Tag Archives: Monster

Boolean Strings, Semantic and Natural Language Search – Oh My!

20 Replies

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 the fine art of calligraphy or opening a Delorean dealership.”

You can read the snippet regarding Boolean Strings below – click the image to be taken to the entire post, in which Matt addresses mobile recruiting and employer branding.

Matt Charney Boolean Strings

I enjoyed Matt’s post and his approach, but I did not find his arguments to be thoroughly sound – although I suspect he wasn’t trying to make them so (after all, his blog is titled “Snark Attack”).

I’m going to take the opportunity to address the points Matt raised – not because I am trying to stay “relevant,” as some might suggest (my blog is a not-for-profit personal passion and I don’t consult/train for a fee), and also not because I have a vested interest in “keeping Boolean search alive” (because I really don’t) – rather, because I am still amazed that a fundamental lack of understanding of search and information retrieval – both “manual” Boolean search and “automated” taxonomy driven and/or AI-powered semantic search – and I am constantly trying to help people not only understand both, but also appreciate their intrinsic limitations, as well as separate reality from hype.

So, without further ado: Continue reading →

Using Extended Boolean to Achieve Semantic Search in Sourcing

3 Replies

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 want with your query, and the search engine doesn’t try to “understand” your search terms or “figure out” what you mean through taxonomies, RDFa, keyword to concept mapping, graph patterns, entity extraction, fuzzy logic, etc.

If you’re not very familiar with semantic search (for sourcing – not search engines), I strongly suggest you read my comprehensive article from January 2012 on the subject: The Guide to Semantic Search for Sourcing and Recruiting. Continue reading →

Monster’s Undocumented Boolean Search Operators & Query Compression

7 Replies

 

Monster logo smallThe 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 undocumented search operators, how to compress your Boolean search strings by more than 30%, and remind you of Monster’s documented but seldom used NEAR search operator.

AND = & + OR = |

Although I can’t seem to find any documentation of it, Monster’s search functionality does support the & for the Boolean AND search operator as well as | for OR Boolean search operator – which can save on character space for longer queries.

While most people don’t run searches that will test Monster’s main search field limit of 500 total characters (including spaces), there are those sourcers and recruiters who extensively leverage conceptual search, employing comprehensive OR statements for each concept in their Boolean search string, which can easily exceed 500 characters, especially when searching for a number of target companies.

In cases such as these, it can be helpful to use the ampersand (&) for AND and the pipe symbol (|) for OR, effectively cutting the number of characters used for AND’s and OR’s by 60% (5 total characters down to 2).

For example, compare these two searches which return the exact same results:

  • iOS AND (ObjectiveC OR “Objective-C”) AND (cocoa OR xcode) AND (iPhone* OR iPad*) AND (“apple store” OR iTunes OR “app store”) AND (SQL* OR xib)
  • iOS & (ObjectiveC | “Objective-C”) & (cocoa | xcode) & (iPhone* | iPad*) & (“apple store” | iTunes | “app store”) & (SQL* | xib)

Even with a relatively short Boolean search string of 144 characters, you can save over 10% by using & and | (128 vs. 144 characters).

If you wanted to compress your queries further, you can actually eliminate all spaces in your Boolean search string with no negative effects.

For example – this Boolean search string returns the exact same results as the above two searches:

  • iOS&(ObjectiveC|”Objective-C”)&(cocoa|xcode)&(iPhone*|iPad*)&(“apple store”|iTunes|”app store”)&(SQL*|xib)

Sadly, Monster does not support the minus sign (-) for the NOT operator.

However, you do not have to type AND NOT, nor & NOT – a simple NOT will do.

In fact, you don’t even have to capitalize NOT or any other Boolean search operator, for that matter – lowercase not works exactly the same.

Thanks Monster!

Boolean Search: Who Needs AND Anyway?

Interestingly, most people also don’t know that you don’t have to type AND or & – similar to LinkedIn, Google, Bing, etc., any space can be an implied AND.

For example, this search runs exactly as the ones above:

  • iOS (ObjectiveC|”Objective-C”) (cocoa|xcode) (iPhone*|iPad*) (“apple store”|iTunes|”app store”) (SQL*|xib)

Furthermore, you don’t even have to use a space to leverage implied AND functionality – this search returns the exact same results:

  • iOS(ObjectiveC|”Objective-C”)(cocoa|xcode)(iPhone*|iPad*)(“apple store”|iTunes|”app store”)(SQL*|xib)

Now we’re down to 101 characters, which is nearly 30% more efficient than our original 144 character search.

How’s that for Boolean search efficiency?

If you’re wondering how I figured this stuff out, it’s actually quite simple – curiosity and experimentation.

I challenge you to be curious and to experiment – from time to time, simply ask, “I wonder what would happen if…..?” and give something a try.

Hopefully all of what I’ve shared with you today has made you curious about your other sources and how you might be able to experiment and tweak your searches for other sites to make discoveries and yield additional benefits.

If you you do – please let me know!

Monster’s NEAR Operator: Documented but Seldom Used

Although Monster’s extended Boolean NEAR search operator is documented, most people don’t use it. This is unfortunate, because proximity search is incredibly powerful and can help you zero-in on people based on what they’ve actually done vs. resumes containing search keywords.

Monster’s NEAR operator is an example of fixed proximity search, which can be used to return results with words, phrases or OR statements within 10 words of other words/phrases, or OR statements, which can enable semantic search at the sentence level.

Would you be interested in learning more about sentence level semantic search using the NEAR operator?

 

What’s Wrong with Job Boards?

23 Replies

What’s wrong with job boards?

Nothing, in my opinion.

However, from the ridiculous overabundance of articles, comments, and recruiting conference content that trashes job boards as if they are the worst source of hire, I am obviously in the clear minority.

I continue to see and hear well respected thought leaders in the staffing industry make claims that the value of the job boards is waning and that the quality of candidates on the job boards is low, and it hasn’t slowed down.

Because there is such a strong belief that job boards somehow only offer low quality candidates, I am taking the time to offer a different point of view, as well as leverage statistics to prove that the job boards have the same percentage of “A” players as LinkedIn or any other source of hire.

News Flash: Job Boards Still Very Much Alive

Weren’t the job boards supposed to die, like, 5 years ago?

Funny how that didn’t happen.

It so didn’t happen that they are responsible for more hires than any other source other than referrals.

The most recent CareerXRoads Source of Hire Report showed that job boards are still pretty effective, weighing in at the #2 spot.

 

 

The facts do not support the belief that job boards are an “ineffective” source of hire.

As you can see, job boards also solidly crush social media as a source of hire, which I am sure most people find a tough pill to swallow, especially given that “social recruiting” is supposed to be a magical solution to all hiring troubles.

Um, wasn’t social media supposed to kill the job boards?

I am sure that it’s supposed to happen any day now, but something tells me that even in the next few years, while the talk of social media killing job boards will continue, the source of hire statistics and surveys will continue to tell a different story. Continue reading →

The Guide to Semantic Search for Sourcing and Recruiting

22 Replies

If you have nearly any tenure in HR, sourcing or recruiting, you’ve probably heard something about “semantic search” and perhaps you would like to learn more.

Well – you’ve found the right article.

As a follow-up to my recent Slideshare on AI sourcing and matching, I am going to provide an overview of semantic search, the claims that semantic search vendors often make, explain how semantic search applications actually work, and expose some practical limitations of semantic search  recruiting solutions.

Additionally, I will classify the 5 basic levels of semantic search and give you examples of how you can conduct Level 3 Semantic Search (Grammatical/Natural) with Monster, Bing, and any search engine that allows for fixed or configurable proximity.

But first – let’s define “semantic search.” Continue reading →

Don’t Be A Sourcing Snob

18 Replies

Are You a Sourcing Snob?

Ask yourself these questions:

  • Is a candidate identified on LinkedIn intrinsically “better” than a candidate sourced from Monster?
  • Is candidate sourced by cold calling inherently “better” than a candidate sourced from a job posting on Careerbuilder?
  • Does it really matter where a great candidate comes from?

I continue to see well respected thought leaders in the staffing industry make claims that the quality of candidates on the job boards is low, and there seems to be no shortage of those in the recruiting and staffing industry who are happy to jump on that bandwagon. However, whenever I read or hear broad, sweeping statements claiming that an entire population of 50,000,000+ candidates is low quality just because they happen to be in an online resume database of a major job board – my response is a mix of shock and disappointment. 

Stereotyping is Poor Judgement

Broad statements such as “the job boards have low quality candidates” reeks of stereotyping.  A stereotype is an oversimplified conception or opinion based on the assumption that there are attributes that members of the “other group” (in this case, job board candidates) have in common. Stereotypes are often formed by an Illusory correlation , a false perception of an association between two variables where in fact none exists.

You just can’t go around claiming all job board candidates are bad. That’s like saying everyone in New York is rude, or that everyone in California is a hippie. To stereotype all job board candidates as low quality is downright insulting to the many fantastic people who make the decision to post their resume to well known online resume databases. If they only knew that posting their resume to a job board was equivalent to moving to “the wrong side of the tracks.”

Sourcing Snobbery

Many sourcers and recruiters use the Internet to source and identify candidates all the time, yet there is never a mention of the intrinsic “quality” of candidates who happen to post their resume on their own websites. As if creating a website and posting your resume to it somehow makes you a better person than someone who either doesn’t know how do do that or simply doesn’t care to, instead opting to post their resume to a well known job board site.

And what about Social Media? The last time I checked – there is no “candidate quality filter” built in to LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, or any social network. ANYONE can decide to create a web page or a Social Media profile, from “A” players to “F” players. Continue reading →

Resumes on the Internet: Monster vs. Google Round 2

4 Replies

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 →

Resumes on the Internet: Monster vs. Google

21 Replies

If you are a sourcer or recruiter I am sure that at some point in your career you’ve read somewhere or heard someone say how the Internet has 10X the number of candidates that can be found on the online job boards. I’ve always taken that for face value because, to be honest, it’s really tough to prove or disprove such a figure/statement.

However, I am a little bit of a skeptic by nature and I tend to question everything. Socrates and I would have been fast friends. I don’t typically accept what other people say or write just because they say or write it. So that whole “there are TONS more candidates on the Internet than the job boards” thing has been slowly eating away at me and I’ve decided to take a stab at dispelling the myth by pitting The Internet (via Google) vs. Monster.

Before you jump all over the Boolean search strings I settled on for this little exercise – I’m going to keep them relatively simple for easy apples-to-apples comparisons. I am well aware that the searches you see below can be tweaked in many ways – and just so you know, I did experiment with them before settling on a particular search string format. I did not find any significant variation in the results by tweaking the approach I took to pulling resumes. For example, when I used intitle:~resume, I got a couple extra CV hits, but also a bunch of false positives that were not resumes – so I kept it pure and simple at intitle:resume.

I chose to go with 1 Internet search engine (Google) and 1 major job board (Monster). Yes – I know that there are resumes that you can only find using other search engines (hey – I do have a Black Belt in Boolean) – but I figured I would let the 800 lb gorillas of their respective niches battle it out. Plus, there are other major job boards – so we’re even.

It is important to bear in mind that I set out to just run a little experiment to see how many resumes I could find via Google for particular search terms/skills in specific locations vs. how many I could find on Monster with the same search terms and locations.  I chose the state of Maryland and a 20 mile radius of 94118 in San Francisco, CA. 

Google – are you ready? Monster – are you ready? Now, LET’S GET IT ON!!! Continue reading →

Job Boards = Bad Candidates? Don’t believe the hype.

12 Replies

I continue to see well respected thought leaders in the staffing industry make claims that the value of the job boards is waning and that the quality of candidates on the job boards is low.

A few years ago, I weighed in on an ERE discussion in response to the question of, “What would happen if the job boards became obsolete?” I noticed that many people in the discussion took the stance that the quality of candidates on the job boards is low.

I originally wrote this post back in 2008, and because there is still a strong belief in 2012 that job boards somehow only offer low quality candidates, I am taking the time to update my thoughts and republish an article on the topic, using statistics to prove that the job boards have the same percentage of “A” players as LinkedIn or any other source.

Once it’s published, I will link to it here.