Wth phone sourcing, Sharib argued, “there’s no such thing as rejection because there’s always a way in. There are many windows and doors in a target company…Your job is to find the open door.”

An informal poll of the audience revealed that about half the attendees would rather use the web than the phone to seek out candidates. Asked why they would shy away from using the phone to get names, an audience member volunteered that she would fear that she was doing something wrong.

Sharib pointed out that reaching into competitor companies to potentially recruit staff was recently declared “a significant form of competition” by the US Department of Justice and not an unethical practice.

However, she also discouraged the audience from “rusing” or lying about why they were contacting companies. Giving the person at the other end of the line the caller’s real first name up front “removes the mystery” from such calls, she said. And when asked for the reason for the call, she said, “if pressed to the wall, I say I’m working on a mailing list. You just have to offer something”.

“Phone sourcing,” she summarised, “is simple - but it’s not easy.”