There are people in the HR/recruiting industry who believe that searching databases, the Internet, and social networking sites to source talent is relatively easy and that it can be automated through the use of technology. While those people are actually right (to an extent), I am happy to say that unfortunately for them, it’s not that simple. While anyone can manually write or automate basic searches and find … Read More
100+ Free Sourcing & Recruiting Tools, Guides, and Resources
It’s been a LONG time coming, but I finally got around to updating my free sourcing & recruiting tools, guides and resources page where I now keep a current list of the best of my work all in one place for easy bookmarking and reference. You can find it here on my main page: Additionally, I thought … Read More
Why Boolean Search is Such a Big Deal in Recruiting
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 are 2 main factors: Candidate … Read More
Talent Sourcing: Beyond Tips, Tricks, Hacks and the Internet
It’s bothered me for quite some time now that many people essentially equate sourcing with Internet search – using search engines such as Google and Bing to find resumes, lists, press releases, etc. It bothers me because sourcing is so much more than that. It also bothers me because I am aware that many companies (some quite large and well … Read More
The Future of Sourcing and Talent Identification
If you listen to certain people in the recruiting industry, you’d think that being able to leverage information systems for talent discovery and identification will be an obsolete skill for recruiters and that sourcers will have to find another profession in the near future. According to these folks, people with sourcing skills won’t be necessary because the future of sourcing … Read More
Does LinkedIn Offer Recruiters Any Competitive Advantage?
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 to view any and all … Read More
Talent Mining and the Future of Sourcing and Recruiting
Many people equate sourcing candidates with simply creating and running Boolean search strings. In my opinion and experience, Boolean search neither adequately describes nor gives proper credit to what sourcers and recruiters are really doing when they leverage the Internet, resume databases, ATS/CRM applications and social networking sites such as LinkedIn to find candidates, and to what some very talented … Read More
Boolean Search Conquers Impossible Google Position
NOTE: I am updating and reposting this piece soon. Stay tuned for the direct link. Thanks!
Why Do So Many ATS Vendors Offer Poor Search Capability?
This question has been burning in my mind for quite some time – why is it that so many ATS/recruiting CRM vendors offer poor or limited candidate search functionality? I’m not talking about ATS vendors you’ve never heard of – I’m talking about some of the biggest names in Applicant Tracking/Candidate Relationship Management applications. I’m well aware that ATS’s serve many … Read More
Searching Facebook for Candidates
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 … Read More
Talent Mining – what is it anyway?
By my definition, Talent Mining is a simple adaptation of Data Mining, which according to Wikipedia is the process of sorting through large amounts of data and picking out relevant information, or “the nontrivial extraction of implicit, previously unknown, and potentially useful information from data” and “the science of extracting useful information from large data sets or databases.” I define … Read More