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

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 … Read More

Using Extended Boolean to Achieve Semantic Search in Sourcing

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 … Read More

Monster’s Undocumented Boolean Search Operators & Query Compression

  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 undocumented search operators, how to … Read More

What’s Wrong with Job Boards?

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 … Read More

The Guide to Semantic Search for Sourcing and Recruiting

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 … Read More

Don’t Be A Sourcing Snob

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 … Read More

Resumes on the Internet: Monster vs. Google Round 2

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 … Read More

Resumes on the Internet: Monster vs. Google

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 … Read More

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

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 … Read More