Monthly Archives: November 2008

Resumes on the Internet: Monster vs. Google Round 2

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In response to my post of Resumes on the Internet: Monster vs. Google one of my readers commented that “While it may be true that Monster has more resumes than Google, using a zip code search is not a fair comparison for Google. People who post their resumes on Monster are required to enter their zip code, while people who resumes are stored online will generally only put their email and/or phone number. Also, even using the term resume can be limiting in Google. Because it was not built to only index resumes, you have to get more creative to filter out the noise. You can try the ~CV or ~Resume, you can also take that out completely and search for types of documents, .DOC, .PDF, etc. and look for words commonly found in CV’s like education, objective, etc.”

His comment inspired me to get these industry heavyweights into the ring for a second battle and experiment with not using zip code ranges or the word “resume” when searching for resumes on the Internet using Google. Let’s begin with the same searches as Monster vs. Google Round 1.

Search #1 – Java, Oracle, Sprint or Nextel, State of MD

Google #1 Zip range (original search) = 4 results

(intitle:resume | inurl:resume) java oracle (sprint | nextel) 20601..21930 (MD | Maryland) -~job -~jobs Continue reading →

The Sourcer’s Fallacy

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A significant step on the path of sourcing enlightenment is becoming aware of, and not falling prey to The Sourcer’s Fallacy.

The Sourcer’s Fallacy is the conscious or unconscious belief that:

#1 If you haven’t found what you’re looking for in a particular database, social network, or on the Internet – that it’s not there,

And/Or

#2 After you’ve run searches in a particular database, social network, or on the Internet that you have found all that there is to be found.

Some quick secondary sourcing facts:

  • No single Boolean search string can find ALL qualified candidates
  • Unknowingly, most sourcers and recruiters employ Boolean search strings that make it nearly impossible to find every possible qualified candidate, let alone the BEST candidates
  • Most people are not aware of the candidates they did not find – but that does not mean that they are not there to be found

Enlightened sourcers and recruiters are always aware that there are candidates that they are missing and not finding when they run Boolean searches to find people. This awareness drives them to consciously and creatively think of ways to uncover those candidates hiding in of every source of human capital.

Don’t fall prey to the Sourcer’s Fallacy.

Searching Facebook for Candidates

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I recently received a request from a reader to come up with some example Boolean Strings for finding software engineers on Facebook who are from Top 10 schools (Stanford, Berkeley, MIT, CMU, etc) and live in the Silicon Valley.

***Quick disclaimer***
I am definitely not a Facebook sourcing guru – I don’t see it as a high yield source for proactive and highly precise sourcing as it is a relatively “shallow” source of information, it’s search interfaces are quite limited, and when x-raying into Facebook you can’t see much information. I’d invite anyone reading this that has suggestions and best practices to please add them.

Okay, now that I got that out of the way, searching inside Facebook for people that you don’t “know” (they aren’t your “friends” yet) has become more and more restricted over time. There are a few ways to search for people within Facebook – I will cover 3. Continue reading →

Why learn how to master Boolean search strings?

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Image by shawnblog

Image by shawnblog

Why bother to learn the arcane art and science of Boolean search logic?

It really bothers me when I read or hear about the idea that sourcers and recruiters don’t need to worry about learning how to craft and execute Boolean queries for talent identification and acquisition. This opinion usually has something to do with the idea that creating effective Boolean search strings is a time-consuming and difficult-to-learn process, and ultimately ends up in lowly “buzzword matching.”

It’s one thing to hear this kind of thought coming from a software vendor that’s selling a product, claiming that their “fuzzy logic” or “artificial intelligence” application can match candidates to job openings as well as a senior sourcer or recruiter can, without the need to learn how to create and run advanced Boolean queries. I get it – they’re selling something…the idea that their software can reduce or eliminate the need to train yourself or your sourcing/recruiting team on how to create effective Boolean search strings. I can’t blame the software vendors – they’re trying to make money.

It’s another to hear this kind of thought coming from a staffing professional – that’s just scary. It tells me very clearly that the person expressing this opinion doesn’t have a strong understanding of, or a high level of expertise with, the inherent power and control advanced Boolean search tactics and strategies can afford a sourcer or recruiter when it comes to talent identification and acquisition. If you don’t know how to use it or only have a basic level of understanding of it, how are you qualified to have an opinion on it, least of all a potentially negative and damaging opinion? Yes, I do know what they say about opinions. I’ll keep it clean here.

Discounting the power and value of learning how to effectively wield Boolean search strings is no different than saying that there’s little value in learning how to effectively perform cold calling/phone sourcing. With either method of sourcing, primary or secondary, it is more the person applying the concepts, tactics, strategies, and techniques than the Boolean operators or the phone sourcing scripts themselves. Make no mistake – it’s the human element that gets the results.

Okay, so Boolean Logic isn’t as sexy as Social Media and certainly isn’t the staffing buzzword du jour. However, does anyone think for a second that the world is going to go backwards to storing everything on paper? HELLO?!? With more and more information being stored electronically (pretty much everything, really) – online somewhere (Social Networks, blogs, job boards, etc.) or buried in a corporate database/ATS, it’s worthless unless you can retrieve it. You can’t retrieve information electronically without using some kind of query logic. So how does it make sense to think that it’s not critically important that sourcers and recruiters learn how to manipulate information retrieval logic? Continue reading →