The gist of his post was “be careful who you idolize” in the recruiting world. Definitely something to keep in mind if you’re an avid consumer of recruiting/sourcing (or any) blogs. I guess I just wanted to expand a bit on that theme with a related, if somewhat tangential topic.

The stuff I write about, and train people on internal to my company, or share externally at networking events is all my particular take on a given technique or approach to sourcing. I do my best to write from my experience and hopefully the stuff I put out is useful to you. If not, why are you here?! Unsubscribe right away! Well, tell me it stinks, then unsubscribe.

Too often a vendor, or individual or company will hail some sourcing doodad as the answer to all your problems. This is almost never the case. The myriad factors involved in sourcing are too varied to all be tamed by one thing.

The point of all the techniques, tactics and tools that are out there is to find the most appropriate use for them, and just as important the situations when they aren’t useful.

Take what you read and test it, try other versions of it, give it a workout on your sourcing or recruiting projects. Improve on it, make it fail, take it apart, try to get at why it works or doesn’t for you. Along the way you’ll not only learn something about the machinery behind the tools tactics and techniques being offered, you’ll also teach yourself to spot BS a mile away. Be it from a vendor or self described guru.