I’ve learned a lot from Bret Feig on our Talent Sourcers Facebook group over the past few weeks. Through his passion for sharing within our community, I was able to learn about a new Facebook extraction tool called Toolkit For Facebook by PlugEx and it’s really blown me away. I was devastated to hear the news that Grouply shutting-down and thankfully this tool is an excellent replacement. So, with that in mind, I was eager to sit down and do an interview with Bret. Please enjoy reading this Q&A interview with Bret below:
How did you get into the recruiting field?
Like many others, I am sure my story will ring a familiar bell. It was basically a bait-n-switch. I had just graduated and was working in a shitty sales job that I only took in order to move to NYC. After two years, I received a call from one of the largest staffing agencies and was invited in for an interview. Ironically, I had no idea what I was actually interviewing for but assumed it was for one of their clients. Well, that was a wrong assumption as I ended up getting an offer to join them as a recruiter… and here I am.
Have you had any wins lately? What types of roles are you working on?
These days I’m all corporate/in-house. I run the executive search team for IPG Mediabrands, one of the largest media holding companies globally. The roles we hire run the gambit from Media, Digital, Analytics and just about anything our agencies need (Finance, Accounting, a mailroom clerk etc). It’s funny, most of my “wins” these days are more about bringing about the consensus between hiring disparate hiring managers with opposing interests or strategically building out the mechanics for large-scale, quick turnaround, hiring needs; then it is about sourcing purple squirrels.
What’s your favorite extension tool or search tool?
Where do I even start?
Scraping: I like Dataminer, webscraper.io and Instant Data Scraper
Data Enrichment: I like Linkedin Prospector & Hiretual.
Finding contact details: I use Contact Out, Hiretual & Lusha (in that order).
General Tools: I love Onetab & Tab resizer (split screen).
Search Engines: Google & Bing seem to be all I need these days. However, if you’re ever looking for a bunch of unique search methods, I turn to Bellingcat’s Osint landscape (here).
Lastly, I’d be dead in the water without Extensity to control them all.
Favorite Boolean search string example?
Contrary to popular opinion, there is no “magic pill” search string. It’s all contingent on what you’re actually looking for and where they are likely to be found. I generally craft my own these days but if you’re a “string” collector, I recommend checking out Full Stack Recruiter by Jan Tegze or 300 Best Boolean Strings by Irina Shamarva. Those are two excellent resources for when everything else has failed and you need a little inspiration.
The two that I tend to use with most frequency are:
site:linkedin.com/in “email me * *” OR “call me * *” (keywork1 OR Keywork2 OR Keyword3) (MustHave1 OR musthave2) “greater new york”
This one is great for finding LinkedIn profiles that also have personal e-mails or phone numbers published.
filetype:xls name phone email title company “companyname.com”
Always good for finding attendee lists and other spreadsheets.
What’s your favorite sourcing hack that you’ve used in a search?
Ok, I wasn’t going to give this one away just yet but I’m feeling generous. This simple idea will be the topic of an article I am writing and likely a future presentation. The concept is so simple yet more effective then you can imagine.
Have you ever sent an e-mail to someone’s work account but they were out of the office? What sort of response did you get back? I am willing to guess, 8/10 times you received an Out of Office (OOO) automatic reply. Now often that OOO message is some permutation of “I’m not in due to _______, I’ll Be / Won’t Be checking e-mails, I’ll return on ______.
However, in many industries, it doesn’t stop there. If you’re smiling now, you’re probably remembering the smorgasbord of intel that normally follows. “If you need me to call my cell 555-1212” or “in my absence contact my colleague on his Cell 555-1212”. The amount of key-intel given away, FOR FREE, in OOO is mind-blowing.
2x a year, on very specific dates, I generate a massive list of all the employees from my top 10 competitors and serve them with a quick, and very brief e-mail, that’s designed to be pleasantly forgettable and camouflaged. (No, I don’t use my real e-mail address). The results are staggering and quite literally fuel my efforts for the next year.
Any future predictions on Talent Sourcing? What will change in 5 to 10 years?
Net/Net I don’t think anything will change. New technology will immerge that will help cut down on some of the administrative aspects while promising and failing to revolutionize the industry. We’ll continue to see a shift from “being able to FIND candidates” as a key skill set, to placing more of a premium on relationship building and related “people skills” We will continue to shift the strategy on how we communicate with candidates, evolving away from the phone to other more effective channels. There are other little nuances but, like I said, net/net the game will remain unchanged.
Relax, robots aren’t taking our jobs and Cyberdyne is not creating Skynet anytime soon.
Subscribe Bret Fieg’s YouTube channel (here)
Recommended Reading:
How to Automate LinkedIn Using Phantombuster
Boolean Strings to Source Female Candidates
How to Use Mail Merge to Recruit Candidates
