I originally published this post on LinkedIn, but am reposting here to ensure my blog readers catch it. When I attended LinkedIn’s Talent Connect 2015 conference in Anaheim, CA and I was able to take some video of Eddie Vivas, Head of Talent Solutions Product for LinkedIn, formerly the Founder and Chief Product Officer at Bright.com […]
Irina posted an interesting piece on discrepancies in search results between LinkedIn Recruiter and a free LinkedIn account which prompted me to do a little digging as I don’t think I’ve ever come across materially different results in actual use. While the discrepancies are definitely interesting, and I would love to know exactly what’s […]
An entertaining blog post by Matt Charney was recently brought to my attention in which he tells the world to shut up and stop talking about Boolean strings – he argues that Boolean search is a dying art and that “investing time or energy into becoming a master at Boolean is a lot like learning […]
LinkedIn Recruiter Certification In case you missed it, LinkedIn has launched a recruiter certification program! If you think you’re ready to get certified, between now and December 31, 2013, LinkedIn will waive the exam fee for the first 500 customers that register for the LinkedIn Certified Professional—Recruiter certification exam. Click/see the coupon code below: Before you attempt […]
Do you think Boolean search is boring, tiresome and ineffective, and that semantic search delivers faster results that count? I was struck by the image Marc Drees used in his #SOSUEU: the day after post, which you can see above. I would have loved to sit on that panel discussion and contribute my experience and thoughts on the […]
When it comes to sourcing and recruiting, semantic search is perhaps the most powerful way to quickly find people who have experience you’re looking for. Now, I am not talking about black box semantic search (e.g., Google, Monster’s 6Sense, etc.). I’m referring to user-defined semantic search, where you tell a search engine exactly what you […]
The other week I came across a question regarding Monster’s search operators in the Boolean Strings group on LinkedIn and I realized that most people don’t know that Monster’s classic resume search has a few undocumented search operators as well as powerful semantic search capability. In this article I will detail two of Monster’s […]
Note: I’ve updated this post as of August, 2015 with even more inclusive and effective diversity searches for LinkedIn. When it comes to diversity sourcing and recruiting, the first thing that comes to mind for many people is posting jobs on diversity sites and in diverse groups. However, as I have written about […]
You know what they say about first impressions? Do you ever wonder what people think of you based on the emails, InMails, voice mails, LinkedIn group posts, and other messaging efforts you undertake to make an initial contact with potential candidates? You should. Do you think they feel that they can get a sense of […]
What do I mean by “ruin?” I’d rather let you run with the concept, but if you need a little more direction, this may help: In general – do you think that the activities undertaken by recruiters on LinkedIn have any negative repercussions on the LinkedIn experience for non-recruiters? If so, why, and how? […]
So, you want to know how to become a world class sourcer or recruiter? You’re in luck, because in this article, I explain precisely how to become one. The good news is that all it takes is practice, and it doesn’t take 10,000 hours of practice either. No one is born with a sourcing or recruiting gene, […]
In the past, I’ve explained the Boolean Black Belt concept and exposed what I feel is the real “secret” behind learning how to master the art and science of leveraging information systems for talent identification and acquisition. Now I would like to show you precisely WHY Boolean search is such a big deal in recruiting. There […]
I read an article on ERE about the other day titled “Love Writing Boolean Instead of Recruiting? Then Don’t Read This Post.” While I happen to be pretty good at and thoroughly enjoy writing Boolean queries for talent mining, I actually love the entire recruiting life cycle. Sourcing is a means to an end, not […]
I’ve been blogging nearly 3 years now, and I realized I’ve never come out and actually defined the term “Boolean Black Belt.” The concept seems pretty self explanatory, but there has been at least 1 person who’s taken the opportunity to point out (and gain some traffic in the process – but it’s all good!) that it could be perceived as a […]
Beyond Basic Boolean Most sourcing, recruiting, and staffing professionals are familiar with the basic Boolean operators of AND, OR, and NOT. However, I have found that few are familiar with what some refer to as “extended” Boolean functionality, such as proximity search and term weighting. Proximity and term weighting, where supported, are not actually logical […]
When I recently spoke at SourceCon in New York, I showed an example Boolean search string that could be used as a challenge or an evaluation of a person’s knowledge and ability. The search string looked something like this: (Director or “Project Manage*” or “Program Manage*” or PM*) w/250 xfirstword and (truck* or ship* or […]
I’ve read a few articles recently talking about IBM’s Watson and how the technology they developed may be the harbinger of unemployment for people in many professions. Here’s one from Fortune magazine, asking if IBM’s Watson will put your job in jeopardy. Here’s another suggesting that those who train others in Internet, social media, ATS, […]
When I spoke at the LinkedIn Talent Connect event last year, I dropped a big question on the 500+ audience: “What’s your informational and competitive advantage when you all have access to the same people?” Think about it. If you have a LinkedIn Recruiter account (over 55% of the Fortune 100 do!), you have access […]
I read a brief sidebar article in the November 1, 2010 Fortune magazine that detailed the hottest jobs of 2010 and I was pleased with what I saw, and I thought you would be too. Apparently, Fortune worked with “LinkedIn’s top data crunchers” to pull some exclusive information about the job titles that saw the […]
Back in November, I posted a Boolean search challenge to demonstrate that when you give a number of sourcers and recruiters the same job description/hiring profile to search for, you will get as many different searches and search strategies as you have sourcers and recruiters. As I have said many times before, every search string […]