SourceCon Spring 2017 – Team, Community and Congratulations!

Coming back from a conference is always inspiring – multiply that by 10 for SourceCon Spring 2017: We Control the Robots in Anaheim, CA. The conference delivered with inspiring keynotes, in-depth breakout sessions, and great networking.

However, the major highlight was supporting and celebrating Objective Paradigm’s Sarah Goldberg, Senior Sourcing and Research Specialist, who tied for 2nd place in SourceCon’s Grandmaster Challenge!

What is the Grandmaster Challenge?

Leading up to SourceCon, Sarah and dozens of others from the SourceCon community competed in a series of sourcing challenges referred to as The Grandmaster Challenge.* The event began on July 20, 2016 and wrapped up on February 28, 2017. For the final challenge, the top eight Sourcers were given three actual job descriptions and approximately 8,000 real resumes.

*Check out Jim Stroud’s Human Vs Machine: Who Sources best? The Results Of The 2017 Grandmaster Competition for more on the competition.

Here’s what they had to do:

• Identify the three candidates that were actually placed in those roles
• Identify the three who interviewed but didn’t get placed
• Identify the three who were submitted but not interviewed.

In addition to human contestants, there was an 11th – Brilent, a sourcing AI/machine learning program. Brilent came in 3rd place, so congrats to Sarah for beating the machine!

The Participants

The participants were some of the best sourcers from all over the world, representing companies like Indeed and Walmart, and living in three countries on two continents.

“Truly an international competition with competitors from three countries represented! Randy, Tris, Jimmy, and Edsel all made it into the conference, and it was an honor to meet with and learn from all of them!” – Sarah Goldberg, Objective Paradigm

Right to left – Tris Revill (Indeed, Dublin), Jimmy Nguyen (Indeed, Austin), Sarah Goldberg (OP, Chicago), Edsel Rivera (Indeed, Austin), and Randy Bailey (1st place, Walmart, Boston)

Sourcing as a Team

As Sarah, Robyn and I headed back to Chicago I was inspired by what we learned and experienced at SourceCon, and excited about how we can take that back to the office to inspire the rest of our team and provide an even greater service to our clients. I’m not only proud of my team, but I’m more convinced than ever that our team’s education and experience, engagement with the sourcing community, and access to the cutting edge of talent acquisition technology puts us in a unique position to make an impact.

Ben Solomon, Director of Research at Objective Paradigm, oversees research while leading and developing OP’s Sourcing Team. Ben is passionate about using recruitment tools to increase recruitment process productivity. He is a graduate of Northwestern University.