On November 8th, 2010, I wrote a post containing a Boolean search challenge and an experiment of sorts – I asked readers to share their approach and Boolean search strings for a basic job description. The inspiration for the experiment came from the fact that very few people seem to be consciously aware of the issue that when it comes to sourcing candidates via the Internet, resume databases, LinkedIn, etc., is that all Boolean candidate searches work, provided they are syntactically correct.

This is a fundamental problem which heavily influences the perception of sourcing as a low level, non-critical function and/or role, because anyone can take the title from a job description and the required skill terms, create a basic Boolean query, and get results. This leads to the idea that finding talent is easy – slap a few search terms together and voila! – you get candidates.

Congratulations for finding the same candidates everyone else is finding with the same unsophisticated searches. All candidate queries are definitely not created equal, and you simply cannot gain any competitive advantage running the same basic taken-straight-from-the-job-description title and keyword searches that everyone else does.

The lesser-known reality is that most people who run Boolean searches on LinkedIn, job board resume databases, in their Applicant Tracking Systems (if they even support Boolean – ouch!) and the Internet only find a small fraction of the talent that is available to be found. I’ve written quite a bit on the topic so I won’t belabor that point in this post. Continue reading →

One of the most interesting yet overlooked aspects associated with sourcing candidates using the Internet, job board databases, ATS/CRM systems and social networks such as LinkedIn is that as long as your syntax is correct, every search “works.”

This fact leads (too) many people to believe that finding talent online is easy and that there is no competitive advantage to be gained in the practice of searching human capital data.

However, are all queries created equal?

Would 5 different recruiters working the same position use the same search strings and search strategy? Would they find the same people if they used the same source?

In many organizations, sourcers and recruiters do not get (or seek out) the opportunity to compare and contrast their search strategies and tactics with their peers and/or managers on a position-by-position basis. Much of the magic of talent discovery and identification, or lack thereof, happens on each person’s computer screen.

Unlike professional athletes and musicians whose skills and techniques are on display and scientists who publish their work, sourcers and recruiters responsible for talent discovery have absolutely no public basis of comparison. Continue reading →