My process is a bit embarrassing. I felt like a game show contestant and you have 55 seconds to grab all the money in the booth - stuff is flying everywhere! My style can best be described as 'whacking around' or maybe, 'throwing paint at the wall.' Luckily, I met up with Shannon who was open to chatting and very nice so I had a social outlet for my snarkiness. How fun! I hate the word synergy because it's beaten to death, but the excitement and rambling that Shannon and I batted back and forth shot us that much closer to the finish. Plus, we had someone to celebrate with which made it fun because I know both of our husbands think we're bananas.

August 4th.

Forget all about the contest. Remember that night. Go to page and look at the challenge. Read it and think, "What in the name of Cyndi Lauper does any of this mean?!" and decide to see if more clues are posted in the morning.

August 5th.

Think about the clues. Feel happy that I remember that stupid song, "Great White North" and know it means Canada. Somehow I find Michael, aka Recruiting Animal, and send him an email. He has nothing for me but he's so lovely I venture to ask him a few questions. Like what does ERE mean? I could feel the incredulity in his lovely response, but he did give me some sites I really need to know about in this business. Thanks Michael!

August 6th.

Search Twitter for 'sourcecon' and follow all people with source in their name. Shannon then friends me. I send her back a message saying "Hi!" and we begin a mutual cheering section that goes through the whole contest. I tell her that I'm brand new and she recommends asking the sourcergm for an ning invite. It takes me half a day to figure out what she's talking about. Then I ask and forget to send my email. I'm feeling out of my depth.

August 7th.

Call my emergency sitter and get totally sucked into to a world that I'm pretty unfamiliar with. Back to pouring over the Sourcecon challenge.

I find Phil Jones by looking at Shannon's friends on something! Recruiterblogs, I think. I Twit her thanks :). I am now officially hooked.

Shannon and I Twit chat about the whole Gladiator quote thing.

Twit me: I'm sure RC = Russell Crowe!

Twit Shannon: Did you email him??!!

Twit me: Huh? Email Russell Crowe? Because he's international?!

Twit Shannon: Uh, um, you're onto something! Gotta go have dinner with my husband. *waves and smiles*

I stare at the challenge for more hints. Nothing's coming. I remember my job interview when I was tasked with finding VPs of Finance using any means at my disposal. I had none so I Google. I love Google. I would be willing to get a tattoo that says, 'I don't want to live in a world without Google." I Google "Russell Crowe" international recruiter. I find rcrowe34@yahoo.com. I fall off my chair.

Back to the ning. I poke and poke and while looking over Jer's profile, I see the Plurk thingie. I go. I sign up. I immediately see HelenOfTroyRecruiter and I wonder if I'm a stroke risk. I look at everything. I make snarky comments on the early ones about my orbs. She sees them. And calls me out! I feel pretty stupid. But I'm stupid with HB and PJ.

I see all the daddy references, and 1 on 1 time. I know it's about a website and GoDaddy info will get me where I need to be. I just have no idea what website. I look at the WhoIs info on all the known playas in the sourcing world. Nada.

Also, I get to John Davis' VirtualCV that day, but I can't remember how that happened. I spend HOURS mining his site. The random sourcecon link. What does it mean? The Christmas crap. What does it mean? The Men Without Hats song which still plays in my head… What does it mean? Men without hats? JD has a hat! No head, but a hat! AAAAAAAAAHHHHHH! Then I see the link to a site called Leirpoll.com site that tells me it all means nothing. RRRRRRRRRRR.

It occurs to me to actually email Russell Crowe and ask him for help. I don't know if it's allowed, but I'm guessing he'll tell me.

I do. I send him all my guesses. He tells me to stop guessing. I keep guessing. He keeps telling me to stop. The picture clue gets posted. I send more guesses. Is it Steve Martin? It is not. And stop guessing.

I go to bed. Late.

August 8th.

I wake up at 5am thinking about Helen of Troy. Shannon isn't Twittering yet, so I lop over some ridiculous bits to start her day. I take a huge piece of my daughter's craft paper and write out every single clue. I am certain it's all about godaddy and colorblindness. I google something and come up with Sepia Mutiny. That keeps me busy for hours. Then I start randomly plugging in addresses into the address bar; sepiarecruiting.com, sepiasourcerjobs.com, sepiasourcingjobs.com, sourcingjobs.com, sepiamonster.com, wherearethesourcerjobs.com … until my brain starts to hurt. I look at the giant piece of paper, and type in 'sourcerjobs.com' and I get a site with the freaking marbles on it. I check the WhoIs on it. It's private. I remember the clue about highlight and right click. I worked for a design firm and designers used to always hide stuff in sites or in the html of sites. I select all so I can view the source code and voila! A secret message. Yay me!

:: GETTING THERE WAS ONLY A QUARTER OF THE FUN ::

I'm happy to admit some Shannon coattail-riding on this. I caught some breaks through her friends and she was so lovely about giving me the head's up on which sites are important in a recruiter/sourcer's toolbox. I picked up this challenge without even knowing about ERE.net so I must credit second place to a LOT of beginner's luck! But next year, next year I'll be ready! I do look forward to Sourcecon GMS IV, and I'll be at the next conference regardless. Thanks to all who have made me feel so welcome in this new adventure. What a great community!

Funny sidetracks:

*I didn't really understand that all the bios were plants. So, I called a very nice man named Harry Smith, who works for Perot systems, to see if he could be of any assistance. I had googled "Harry Smith" recruiter ca // which yielded this page: http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:f2NvldB4IN4J:www.linkedin.com/find/s/s84/s84_10.
html+%22harry+smith%22+recruiter+ca&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=4&gl=us.
Says he's a Lowlife. No lie. Check out the link; he's the fifth one down. So I figured he must need a call from me! When we figured out he had nothing to do with the search, I ZoomInfo'ed the CTO of LinkedIn's direct contact info so they could straighten it out!

*I spent untold hours pondering the possible esoteric meanings of the marbles. One red? Russia? The Great Bear? Is it a constellation? A larger jpg showed 8 marbles so I got to wondering about the 9 planets and Pluto being reclassified and how does that link to Top Secret field. I bugged my husband about a hidden message regarding physics. He's started to fear for my sanity.

*I called a Sarah McPherson who works in AK. Still not sure why, but she no longer works there and the admin was a bit pissy about it.

*I was godaddying for so long, I came up with a number of great ideas for recruiting firm businesses. And I know which ones are available! JD, call me. I'm all about the domain names!

*I thought Helen Brown Heintz was the real HOTR and I tried to get in contact with her. Directly. There are a number of people who think I'm insane.