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
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
How to Find Bilingual Professionals via Boolean Search
Have you ever had to find bilingual candidates or search for people who speak a specific language? If so, you’re in luck – this week’s post focuses on a few ways of how do just that. If not, no worries – the thought processes and search strategies I use in this post are helpful no matter what it is you’re … Read More
Boolean Search Strings, Referrals and Source of Hire
I read an article on ERE about the other day titled “Love Writing Boolean Instead of Recruiting? Then Don’t Read This Post.” While I happen to be pretty good at and thoroughly enjoy writing Boolean queries for talent mining, I actually love the entire recruiting life cycle. Sourcing is a means to an end, not a means in and of … 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
Human Capital Data Analysts – Sourcing Samurai
What’s The Sexiest Job in Recruiting? I recently read this excellent post on the Google blog written by Jonathan Rosenberg, SVP, Product Management at Google, and I was especially excited to read this: “Hal Varian likes to say that the sexy job in the next ten years will be statisticians. After all, who would have guessed that computer engineers would be the cool … Read More
Recruiting Technology is Not Anti-Relationship!
Technology and Relationships are not Oil and Water When I write posts about creating Boolean search strings to source and find talent/human capital – I often get responses from readers and those I train, especially staffing industry veterans who focus on executive search, that state that the foundation of recruiting is based on relationships built by human interaction and networking. … Read More
The value of a resume database
How do you value a database? I say that the value of a database lies not in the information contained within, but in the ability of a user to extract out precisely and completely what the user needs. When talking about the value of a company’s internal candidate database or the online job board resume databases, we must always be aware … Read More
Resumes are not dead!
With the buzz I continue to see and hear surrounding Twitter, social networks, Internet sourcing (blogs, articles, etc.) and such, it’s easy to look at resumes as dull, outdated, or at least “uncool” when it comes to sourcing and recruiting. I fear there are many people who get blinded by the “shiny object” factor of each and every “next new thing” that will … 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
Black Belt Boolean
I know – you may be asking yourself, “What is this guy thinking?” A blog about Boolean queries when all the buzz is currently about Social Networking, Mobile Recruiting and such? True – Boolean search strings aren’t as sexy, shiny or new as Facebook, Twitter or Cloud Recruiting. However, in the hands of an expert, and in my direct experience, advanced Boolean search strategies and tactics … Read More