Aaron Lintz Interview Spotlight

Jonathan Kidder

5 years ago

I had the opportunity to interview the legendary Aaron Lintz. He’s currently Senior Sourcing Specialist at Thoughtworks based in Florida. He’s been in the industry for many years and has presented at many recruiting conferences across the globe. Overall, I’m grateful and honored that he was open to getting interviewed for my blog.

Tell me a little About Yourself?

I’ve been sourcing for the last 8 years with 4 previous years as an agency recruiter. Before that, I worked in sales, pre-sales, digital marketing, and HR.

Any Unique talents?

My career has been like Katamari Damacy. I have been rolling up skills for 20+ years building it into something big. I taught myself the skills I didn’t have by joining communities, chats, and watching YouTube. Those self-taught skills became the glue connecting my unlikely work experiences.

Surviving agency recruiting taught me how to be successful. What I learned about SEO and email marketing I applied to sourcing people at scale. My knowledge of HR compliance helped me avoid costly recruiting mistakes. My drive helped me overcome my self-doubt.

What’s your Biggest Success Story

Presenting at SOSUEU in Amsterdam in 2017 was a dream. My exposure to global sourcing was limited prior and it was my goal to get more involved in the global community. Presenting beside people whom I idolized reaffirmed I belonged and helped me make lifetime friends across the pond.

I had worked with Mark Lundgren in the past, and we started Sourcing Challenge together soon after SOSU.

We both wanted to continue our sourcing craft and develop our passion projects into a business. His knowledge of global sourcing is vast. His YouTube channel interviewing sourcing experts is a massive hit. I developed an online training program around conference attendee sourcing. We are expanding the brand with a new learning platform due to launch in Q2 as he expands partnerships with service providers.

What’s the Best Advice you’ve Received?

If you see an opportunity that no one else sees, you need to speak up! It was either John Ricciardi or Chris Smith who helped me gain admin privileges in Taleo when they saw my idea for sourcing. After that successful project, they trusted my vision. I shifted from a hands-on sourcer with usual KPIs to role enabling the entire team of US recruiters and training them to be better sourcers.

What’s your Favorite Recruiting Tech Tool?

JSON Viewer Awesome is one of the key tools that I use to help me understand code better. That understanding lead me to some amazing discoveries.

How do you Achieve the Best Results?

Recruiting will always be a people-first business. We need to be empathetic to the candidate and stakeholders. We also need to be objective, have strong time-management skills, decisive, and organized. These “soft skills” distinguish the best from the pack.

What do you Hope to Achieve in 2020?

Let the record show I am writing this on March 31st. Events are unfolding fast. There are opportunities in troubling times, but it is too early to say when or how quickly we will see growth.

As a pragmatic person, my hierarchy of needs starts with my loved one’s health and my ability to provide financially for my family. Professional development with work projects. Personal development as Sourcing Challenge adapts to meet the needs of recruiter virtual training.

What’s your Favorite Boolean String?

The best string is the one that gets you what you need quickly. I Xray every website I find and share a large a repository of Boolean strings with my co-workers. This lets us re-use components of searches and continue to grow from new ideas and continuous improvement.

How Should Recruiters Respond to this Crisis?

Recruiters need to listen to candidates and be empathetic. Don’t make promises you can’t keep. Tell them what you know and what you don’t know. Most will appreciate transparency over wishful optimism.

Mike Wolford set an exceptional example of compassion for those now looking for work by starting the Free Resume Review Facebook and LinkedIn groups. With support from Michael Rasmussen, Suvasanamayee Viswanatha, Greg Hawkes, Tangie Pettis and other brilliant members of our community they are helping people to help themselves. That is a wonderful example that can be mirrored worldwide.

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