topics were, GDPR, of course,  the relation between the roles of a sourcer and a recruiter, the development of the sourcing function, tools & hacks, HR processes.

Best reports

Balazs Paroczay on the evolution of sourcing

Balazs Paroczay opened the conference with an exciting report providing the full background of sourcing.

According to him, here are the main stages of how we got where we are now:

• 2002-2004: sourcing becomes a key trend; sourcers emerge as specialists; the focus of attention is on job boards and ATS;
• 2005-2008: sourcing becomes a science; sourcing pioneers emerge: Jim Stroud, Irina Shamaeva, the SourceCon community, Glen Cathey.
• 2009-2010: the expansion of sourcing, the emergence of sourcing outsource, specialized courses, global sourcing. Sourcing knowledge becomes widely available; conferences and online communities develop further. The focus of attention is on technologies and processes. Thought leaders: Johnny Campbell, Ted Meulenkamp.
• 2011-2017: sourcing becomes a separate function. The focus of attention is on efficiency, scalability, sharing of knowledge and resources. The specialist profile is sourcing ninja.

What is the future of sourcing? Balazs points to three major components: expertise, scale, and connectivity.

Jan Tegze on the importance of sharing

Jan Tegze presented the most inspiring report at SourceCon Budapest. The talking points that really got us hooked:

• You don’t need to be an expert to share what you’ve learned.
• Society is going to judge you anyway, so do whatever you want to do. Being challenged by others can also help you learn even more.
• Keeping brilliant thoughts as a draft on your computer won’t change the world or help anyone.
• The more you practice explaining and sharing information, the more your skills improve.

Sharing knowledge and experience in our sphere is the fastest way to progress. Thanks for the inspiration, Jan!

Mark Lundgren on using video in the communications

Mark‘s report was devoted to a new and not at all widely used tool of increasing the response rate, which is the use of video in email campaigns.  As he found out in actual practice, a personalized video message almost doubles the response rate! IT recruiters who have to deal with silent candidates all the time should definitely try it out.

You can begin by implementing some cool tools recommended by Mark: Vidyard, Loom, BombBomb. The best possible effect can be achieved by using these applications in a combination with tools for analyzing the candidate’s social footprint to make the message as personalized as possible. Free AmazingHiring Chrome extension may be very helpful in this aspect.

Victor Soroka on security and penetration testing in sourcing

Victor Soroka and Guillaume Alexandre at SourceCon Budapest

One of the most impressive reports was made by Victor Soroka. He spoke of how a sourcer can use techniques usually implemented for security and penetration testing to access some useful information about the candidates. For instance, you can get a list of participants of an IT conference or unlock paid functions of web applications.

Victor cited an example of how one can discover the full list of ACCA certificates owners at a given location.  For this, enter any surname into the integrated search bar at the ACCA website — for instance, “Smith”. Besides the fields “Name” and “Surname”, the URL of the web-page listing search results will contain a new parameter — “Location”.  Delete “Smith”, add the location you are interested into the URL and you’ll get a list of ACCA-certified accountants.

We were fascinated and rushed to read the book recommended by Victor at the SourceCon. It is called “The Web Application Hacker’s Handbook: Finding and Exploiting Security Flaws”.

Why you should go to SourceCon

At a conference of such a high level, even the most experienced of the participants are sure to expand their knowledge, because the field of recruitment and sourcing is developing rapidly. This event is the place where you can learn about the main industry trends and the latest HR Tech innovations.

It also provides a great opportunity to meet with the thought leaders and establish useful contacts. You can easily stay in touch with your colleagues, ask each other questions and share your experience via social media after the conference.

Moreover, attending the conference gives a chanсe to look beyond, expand your horizons and change your way of thinking. By communicating with professionals from other fields, working with different markets, you can look at recruitment and sourcing from another angle and introduce something new to your work.

Mary Migunof, Jan Tegze and Daria Shuruef at SourceCon Budapest