I was privileged to interview Michael Vroman, a Talent Sourcing Manager at Maxar Technologies and US military veteran. Michael leads a team and has been an active member of the Sourcecon community for years, contributing to the blog on various topics. I found his series on sourcing military veterans particularly interesting. Michael has given much to the sourcing community and I was honored that he agreed to be interviewed for my blog.
Tell us about your work experience in recruiting – how did you get your start, how did you progress, where are you at this point in time?
I first cut my teeth in the talent acquisition world when I was working for a diversity recruiting vendor with a focus on military/veteran talent. I had to learn Boolean search logic in order to train our clients on the use of our proprietary database, and once I realized that I could turn that into a career beyond just supporting customers, I was hooked.
My first purely TA role was as a sourcer for Macy’s, where as part of a team I supported all of the high-volume sourcing for the hard to hire markets. We leveraged simple tools like Indeed, ZipRecruiter, etc. to find and send outreach to thousands of candidates a week, and as a team contributed to well over 10,000 hires per year.
I recognized that if I wanted to grow as a Sourcer, I needed to be placed in challenging environments with unique obstacles to overcome. I’ve since spent time as a Sourcer in both the Education as well as the Defense & Space industries.
Currently, I’m still in the Defense & Space industry, where I’m leading a team of talent sourcers who each focus on specific niche areas for our business groups. Things like candidates with Top Secret SCI clearances, Embedded Flight Software Engineers with experience with spacecraft, etc.
What are the unique talents you bring to the field?
I don’t believe that I have any specific unique talent that I bring to the field. Many successful sourcers are neurodivergent, and I’m no different in that regard, so I tend to believe that where I’ve seen success is more due to my innate curiosity and desire to “chase the dopamine”. The thrill for me is in finding the unfindable, and there are so many possible ways to do it that no two searches are ever the same so it’s always exciting and engaging.
Share your biggest success story in recruiting so far?
I don’t have any specific stories that I can share, but in general I think I’d call out my ability to source without paid tools as my “biggest success”. I’ve filled roles ranging from entry-level to VP in various fields such as retail, education, technology, intelligence, etc. with very limited or no paid tools. With the right amount of dedication and the right network of resources (free webinars, knowing the free tools, etc.) anyone can find and engage great talent.
What is the best advice you’ve received during your career path, and from whom?
I’ve had so many mentorship discussions with amazing sourcers and one thing that always sticks with me isn’t advice that was given to me but something I learned VERY early in what I consider my true sourcing experience – It doesn’t matter if you’re a sourcer with 20 years of experience or a sourcer with 1 year of experience, the knowledge that you have isn’t shared by everyone and anyone can teach someone a new technique or find a new tool to share with our peers. You don’t need to be a veteran sourcer to have a ground-breaking (or even just mildly exciting) discovery worth sharing.
I learned this in conversation with Greg Hawkes when I used a free tool I’d discovered years ago to find his personal contact info while on a call with him when we were coworkers. It was a tool he’d never heard of and it surprised him that he didn’t know about it! That was when he inspired me to start writing content for SourceCon and doing that helped to grow my career in sourcing. I don’t think I’d be where I am today if I hadn’t had that chance encounter during a normal, routine workday.
What’s your favorite recruiting tech tool?
Google! The possibilities are endless with Google, and it’s free!
What do you hope to achieve in 2023?
From a current job/professional perspective, I recently filled out my team (in late 2022) and am now focusing on guiding and mentoring them to exceed what our team was able to produce in 2022. I’m highly confident that I have the right people in the right place, and we should be able to achieve that with ease this year.
On a personal level, I’d really like to get back into writing content and sharing tools/techniques with the sourcing community. These last couple of years have been tough on a lot of us, and feeling so isolated has made an impact in my motivation to be more consistent on this front. I’ve been taking more time recently to meet with other sourcers and TA professionals to try and reinvigorate my desire to produce content.
Any future predictions on talent sourcing?
At some point in our future, talent sourcing will be completely unrecognizable. For now, though, we’re here to stay! I think as we see truer AI (I’m looking at all you vendors who use IF/ELSE statements and then slap AI on your product name. . .) we will see it leveraged in ways to eliminate more of the manual tasks that Sourcers typically handle – we’ve already seen some examples of that with ChatGPT being used to build target lists of companies by industry or size, Boolean strings, and more.
What’s your favorite Boolean String?
I don’t have a specific string that is my favorite, and I really enjoy working with all the different operators on different platforms. Sometimes I build really simple strings, sometimes I build some that are so nested and convoluted I can’t even remember what all I put in there or how it’s ordered in the search.
Tell me about your current role? How’s that going?
I’m currently the Manager of Strategic Talent Sourcing at Maxar Technologies. I was preceded in this role by Erin Mathew, so definitely some big shoes to fill, but my team is back at strength and we have a great leadership team in place that is focused on efficiency, eliminating barriers, and enabling our team to succeed.
Here’s how to connect with Michael:
Recommended Reading:
Trish Wyderka Interview
How to deal with recruiting burnout
The best recruiting podcasts to listen to at work
- Unleashing the Power of AI in Talent Sourcing: Meet Noon - May 17, 2024
- Demystifying Natural Language Search: Crafting Effective Boolean Strings - April 26, 2024
- The Art of Context: Why Rushing to Conclusions Can Lead Us Astray - April 25, 2024