Instead of just recruiting, we should start thinking outside the box when it comes to Internet sourcing.  Everyone knows there's a wealth of information on the net but few, very few, really know how to source it.  A friend of mine going through a nasty divorce asked me to see what I could find out about his soon-to-be Ex.  His attorney was astounded with what I dug up and proceeded to ask me how I did it.  That's when it hit me, should sourcing be limited to recruiting?

When my wife doubted her doctor's lack of concern about her medical condition, she started doing her own Internet research.  Eventually she ended up correctly diagnosing her own cancer which turned out to be one of the rarest in the world.  There was even an episode of TV's "Frontline" about this.  That was many years ago and she's fine now. But without her exhaustive research it's a medical fact she would have died had she not diagnosed herself.  The point is the information was out there but the doctors lacked the time and know-how to research her condition on the Internet.  Imagine what this new form of research capability could do for modern medicine.  Doctors would still be making the decisions but they and everyone would benefit from being able to have this powerful research assistance.

When I inherited a collection of artwork, I contacted the usual auction houses to see if there was any interest.  They all declined because when searching the Internet they could find very little about the artist.  They suggested I donate the artwork to a homeless shelter.  Turns out the reason they couldn't find anything was because most of the information was in German and they didn't know how to search foreign language websites.  My own research revealed that the artist was actually of some importance and was even a direct student of Renoir.  Had they known how to source the Internet, they'd have realized they had happened upon an undiscovered important collection that actually was documented.

For those of us who have taken the time to learn Internet sourcing, a time will come soon where this profession will be used for much more than recruiting.  It's time we start considering other uses for this skill and start expanding the uses for our expertise.  True, there's a wealth of information out there but it can be worse than a needle in a haystack to find.  The problem is almost all of the websites this information was posted on did not have the benefit of an SEO specialist to populate them effectively.  The irony is this is no different than the same challenge companies face when trying to find potential employees on the Internet.  You need someone who is an expert at sourcing through voluminous amounts of poorly organized data to find that needle in a haystack.