How to Find Candidates Using the Internet

8/3/2019 How to Find Candidates Using the Internet

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by Irina Shamaeva,

Partner, Brain Gain Recruiting

http://www.linkedin.com/in/irinashamaeva

http://twitter.com/braingain

Blog http://booleanstrings.wordpress.com/

How to Find Candidates Using theInternet (an Overview)

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Beginners Level

This webinar is for Boolean beginners, beginner-to-

intermediate level sourcers, old-school

recruiters for those who use the web for sourcing but

are questioning whether they are using thebest available tools in the best possible

ways for those who need to make decisions on

how to do sourcing right

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Outline On Sourcing Strategy

Where Can We Search?

Google and Other Search Engines

Boolean Syntax

LinkedIn, Twitter, and Other Social Networks

Tools for Sourcing

Sourcing Terminology: Semantic, Deep Web, Real

Time search

The purpose of the webinar is to create a mentalmap of sourcing tools and possibilities.

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Sourcing Strategy

Recruiting Process

Get or create a job description

Sourcing:

Prepare; research Look for candidates/advertise, collect resumes

Interviews; possible offer

Sourcing is the part that has changed most and

keeps changing Its best to combine:

Old style: use job boards; your ATS; cold call

New style: use the Internet, Social Networks to search

and attract candidates - requires new skills


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Internet Sourcing

Why we must source candidates on the Internet:

To get ahead of the competition

To find candidates that we would not find otherwise

To communicate with potential candidates in a networkcontext

To get background on prospects, so that we are on thephone with the right people

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Where Can We Search?

Our own databases, ATS systems, files on ourhard drive

Job Boards

And, what this lecture covers:

World wide web using search engines

Deep web: websites protected by passwords, pagesgenerated on the fly, etc. using special search sites

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Example of a Web Page We access the Internet using browsers:

IE, Firefox, Chrome

A page in a browser window has a title, a URL,content, including links (and the source code)

Search engines can be told to look at parts of thepages (text, title) and their URLs

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What Are We Looking For? Research phase: Information on

Target companies, industry, geography

Keywords, synonyms, concepts

Candidate Info (see next slide)

Resumes

Profiles

Contact information

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Search Engines A search engine crawls the web and indexes

pages

It keeps a cached version of a page

It keeps the words and phrases it finds on every

page

Then it moves on, following the links

(Lately, search engines are alsogetting info straightfrom the sites like Twitter)

Google, Yahoo, and Bing are major engines.They require special Boolean syntax.

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For Boolean Beginners:

How to get started

Use the Advancedsearch dialog on Googlehttp://www.google.com/advanced_search?hl=en

Use Google help
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?hl=enhttp://www.google.com/advanced_search?hl=enhttp://www.google.com/advanced_search?hl=en


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Getting Started: Yahoo Search

Dialog

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(Note that syntax and capabilities are differentbetween search engines.)


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Boolean Syntax Boolean Syntax is a way to communicate with

search software

It includes:

AND, OR, NOT(the logic)

In some cases, NOTmust be written as minus

Keywords (as an example, engineer)

Phrases in quotation marks (account manager)

(continued after 3 more slides)

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Example Job Description

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Example Search for resumes on Google

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Example

Search for resumes on Bing

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Using Google Advanced Dialog

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Boolean Syntax, Continued Boolean Syntax also includes:

Operators (depending on the software; as anexample, site:)

site:www.linkedin.com

Sometimes, special characters (#, or +, or ~, etc.)

The search may be controlled by options (as anexample, show 100 results per page)

Syntax is different for different sites

(Image is from boolify.org)18


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Advanced Search Example

(Google)

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Advanced Search Example

(Yahoo)

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Boolean Approach:

a Sequence of Strings "software engineer Linux "open source" C++ Ruby TCP/IP SQL

7,000+" results (an estimate);not right mostly job posts

"software engineer Linux "open source" C++ Ruby TCP/IP SQL -jobs -job about 700+results (not bad!; many are resumes, some are not)

intitle:resume | inurl:resume"software engineer Linux "open source"C++ Ruby TCP/IP SQL about 75 results(good but we want more)

intitle:resume | inurl:resume"software engineer | developer Linux | UNIX"open source" C++ Ruby | Perl | python | PHP TCP/IP SQL about 700 results; pretty good; can play with it and look at the results

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Boolean Search Summary It is necessary (for some people on your team) to

use web search to mine large resources of data

Theres no need to learn the complete syntax;

you can be successful with a subset

Use correct and simple syntax to keepproductivity and confidence

Typical search includes many string variations;

theres never a perfect string Cheat-sheets dont work; you need your own

strings

Practice is important

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LinkedIn, Twitter,and Other Social Networks

Statistics on todays webinar participants: 83% are on LinkedIn

19% have been on LI since 2004-2005

26% of those who are on LI have 500+ connections

1% of those who are on LI have 1 or 0 connections 32% are on Twitter

60% of those who are on Twitter cannot be found by email(its a setting)

Of the rest 40% about have profile picture andbackground

25% are on Facebook

(This is based on the list of email addresses.)23


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LinkedIn The business network (Still) can be efficiently used for free

Competes with Job Boards

Is becoming more like a Job Board

Rich Structure: people, companies, groups,events, answers

Supports (its own) Boolean syntax

Has a nice surface component, i.e. is searchablefrom Google

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How Many Profiles are There onLinkedIn?

My guess is that out of ~70 mln profiles about

30% are reasonably filled out, have names, titles,keywords, at least a few connections, are not

duplicates and are not too obsolete Barely filled out profiles also have their use: as a

cross-reference tool

Example: contact someone based on an old resume

and a LinkedIn profile stating current location, title,and company

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LinkedIn

Has changed a lot in the last 2 months:

Groups

Search Filters / business account levels

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Twitter Basics


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New to Twitter?

Twitter allows us to:

Post 140 characters at a time

Have a 160-char bio

Follow others Supports (its own) Boolean search syntax

There are many creative uses for Twitter and toolsbuilt around it

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Twitter Statistics

Twitter has 105,779,710 registered users It gets 300,000 new users a day It receives 180 Million Unique visitors a month

Source: TechCrunch

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Facebook Has ~500 mln users (is the most visited site on

the web)

People are there for personal reasons

It is hard to search

You may want to create a fan page for yourcompany

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Contacting Candidates

Call or email; keep in mind:

Calls take time

Generic emails arent opened

In many cases, an initialcontact through SocialNetworks works best

They can check your profile

Your communication is governed by the network rules,

is safe They can join your networking site or a group because

of their interest in the topic


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Other Social Places

Only a few Social Networks have high ROI oncandidate search

Ning is a tool to create Social Networks (hasbecome paid)

Outside of the US: XING, Orkut

Blogs (Wordpress, Blogger)

Forums, Groups

Many of these sites have surface componentsand can be searched (X-rayed) from searchengines, using the operator site:

Examples follow

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X-raying LinkedIn from Google

inurl:pub OR inurl:in site:www.linkedin.com -inurl:dir -inurl:jobs"current * account executive" "Information Technology and Services""San Francisco Bay Area"


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X-Raying LinkedIn from Yahoo

"public profile powered by" site:linkedin.com j2ee

developer "san francisco bay area"

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More X-Ray Examples

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Useful Sites to X-ray Jigsaw

Zoominfo

Spoke

Plaxo

Scribd


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Tools for Sourcing

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Its important to speed up sourcing process; toolsespecially help those who are beyond thebeginner level

Tools

Custom search engines

Browser add-ons

Contact info extractors

MS Excel

ATS extra functionality

Paid tools

Broadlook

eGrabber


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Sourcing Terminology

Terminology Boolean search = AND, OR, NOT+ extras

Semantic search

Deep Web search

Real Time search

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Semantic Search

Semanticis meaning

In recruiting, semantic search would ideally identifythe right candidates

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Boolean vs. Semantic

Why compare the two?

Booleanis AND, OR, NOT

Semanticis meaning

Elements of semantic search are present in existing

Boolean search engines

New semantic tools often include Boolean logic

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General Semantic Search Engines help with conceptsbut wont solve recruiting problems

A screenshot from a semantic search engine

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Semantic Search for


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Semantic Search for

Recruiting

Use semantic search capacity of Search engines,Social Networks, and parsing tools

Use General semantic search engines for research

Assess new semantic search tools for recruiters.

Start incorporating them into your recruiting strategy

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Deep Web

The deep Web is several orders ofmagnitude larger than the surface WebWikipedia

www (surface web) is indexed by search

engines that crawl the web, following links foundon web pages

Deep Web: pages that cannot be found this way

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Part of Deep Web: Membership Sites

You are already using Deep Web search Example 1: Deep web content on LinkedIn:

Groups Discussions, Members, Job Posts

Full profiles for those in your network Contact Info

Twitter IDs

Uploaded resumes

Uploaded files

Connections Example 2: Any paid job board

Example 3:Jigsaw, Zoominfo, Hoovers, Implu

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Tools to Search (some of) Deep Web

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These tools query specialized databases Example: people search engine Pipl.com


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Real-Time Search

Twitter and other social places provide a firehose with information to search engines, so that

it shows up in real time

You are already using Real Time search (Google,Twitter)

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Summary: Your First Steps

Learn a bit of web sourcing and/or hire sourcers

Learn and use a subset of Boolean Strings onSearch Engines

Use LinkedIn and Job Boards for candidatesearch

Use Twitter for branding, getting new business

Cross-reference information for efficiency

Correct search syntax, practice and just a fewtools and sites would do wonders

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Keys to Productivity

Dos

Use correct advanced search syntax on each site

Practice searching, refine searches

Use tools to speed up, parse, sort, filter

Don'ts

Dont rely only on tools that hide or simplify searching

(tools that search across sites, hide Boolean)

Dont call if you are under-prepared


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Resources

Boolean Strings Network and Group http://booleanstrings.ning.com/

LinkedIn group:http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=1176637

My Blog http://booleanstrings.wordpress.com/(info on webinars; sourcing tips)

We have Training DVDs

I do custom training for companies I am available for sourcing contracts

Please feel free to email me [email protected] or call at 510-233-9493 Pacific time

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http://booleanstrings.ning.com/http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=1176637http://booleanstrings.wordpress.com/mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]://booleanstrings.wordpress.com/http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=1176637http://booleanstrings.ning.com/


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Training DVDs

http://booleanstrings.wordpress.com/dvds/

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Custom Training Sample
http://booleanstrings.wordpress.com/dvds/http://booleanstrings.wordpress.com/dvds/http://booleanstrings.wordpress.com/dvds/http://booleanstrings.wordpress.com/dvds/http://booleanstrings.wordpress.com/dvds/http://booleanstrings.wordpress.com/dvds/http://booleanstrings.wordpress.com/dvds/http://booleanstrings.wordpress.com/dvds/http://booleanstrings.wordpress.com/dvds/http://booleanstrings.wordpress.com/dvds/http://booleanstrings.wordpress.com/dvds/


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Custom Training Sample

Outline(s)

Search Engines Basic Operators and Examples

Advanced Boolean Operators & Tricks

Advanced X-Raying

Meta-, Vertical, other types of Search Engines Social Networks Search and Communication Tools

LinkedIn

Twitter

Blogs Cross-Referencing

Specialized Search Tools, Sites, and Gadgets

Tools to Filter and Organize Information

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Q&A

Documents

How to Find Candidates Using the Internet