Summer holidays, what a beautiful moment to be a Talent Sourcer.

 

The sun is shining more than 8 hours a day. People are going on holiday and travelling around to magical places. Delicious food, lots of laughing and blue skies. What a time to be alive!

 

But no, wait a minute.

 

Please, raise your hand if you have decided to go back to Brazil and are living your 6th winter within two and a half years.

 

Yes, I am not kidding, the temperatures are not as low as the Dutch winter. But still: six winters in total!

 

The good news is that now I officially have a place to live, and the “Successr Brazilian” office is completely in place. I am so happy!

 

Right there, from my brand new white office table, is where the Dutch summer holidays and the Brazilian winter meet. As a miracle, they allow me to focus on several other things rather than the weather.

 

For example, it doesn’t matter if you have a super mature company or a “let’s just do it now” company, a.k.a. scale-up: a lot can happen if you haven’t thought about who will handle your work or whom to communicate with during your holidays.

 

One thing that comes to my mind is that, even though Sourcing has been a profession for years now, people still insist on treating us as recruiters.

 

Because of this misunderstanding, some Sourcers receive new roles to fill without any strategic thoughts about it. The result is a profile with missed skills and no alignment with the company’s needs – a mission that actually belongs to a Recruiter.

 

But if that Recruiter is on holiday and there is no one to replace her/him, then the Sourcer must know how to manage expectations.

 

Choosing for a temporary “no” for that type of role is one option. 

 

Another one is saying “yes”, but the Sourcer will have some challenges to overcome. In most cases, the Sourcer will struggle with deficient profiles and probably will spend more time figuring those profiles out than sourcing. The Sourcer will be longing for the Recruiter to make its return. 

 

Honestly, I would deny these positions. For the following reasons:

 

1) Normally, the profile will clearly lay out the hard skills (e.g. studies, years of experience, main domain of knowledge).

 

However, soft skills, such as company culture, connection with the company’s values, proactivity, and helicopter view, are skills that the Recruiter and Hiring Manager must check upon together.

 

If that step is skipped, it is most likely that hiring managers will decline people during interviews, because they didn’t fit into the personality skills.

 

2) The Sourcer will lose time searching and talking with people who do not have the skillset for that role. Consequently, that Sourcer will need to start a search all over again when the Recruiter aligns the profile after the holidays.

 

3) It is a temporary situation. It will be fixed in a couple of weeks when the Recruiter will be back from the holidays.

 

Now you see, the summer holidays can be quiet, but also a bit chaotic if things are not aligned well.

 

I told you before and I say it again: the summer holidays, what a beautiful moment to be a Talent Sourcer!

 

Enjoy your holidays and see you next month!