The 10 Books Every Talent Pro Should Have on Their Nightstand

March 4, 2015 at 12:57 PM by Kathleen de Lara

books_blog.jpg…and very likely could have!

Practice may make perfect, but if luck runs out and the $2,500 cash prize for winning the World’s Greatest Sourcer slips through your fingers, runner-up is still pretty sweet.

We previously came up with the official WGS reading collection, but adding 26 books to a growing reading list may feel ambitious for any talent pro. We asked Shally, “If you could take any 10 books with you to a deserted island, what would they be?”

Here’s what he told us.


talent sourcing and recruitment handbookThe Talent Sourcing and Recruitment Handbook by Shally Steckerl

This one’s a no-brainer. Shally vows there is nothing out there about the sourcing and recruiting industry as a whole. Sourcing, interviewing, and hiring may all be covered in little paperbacks, but this book is the only textbook-size, comprehensive guide of its kind. Enough pats on the back, we’ll let SHRM’s Steven Miranda do the talking:

“Shally Steckerl has written a wonderful book that demystifies the recruitment process and breaks it down into an easy to understand combination of specific steps and strategies. His ability to deal with the little things that plue recruiters (What exactly is the best Boolean search string to find this particular type of candidate) to the higher level strategic questions (How do I best position the value of our recruiting team to my business leaders?) serves as a one-stop shop for anyone trying to figure out how to both recruit as an individual or to create an effective recruiting center within your organization. It also breaks down the recruiting process into concrete steps and provides specific recommendations along the way. A must have for anyone responsible for recruiting in their organization.”

 


persuasion engineeringPersuasion Engineering by Richard Bandler and John La Valle

Bandler, the grandfather of neuro-linguistic programming (NLP), teaches you the psychology of using existing communication opportunities to connect and build relationships with people. In this book, he teaches you how to change the delivery of your outreach to better resonate with people. Learn how to influence people by having conversations others will remember. Upgrade your social skills, nurture your messaging style, increase the likeliness candidates will reply to you and feel connected to a stranger like you.

 


nlp at workNLP at Work: The Difference that Makes a Difference in Business, 2nd Edition by Sue Knight

In hiring, recruiters are responsible for making the connection between the buyer and seller. The buyer as the company, the seller as the candidate, the product as talent. Recruiters are driven by conflict, resolving the tension between the candidate and the company. As Bandler introduces the theory and fundamentals of NLP, Knight takes readers through a practical, applicable guide. It’s the unofficial, complementary workbook to Persuasion Engineering. Learn how to become an influential communicator and how to build relationships between hiring team through modeling and mirroring, and being good at resolving conflicts.

 


free agent nationFree Agent Nation by Daniel H. Pink

As Shally calls it, Free Agent Nation is a classic book on learning how to work for yourself and market yourself. This choice is the right fit for self-employed sourcers and recruiters, or those looking to shift over to that spectrum. More talent pros are moving back to the free-agent trend of the early 2000s, given their specialized search skills can be shared with multiple companies and can reap more benefits than working full-time at one org. Stuck between the worlds of being employed and being a consultant? This book may help you decide the right fit.

 


how to create a mindHow to Create a Mind: The Secret of Human Thought Revealed by Ray Kurzweil

Kurzweil explores reverse-engineering and studying pattern recognition to understand the brain and use it as a model to create artificial intelligent machines. “Think of it as the Rosetta Stone for your thoughts,” Shally said. Learn how to rely on communication and behavioral pattern recognition to be more mindful and trust your intuition when having conversations with people, candidates, potential hires.

 


the art of warThe Art of War by Sun Tzu

“This book straight up all about leadership,” Shally said – the classic how-to on being a more strategic, tactical, productive innovator. The Art of War’s focus on the careful methodology of Chinese warfare and military planning, applicable to sourcers and recruiters looking to outpace their competition, improve the way they position their pitch, and manage crises and unexpected outcomes.

 

 

 


brain rulesBrain Rules by John Medina

If Lumosity was a book, Brain Rules would be it. Medina breaks down 12 key concepts for succeeding in work, home, and school. Think of this book as the owners manual for how to use your brain – learning, acting and reacting, remembering, retaining, forgetting.

 

 

 

 


the art of deception

The Art of Deception: Controlling the Human Element of Security by Kevin Mitnick

A classic book on human hacking, Mitnick takes us through how he used “low-tech threats” to attack “high-tech security,” gaming the system by thinking unlike how the system expects, earning him the title as the world’s most notorious computer hacker, making him a millionaire in the process. In this book, recruiters can understand how people are susceptive to basic cons and consider alternative, mutually-beneficial ways to gain trust and nurture relationships.

 


the non-technical guide to web technologiesThe Non-Technical Guide to Web Technologies by Tommy Chheng

Chheng’s guide is one of the best resources for non-technical recruiters to get a start on developing their tech literacy. Sourcing engineers? Data scientists? Designers? And have no idea where to start or how to speak their language? Check out this quick guide to understand the basics about web tech, tech-speak, and how to apply this to honing your hunt for tech talent.

 

 


hiring smartHiring Smart: How to Predict Winners and Losers in the People-Reading Game by Pierre Mornell

In Hiring Smart, Mornell takes readers through 45 tactics for understanding how to invest in talent and read people’s communication and behaviors to predict their fit in the workplace, saving you from making and paying for a bad hire. Learn unconventional recruiting and interviewing techniques to fill tough-to-fill roles with specialized people fit for the team.

 


What books did we miss above that you think belong on the winner’s list? Share them with us the comments and we’ll pass them along to Shally! If you haven’t yet heard, we’ve partnered up with the sourcing wizards at The Sourcing Institute to bring you the World’s Greatest Sourcer competition (not to be confused with the official SourceCon Challenge), and you can read this post to learn more about joining the challenge.

world's greatest sourcer contest

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