I am a huge advocate of training. One of my favorite former employers required all of their employees to attend training of their choice annually and that was a huge benefit that they even extended to contractors, like myself, and I took full advantage of it.
Over the years, I’ve attended sourcing training from a variety of vendors and of course am a bit partial to AIRS, I did work for them collaborating on the development of courses as well as investigating new resources (that’s my disclaimer folks!). But, I haven’t just been to AIRS, a long time ago in the land of DC I attended NetRecruiter Internet Training, JobMachine Cybersleuth training and even did a course through the University of Toronto (online of course). I’ve attended conferences as well, and conferences are great for gathering up nuggets of knowledge, but it’s the follow through when you return to home base that’s critical.
In 2012 we have a plethora, yes a plethora of training options on our horizon. Who you use is going to be impacted most importantly by content and by what you have available to spend and whether or not the additional expense of travel is an option.
In case you don’t frequent BooleanStrings or other sourcing havens, some of the vendors that have been bandied about in the cyberworld are:
I always check in on AIRS, I like that they offer challenge questions on Friday so I can see if my skills are still up to par and their overall offerings are great for an all-encompassing view of how to source.
I have to admit that I am most intrigued by BrainGain’s PeopleSourcing, it’s not a huge time investment and I’m always looking for someone to show me something I don’t know…Irina Shamaeva, a former Sourcecon Grandmaster, might be able to do that.
But The Sourcing Institute isn’t one to disregard either, what’s interesting there is you are purchasing an annual training membership and it’s leveled, so you can really look at the courses most important to you at your level of career and where you want to go, there’s concepts covered in TSI’s offerings.
Many of the vendors offer a certification…is it necessary to get certified? That’s arguable. But what a certification can do is open doors when your resume is up in a queue with 20 other sourcers. As long as the people hiring sourcers know about the certification and what it quantifies or better yet, know how to test a sourcer to make sure they can walk the walk as well as talk the talk.
Whatever training you choose, the most important thing, the very most important thing is to practice what you’ve learned. To this day I am a firm believer in devoting 30 minutes of every day to a new site or tactic to extract information. The more you practice, the more adept you’ll be at quickly locating the talent your hiring managers need.
Have you taken any of the classes above? Know someone who has? Hit me in the comments with which one you favor and why…
Back in December I had my staff take the MARS internet sourcing class and received immediate dividends with several hires from not just Sourcers, but Full Cycle Recruiters as well. If you are in the SF Bay Area this is the absolute must have training coarse to take.
Steve Sill
Recruiting Manager at Tagged.com
I have taken AIRS and agree its somewhat of an Industry standard for getting informed on the various tools out there. However, we have Sourcers of varying levels who have recently taken the PeopleSourcing course and loved it because she offers methodology and best-practices relating to the search process in conjunction with the comprehensive list of tools.
Steve – that’s great feedback…what’s the huge take away from MARS?
Hey Megan – I enjoy the comparison you’ve made with PeopleSourcing and AIRS because of the definite difference in pricing. Let us know if your sourcers feel like they’ve made hires because of Irina’s classes.
Kd
Hi Kelly — great post. I think we’re all indebted to Irina, the folks at AIRS, Shally and the many others who generously share their expertise in free webinars, white papers, blog posts, chats and tweets. You’re right, though, it’s a good idea for sourcing teams to invest dollars and time into formal training. Um, would it sound too self serving to ask you to add Recruiting Toolbox to the list of sourcing trainers? We focus on corporate recruiter needs: the tools and search tactics as well as productivity and client management. I’m glad our profession is maturing!
Hey Carmen,
Your comments are totally appropriate…does Recruiting Toolbox offer sourcing specific training? Hit the comments with a link so our readers have an additional point of reference.
Kd
Hi Kelly,
The best thing about MARS is it gives anyone the tools to source when even if the company they work for does not want to pay for tools. No high level conversations, but really getting to the meat of internet sourcing with hands on practice.
Hey All – Pass this along – MARS contacted FOT and is offering these special registration links for our readers, use these links to get a 10% discount on the following classes:
Secrets of Social Media Sourcing: http://mars.netpolarity.com/?q=secrets-of-social-media-510-foft
From Boolean Basics to Advanced Search String Creation: http://mars.netpolarity.com/?q=from-boolean-basics-522-foft
If you take MARS up on the offer – let us know what you think of their training…Kelly
Kelly:
This blog title is so misleading, and the article written so ambiguously, that I came here thinking that I would be reading about sources of training for the Sourcing and Procurement function. I completely misunderstood what this article was addressing.
- Robert Eastman
Hi Robert-
Welcome. You’ve landed in a group talent management blog where the focus is on aspects of human resources and recruiting and many organizations have “sourcing” teams within these departments to find people for their job opportunities. You are definitely looking for a different blog.
Kelly