ResumeGrabber by eGrabber
Any Internet recruiter that has been around for more that a few years probably has a soft spot for the eGrabber company. Sure, nowadays all your ATS systems and large resume services have some type of import and parsing feature. But way back when...in the early days of Internet recruiting (like 3 or 4 years ago) all there was available to us was a bunch of "cutting and pasting" and "saving as". Try doing that 30 or 40 times in an evening. You get numb. Then, their flagship product, AddressGrabber came out and solved a lot of our problems. You still had to save the resume but you could capture the contact information and create lists on the fly. This product was standard issue to any Internet recruiter at that time.
The subject of this review, ResumeGrabber, is the next generation of their data-capture product line specifically designed to meet the needs of recruiters. ResumeGrabber extracts name and address, and other details from the resume, creates a new contact in your contact manager and also enters all routine information into user fields, then renames the resume with candidate's name then saves and links the resume to the record, all with one click from the simplest of interfaces. ACT!, GoldMine and Outlook power users, especially those that use these contact management systems as their main database, will get the most out of ResumeGrabber as it works directly with these systems. Not to say it isn't a valuable tool for others as well. I am not an Outlook power user and do use an ATS system (Sendouts.com) but I do use Outlook as my email client and use it for most of my initial recruiting contacts so I decided to put ResumeGrabber to use.
I am happy to report that ResumeGrabber retains the ease of use of the AddressGrabber interface, while giving you complete resume management. After you download and install the product, you want to go to the Options tabs to set it up. The Document Setup allows you to choose the type of file format you want to save the resumes (Word or HTML) and the folder you want it saved into. Managers, note the ability to save resumes directly to a networked drive and directory of your choice meaning you can require all recruiters to save resumes into a common pool keeping the data centralized, secure and easy to back-up. The Destination Tab is critical for the power users. Not only is this where you select your contact manager software but you can also specify routine information you want added into any user-defined fields. Let's say in Outlook you created new user-defined fields where you wanted to put the contacts skills, recruiter name, resume source, and the job applied for each contact. Since these values are going to be common for a particular opening you are trying to fill, on the Destinations Tab you are able to type in the default values to enter into these fields for each new record. This not only saves data entry time, but will also enable you to later search on that field. The Transfer Setup tab allows you to select the fields you would like to transfer to the new contact manager record. Lastly, the Miscellaneous Setup tab is just that, and most would use the default settings.
ResumeGrabber resides on your computer screen as a simple, floating, "always on top" toolbar. First you run your Internet search and get your results page. Click on a resume to open. Swipe the name, address, telephone and email (and any other contact information available) to highlight, and then click the Go button on the toolbar. A few seconds later you are given the parsed results - a preview of the contact record that will be created. Clicking on the Transfer button creates the new record with the resume text pasted into the new record and the resume plainly attached. This candidate is now in my Outlook / Contacts folder. . Note that ResumeGrabber can be used to import resumes from your email, word documents or any third party job sites including DICE, Headhunter, and Monster.
If you want to add a personal contact or sales/marketing contact you can elect to transfer the contact information without attaching a resume. Duplication of records in your contact manager is eliminated as it checks while transferring based on combinations of name, company, email address, and zip. You can add links and notes (like job orders, reference letters) as attachments to any record.
Check out this excellent product at the ResumeGrabber home page: http://www.egrabber.com/resumegrabber/index.html,
where you can see a demo, download a free trial and get technical support. The list price is $249.95 per copy.
TalentHook
I like it. I like it. That is what kept going through my mind as I used TalentHook, a newer entrant into the popular "passive Internet candidate search" tool category. This is probably the fourth or fifth product in this category we have written about in this column. As with all products...it isn't perfect but it does offer some neat features the competition doesn't.
Before they would allow me to install and use the product I had to go through a 30-minute demonstration. Once installed, I then had another 30-minute training session. To say the least, these people are fanatical about making sure you have the right training to get the most out of the product. I was initially concerned after the demo and training as I felt overwhelmed and wondered if I would remember anything they said except the basics. My concern was for naught as when I finally began using the software I found that actually, it couldn't be simpler.
Setup is easy as you need to add your name, login, and connection information and you are set to go. A number of different search types are automated for you. For example, and here is one area where they stand apart, their Open Web Search not only includes results from the top five search engines, it also automatically searches all the big Internet communities and x-rays several dozen sites for resumes. This is a big time saver. With most products you would have to run more than one search to obtain the same results. The newsgroup search gets resumes from all the large resume newsgroups plus a number of smaller ones. The college search feature automatically searches dozens of colleges around the country. As far as searching the resume boards there are two options. One searches a couple of dozen free resume sites and the other allows you to enter user name and password information for nine of the larger pay resume sites, a nice feature. As far as the pay boards are concerned, you have the ability to search for any and all criteria they offer including, Location, Age of Post, Willing to relocate, Education, Citizenship, and Term of Employment (contract or permanent). They offer two automated flip-search features; one that searches dozens of high-tech companies for resumes and the other searches dozens of organizations/associations. Lastly, the custom flip-search feature allows you to flip the company of your choice. Although the search destinations are built into the product you can request that any company, college, newsgroup, association/organization, or resume site be added at any time.
All that said, on to the search itself. Again, a very simple interface to use. You first click on the type of search you want to conduct (Open Web, Newsgroup, etc.), select your destinations, and then go to the keyword/geography page to set your search parameters. It is a fact of life that the more resources you try and search at one time, the simpler your search string needs to be and this is the case with this product. You have one box to enter keywords (phrases are allowed with quotes but no OR's or wildcards at this time) and another box to enter geography. Even with these limitations the results were excellent with regard to locating candidates with the correct skills. It did not always hit the mark in the geography category. I always use Missouri as a standard when reviewing these products so I can better compare one to another and I noticed many resumes (Open Web Search) were not from Missouri, but may have lived in Missouri or had some Missouri connection. Duplicate resumes were rare and non-resume junk was virtually non-existent.
Unlike some others, all of your search results are downloaded to your hard drive. A nice feature, especially if you have a dial-up Internet connection. You can run a search, leave, come back the next day and everything is as you left it. The results are delivered marked as new and then you can review each candidate and put him or her on your Hotlist, your Worklist or your Reject list. Another nicety, once you mark a result as rejected, you will never see that person come up on future searches for that project again, no matter how many times you search the same sites. It remembers that you did not like that candidate for that particular project and will bypass the rejected individuals looking for new candidates it has not yet seen. You then work your Hotlist candidates first and go from there. You can refresh the same search at any time and only the new candidates, ones that have not been downloaded before (for this project), will appear in the queue marked as new. This is excellent technology. Your searches can be organized by company / hiring manager / job-title, or by skill, depending on how organized you want to be. A first step might be to use the built-in bulk e-mailer to automatically send everyone in your Hotlist a recruiting message. Use the reminder feature to help you remember to perform certain tasks (calls) on any date in the future.
This product is strictly a sourcing tool. Once you select a candidate to be recruited and entered into your company database, it will never download that resume again, assuming you have control of that candidate at that stage, as you should. Although this product does not integrate with any of the popular ATS systems in use today, they do have an export feature enabling your ATS to import a list of candidates from TalentHook. They also enable you to send individual emails to prospective candidates. I see some crossover here if you are using an ATS system that also wants to send the emails for you. No big deal. Although you can keep track of what resumes you sent what managers for which jobs, I doubt you will if you use any type of recruiter database, as that same information would have to be entered two separate places...never.
Another part of their service that sets them apart is their support. I did not realize initially that the home office was monitoring all of my searches. They have, on staff, a full time Internet search specialist that looks at your searches and then emails you hints and ideas as to how you can make your searches more effective. I found that when I used the hints I received a much better response. This is a personal touch that really adds to their overall value.
The pricing is at the higher end of the product category at $350 per month for a single user. There are quarterly subscriptions available for $275/month for first user and $175/month for each additional user, billed in 3-month blocks. Those paying for an annual subscription will get the 12th month free. Also, volume discounts are available.
Overall, this is a great product that deserves some consideration for anyone looking for this type of purchase. Their innovative features and personal service stand out from the competition. For more information you can contact Noel Stannard at 408/374-0940 or via email at
nstannard@talenthook.com.
Monster Merger
Recruiter.com (www.recruiter.com) has reported that the American Staffing Association (ASA) is against the proposed merger of two of the leading Internet career services, Monster.com and Hotjobs.com. Since I dropped Monster a number of years ago and never was a member of HotJobs it doesn't affect me much but I though some of you Monster diehards out there might want to know. With all the mergers and buyouts I can see this industry becoming two or three company showdown by next year sometime, if it isn't already. You can check out the full article at
http://www.recruiter.com/news%20flash/newsflash_111101.cfm
TIP
This one is simple but I wonder how widely used it is. I use it daily for a number of different reasons. One of which is to send myself resumes. If you open Internet Explorer then click on the File menu you will notice the Send command. This expands to the right and offers several options...Page by Email, Link by Email and Shortcut to Desktop. It is the first that I use regularly. I often review resume results from Internet searches. I normally try to review all the results and cull all of the good resumes first, then contact them later. The Send Page by Email command allows me to quickly send a resume to myself as an email attachment and saves me a lot of time saving each resume individually as I go down the list. I can then review the results, contact the matches and obtain an updated resume directly from the candidate. Something you would always want to do when obtaining a resume from the Internet. You can also use it to send yourself or others web pages of interest or an easy way to send formatted resumes to others. Try it.
TIP II
Junk email, the bane of us all, recruiter or not. I don't mind so much the unsolicited email that is at least related to my business somehow (except the constant stream of subcontractor wannabees). It is the messages for mortgages, Viagra, weight loss, credit reports, work from home, gain financial freedom (and that is just in the last hour), etc. that come across all day. What can you do? Your first impulse is to follow the Remove instructions to be removed from their mailing list. Don't do it. For one, they now know they have a good email address for a warm body and two, they sell their Remove lists to twenty other places. For every Remove message that you send in you probably create twenty new ones. It grows exponentially. My first line of defense is simply my delete key. I use MS/Outlook and I have it set to auto-preview so I can easily ferret out unwanted emails immediately. It takes me two seconds (maybe three) to delete 10 junk emails. But there is one more defense in the arsenal...you email program's Junk email feature. I do use this daily as well, normally for the abusers. In Outlook (I am sure most email software offers this feature), click on the Organize button on the toolbar. On the left side, click on Junk Email. I have mine set to Move junk messages automatically to my Deleted Items folder. You can also treat offending Adult Content messages in the same manner. Once the feature is turned on, whenever you want to include someone in your junk list simply right click on the message, then Junk Email entry expands so you can click on the Add to Junk Senders List option. You will never receive email from that person again. Alas, even this is not perfect. The bulk emailer's know about this feature and constantly change their email address. In spite of that, I know this feature works very well as I see the new messages in my Deleted Items folder rise steadily throughout the day.