June 2000 Column

LETTERS FROM THE READERS

 Being pinched for time this month we are going to cheat a bit and turn the column over to the readers. Thanks to all in advance for your time and consideration in forwarding these remarks to us. We always enjoy receiving your questions and comments and will always reply to you if a reply is requested. You can write either Mark Berger at mark@berger-nowlin.com or Wade Haught at whaught@nortelnetworks.com. Please stay in touch.

 From Jim Vozekas, TouchStone Group:

I enjoy your informative articles on Internet recruiting. I may have something for you to look into. I found an Internet search engine that I really enjoy and it is easy to use. 

Mike Clark the owner of http://www.resumerobot.com   “Making Virtual Recruiting A Reality”PO Box 1749, Keaau, HI 96749; Tel/Fax 808 982 6463; Toll Free 888 999 2181.

Mike was the programmer for AIRS and after the requisite time for non-compete clauses he started his company. For $50.00 a month you can search for resumes on the web. One especially exciting aspect is the ability to key in a “domain” site, like oracle.com and come up with e-mail addresses of people who have oracle.com as an address. Mike is a terrific person and I think you would enjoy chatting with him. Tell him I recommended the call.

 Regards, Jim Vozekas GM  The TouchStone Group 

Reply to Jim: Thanks for the lead. Haven’t spoken with Mike or used his service but it sounds like an excellent reasonably priced resource.

 From Joe Connelly 

First of all, I would like to thank you for taking the time to write the article in the TFL and sharing that information.

I agree. Monster Board is too expensive for us also along with OCC and Headhunter.Net.  We have been a member of RON (recruiteronline.com) for about two years and have received an estimated 3 placements from the activity of RON and Headhunter.

They have changed policy (Headhunter).  Now they are charging a fee as you already stated.  By belonging to RON we get a discounted fee to Headhunter.  They have 3 areas and my partner is collecting the data on the cost.  The cost areas are Cheap - not so cheap and the 3^rd expensive.  We will fall into the cheap and not so cheap area. :-)

I like your column on AIRS.  The cost of their classes is not bad but I would hate to change the way we do business.  I am an old fashion headhunter, Assignment, Source, Recruit, Present, Collect the big bucks. :-)

To tell you the truth, I cannot do both, old fashion recruiting and surfing the internet to get resumes. To me - that wastes time.  So because of your write up I have contacted a Web Surfer Researcher I guess who has gone to the AIRS I class.  We pay him an hourly rate, plus commission on any resumes he sends up.

He has come up with some dogs, but has come up with some good ones for us.  It is only a matter of time to place someone from his efforts.  I would rather pay someone to surf...

My take on the shift to Monster Board etc used by employers I think it will be companies that have HR departments whose companies are 250 or more. I think the smaller firms say fewer than 200 or less can not use these. They are cheap, they rather pay a recruiter fee who works on a contingency. I think that is and will be our market. Also, I feel that eventually the price will level out when people who pay there fee once and do not get anything. I think they will lose 50% and several of these die by the road.  I think Headhunter is feeling the drop of usage. This is why they negotiated with RON, if they were strong, they would say take it or leave.

IMHO.

You or Wade did a thing on Info Gist.  Do you like it?  Is it worth it? Seems expensive or am I looking at with blinders.

Anyhow…Thanks again for your efforts.

Joe Connelly 

Reply to Joe: Thanks so much for writing and my sincerest apologies in the long delay in getting back to you. You and I are on the same wavelength. I am also a traditional recruiter that uses the Internet for sourcing but then applies the traditional recruiting/placement methods. I am glad the sourcer is working out for you for now. Re: InfoGist. Great product and it is pricey but does one thing the competitors don’t…it allows you to search the pay sites by entering your user name and password. All the other competition simply allows you to search the free sites. Keep in touch and best of luck!

 From David Crowley, DSR - Search and Recruitment

In regard to your April column in Fordyce: I could not agree more. I work in a pretty technical telecommunications niche. I’ve been using the Internet for recruiting since those earlier days of yore; the early nineties; when I had a shell account with my ISP and would manually post to individual newsgroups like misc.jobs.offered. At that time you would actually get useable résumé’s from them. 

I’ve never (even since my corporate recruiting days; yes, I’ve worked both sides of the desk) been a big fan of computer databases. They just age too quickly and nobody seems to do a real good job of updating them. Granted that’s changed some nowadays with people putting their own résumé’s in databases vs. someone inputting them in batch. Still, I find it an ongoing problem even now. 

I’ve never seen the benefit of using the same database’s that are available to corporations. Most of the big ones cast a wide net and have some sophisticated software for filing them in their own DB’s. Once a resume is already in a company DB, there is a good chance they will not pay a fee on that candidate. 

Now that the majors have begun pricing the small agency out of the market, sourcing a candidate that is very actively looking and has their resume in several large DB’s, our job becomes even more hit and miss deal with these types. 

I’ve always thought the Internet is just another haystack for finding those special needles. Problem is now it is becoming the only haystack and everybody is looking in it. I use a couple of on-line databases’. One is still free and pretty good, although I can almost feel the line being reeled in. The other one is Passport Access. I don’t find PA real helpful and am somewhat sorry I paid the annual fee. They don’t have any search agents that alert to a resume of interest hitting their site. You have to continually go and initiate your search’s manually and the quality (at least for my specialty) is minimal. I did a trial before I signed up. It looked pretty good, but has not proved out over the long run. 

I’ve taken a couple of Internet recruiting courses. One was back in the early nineties and more recently with Bob Mhoon. Nothing with AIRS, but I don’t think there is a major area that is not duplicated. I’ve got Barbara Ling’s books but have not plowed through them yet. 

I know the Internet is a vast resource, and still has much potential. Problem is we are all fishing in the same pond (albeit a big one!). 

Enjoy your articles. 

Regards,

David Crowley

DSR - Search and Recruitment

Reply to David: Thanks for the kind words. I too have used PA in the past. Was a member for a couple of years. It was hard to deal with and many resumes were way out of date. I also remember manually posting orders to newsgroups. We have a service for that now. You are right in that many of our clients are utilizing the Internet. That is why I always tell people to work harder than they do, make more calls than they do and work after 5:00 PM to stay ahead of the curve. Thanks again.

From Marsha McKim, Management Performance Associates 

I was very interested in your article and concur. Even more interesting to me was your comment about the HH.net fees. I too have been a member for about two years now.  The information and rates I was given are different from what you quote in your article.  I was told I could only keep my $1,500 membership if I renewed early, before April 1 when the rate for resume access more than doubles to $3,500.  However, the job posting rates I was quoted were less. 

Just curious as to how long they committed to keeping you at $1,500 for the access. 

Take care,

Marsha McKim

Management Performance Associates 

Reply to Marsha: There is confusion regarding the HH.net rate schedule. I recently spoke with Aron Rooze from there who told me yet a different figure that a previous salesperson had told me. I believe the rates are different for existing clients that for new clients. They have promised me the $1500.00 would be good for at least the next year. Interestingly, Aron admitted to me that the shift at HH.net was to the large corporate client. I encouraged him to come up with a pricing scheme for his existing previously loyal customer base. Let’s not hold our breath. Good luck. 

From Nick Berens, Snelling Search 

I agree with you 100% on Monster.com and headhunter .net being marketed to corporations instead of to recruiting firms. There is not enough bang for the buck to pay 10-20K a year for resumes and job postings. Most of the people are actively seeking employment opportunities in numerous places and most of them appear to be job hoppers anyway. Our clients want people that are gainfully employed and fairly happy. They don’t want people who just want a job, they want people who are ready for the next step in their career or have management potential in their blood. We do take advantage of the free job posting services on the Internet such as NJN but are pretty dissatisfied with the results. 99% of our placements come from referrals and “Who do you know” calls. Great article on Internet recruiting and guarantees in this month’s edition. We really enjoy the Fordyce letter.

Nick Berens

Manufacturing Technology Recruiter

Snelling Search 

Reply to Nick: Amen. I predict you will make a lot of money in this business. Thanks for the comments. 

From Leslie Hughes, Corporate Moves, Inc.

I am in complete and total agreement. I too, was one of those early advertisers. They seem to forget that it was our ads that gave them credibility and audience. I stopped advertising on both boards and gave up the search features as well. The direct to my email resume volume has increased with qualified candidates. I have joined trade groups and specialty sites in my market area. I belong to two different Recruiter groups that have developed strong job sites. One is included in my dues and the other cost is minimal. These commercial advertising sites will not hold me hostage.

What the Corporate HR people and the advertising boards don’t seem to understand, is that we still outperform them because of our ability, experience and instincts. The source of the candidate is unimportant, the quality of the candidate and the vision of the recruiter is what makes the deal.

Doesn’t your head spin when you see the “canned” resume with all of the buzzwords and nothing to back up the claims of greatness? The Internet has given Joe Average the ability to generate impressive resumes and distribute them to the world. Headhunter and Monsterboard are filling up with ‘”average” candidates. Let the corporate finders wade through the throngs of almost good enough candidates, we don’t need to waste our time.

The Internet is a tool, one of the many we have to ensure our success.  Your articles have been great, you are right on target. I look forward to future columns.

Kindest Regards,

Leslie Hughes

Corporate Moves, Inc. 

Reply to Leslie: Yes, it does seem that every time we get rid of an expensive Internet service we end up getting more qualified candidates. When we actually try and recruit people rather than waiting for them to deliver themselves to our InBox’s. Go figure?? And yes, the HR people will all pay for memberships (why not for the price of a couple of fees) at the big sites, run ads and wait for the resumes to come in. We have already had one large St. Louis corporation tell us that they do not want us to send them any candidate that have posted their resume on Monster.Com. Problem is…we don’t belong to that service any longer so we simply do not send resumes to that client any longer. Sounds like you have things in the right perspective and will stay way ahead of the HR curve. Thanks for writing. 

Mel Zwirn, Select Staffing 

Your articles on Internet recruiting are great---Have been a big help to me.  I own a series of niche agencies in Chicago.  I was planning to do a mass email program to applicants of the Web and to companies. 

Is Arial the best/only product for that?  Who are the competitors? Is there a way to bulk download email addresses from net- I have had secretaries using Control A, Control C etc on a one at a time basis—ok but slow. 

Most important question—How do I do a reverse lookup for email addresses?  It would be a big help to go to a companies site and reverse look up there email addresses as you described in recent article??

Thanks in advance for your help. 

Mel Zwirn

President

Select Staffing 

Reply to Mel: Let me reply to at least a couple of your questions. Arial Campaign is the standard for this category (email management). I do not even know of any competing products but would be interested if anyone else knows of any. It is free to use if you can tolerate their logo on all your email. The full version is at least several hundred dollars but well worth it if you are going to have to manage a lot of Email messages. Also, check out Address Grabber, also recently reviewed in our column. It does not do the bulk downloads you mentioned but does automate the process of selecting email addresses for a mailing list. It runs in the background and is activated on demand. It captures the email address and can also import names and addresses. Good luck.  

NOT FOR ‘HIGH TECH’ ONLY 

One of the ‘peanut gallery’ comments Wade and I always get whe we are doing our seminars is that Internet Recruiting is strictly for IT/MIS or other ‘high tech’ recruiting disciplines. Although I do believe the Internet is wonderfully suited for the technical areas I know it can be used for almost any vocation you can think of. I offer a bit of proof. This letter appeared in my InBox recently.

‘I read your article in The Fordyce Letter for May.  I found it very interesting.  I work for a company that has three Job and resume banks for the HVAC/R, Plumbing, and Electrical Industry.  We are the Original and Leading Internet Job Posting and Resume Banks in the above three trades.  We advertise in 26 trade publications, we have over 30 Banners out on key trade related sites.  We own 10 key words on Yahoo and we work with over 2,600 Vocational/Engineering schools each quarter ensuring fresh talent to the site daily.’

Here is a company that has spent a lot of time and money putting together and advertising their site it has paid off for them. They now have many national accounts signed up to search their resume databases. Unfortunately, they do not allow third party recruiter access to the resume bank but it could be an excellent place to advertise if you are involved in HVAC, Plumbing or Electrical recruiting areas.

www.HVACjob.com

www.Plumbjob.com

www.Electricjob.com 

I spoke with Chris Dahms of HVACjob.com who walked me through some of the finer points of his service. If you visit any of the websites above and click on the link to ‘Companies’, you will find an advertising rate sheet. You can also call Chris at 888-482-2562 or email him for more information at chris@hvacjob.com.

Tip of the month

Build a search plan: When you do Internet searches for a living, it is helpful to build a blueprint of your search plan so you stay on track.  AIRS pushes a Word template for their search planning tool and it is fine.  I prefer to work in Excel.  In any event, your search plan should usually start out at the client’s web site to learn all about their products, their buzz words, the associations they belong to and conferences they attend, etc.  Trace their employees on the web and see who they interact with.  Go to Hoovers.com and look up your client and learn who their top competitors are.  Visit their sites like you did your clients and repeat the process.  It doesn’t take as long as you might think and you will end up with a list of direct competitors and buzzwords that make the search a snap.  Now follow a pattern of x-raying and flipping each competitors domain in a combination of field searches using the key words you have identified and soon you will be covered up with great leads. As you search you will learn new buzzwords and add them to the search plan.  On one search I’m doing now I have over 300 companies targeted!  The extra time setting up a search results in a smoothly paved road to roar down as you search. – and , chances are, you will do that kind of search again in the future, but you only have to build the road one time.