Andre Boulais

Blog on how companies can maximize their internship experiences. Drawing on year's of experience as a global talent leader at at Tech 50 company as well as working with 100's of talent leaders globally on maximizing their best practices.

I’ve had a great response from HR leaders on my earlier blog showing why the Outbound Sourcer was the most important hire to make in 2017. As the landscape of talent acquisition shifts it’s great to see not only Tech companies but traditional industries also moving towards this model. Over coffees and calls across different continents the most common question to me is: How do I build an Outbound Sourcing team from scratch?

Based on years of experience leading a global Tech 50 Sourcing… Show more

I’ve had a great response from HR leaders on my earlier blog showing why the Outbound Sourcer was the most important hire to make in 2017. As the landscape of talent acquisition shifts it’s great to see not only Tech companies but traditional industries also moving towards this model. Over coffees and calls across different continents the most common question to me is: How do I build an Outbound Sourcing team from scratch?

Based on years of experience leading a global Tech 50 Sourcing team and conversations with over 100 current talent leaders, here are three tips to get started:

1. Hire the right People

It seems like a no brainer but the DNA of an Outbound Sourcer is drastically different from most HR personalities. Keep in mind these professionals will be constantly hunting and trying to convince passive (those not looking for jobs) prospects to interview and potentially join your company. Someone coming from a third party recruiting agency tends to be the perfect blend of traits but companies I’ve worked with have also converted their Lead Gen team folks and even a few Skip Tracers.

2. Establish ROI

What I mean here is you must shape what success looks like. For example, a C Suite Talent Acquisition leader recently confided that even though they were a mid-sized company (2,000 employees) they’d spent $250k on 3rd party recruiting agency fees the year before to hire 13 Sales Professionals. That’s roughly $20k they were paying per hire. With that mentality, hiring an Outbound Sourcer to solely focus on filling hard to fill sales roles is a great place to start. For example, Sarah the Sourcer has a base salary of $50k and by her six month she’s... Show less

Why the most important HR hire of 2017 may be one you haven’t heard of.

If you can only make one HR in hire in 2017, hire a…”

“Attention Talent Leaders: Define 2017 with one game-changing HR Hire”

There’s been a tectonic shift in talent acquisition over the past five years. Have you felt it? The old days of your best hires coming from applicants ended somewhere around 2012. Can you still make hires via your ATS, certainly. Are they the best at their position? Not… Show more

Why the most important HR hire of 2017 may be one you haven’t heard of.

If you can only make one HR in hire in 2017, hire a…”

“Attention Talent Leaders: Define 2017 with one game-changing HR Hire”

There’s been a tectonic shift in talent acquisition over the past five years. Have you felt it? The old days of your best hires coming from applicants ended somewhere around 2012. Can you still make hires via your ATS, certainly. Are they the best at their position? Not really.

Ask any talent leader at a high-growth company how much of their budget is allocated towards agency spend and you’ll more than likely get a huge groan and then an astounding number. So how do you put those dollars to better use? Simple: hire an Outbound Talent Sourcer.

Your typical day to day recruiters juggle posting roles to their ATS, screening applicants, working with hiring managers and so on and so on. What they don’t really do is actually recruit.

Outbound Sourcers sole job is to identify, attract and engage the best passive talent for the company’s hard to fill roles. Show less

It finally happened Wednesday night. The lovable losers, The Chicago Cubs, raised the World Series trophy as champions. In doing so, they erased 108 years of frustration. As the world watched (and celebrated) with them, I couldn’t stop thinking how much of their story mirrors situations often faced by today’s talent leaders.

A new leader rarely walks into a good situation.

We all hope to land our dream job, but the reality is there’s usually a caveat. Finally landed a role… Show more

It finally happened Wednesday night. The lovable losers, The Chicago Cubs, raised the World Series trophy as champions. In doing so, they erased 108 years of frustration. As the world watched (and celebrated) with them, I couldn’t stop thinking how much of their story mirrors situations often faced by today’s talent leaders.

A new leader rarely walks into a good situation.

We all hope to land our dream job, but the reality is there’s usually a caveat. Finally landed a role with your dream company, but had to take a step down in title? You finally made that coveted Manager/Director/VP of Talent Acquisition role, but did so joining a company in distress? These are common scenarios recruiting leaders face.

When the Cubs hired President of Baseball Operations Theo Epstein, he was tasked with not only winning with one of the most recognized and storied sports franchises in the world, but to deliver a championship. The latter request had not happened in over 100 years, and was the longest such drought in Major League Baseball.

Have a plan and don’t be afraid to run towards the fire.

A mentor and friend of mine walked into a global leadership role with a large publicly traded tech company earlier this year. Though this was an amazing opportunity, during the interview process the executives stressed their frustrations and issue. My friend calmly problem-solved what her 30-60-90 would be during her interview, and was hired. She had a huge task ahead of her and embraced it. Show less

Full disclosure: I've never served in any branch of the military, but I have spent the past decade in talent acquisition. This has given me the great opportunity to interview and hire veterans. It started when I began early in my recruiting career in staffing. A friend returned from two tours in Afghanistan and was looking for work. Although college educated, he didn't have experience outside of the military. This motivated him to take on any opportunity temporary for the chance to… Show more

Full disclosure: I've never served in any branch of the military, but I have spent the past decade in talent acquisition. This has given me the great opportunity to interview and hire veterans. It started when I began early in my recruiting career in staffing. A friend returned from two tours in Afghanistan and was looking for work. Although college educated, he didn't have experience outside of the military. This motivated him to take on any opportunity temporary for the chance to quantify how his experience would transfer into the corporate world. He also was willing to take any temp role to start building his professional resume. For each assignment we threw at him (and there were some doozy's), he showed up early and stayed late. He did more than was expected and always said thank you. Slowly but surely he started to have his various assignments extended and began to acquire letters of recommendation.

When I speak to colleagues in the world of recruiting, there's a growing discussion on the advantage of hiring veterans. Here are three quick reasons you should look into hiring someone who's served in the military.

1. Team Player

No matter the size, structure or morale on your team; know by hiring a veteran they are going to join your team ready to jump in Show less

Quick blog about ExactTarget being a power-user of Instajob!

A quick peek into what makes a career at ET unique!

Blog posting on the people that make ExactTarget consistently a Top 5 Best Place to Work!!

Quick summary of my first Super Bowl experience.