RECRUITERS-AID.COM
As
regular readers know, Wade and I approach Internet Sourcing/Recruiting a couple
of ways. One is to get yourself some advanced Internet Recruiting training then
head out to the search engines. The other is to pay someone else, a specialist
perhaps, that already has all of the advanced Internet Recruiting training, that
already belong to all of the large resume services, etc., etc.
Read on...
I
have a treat for you this month. Somewhere along the way I bumped into Audra
Slinkey, the CEO of Recruiters Aid, one of the leading Internet Candidate
Sourcing companies. She has designed the Recruiters-Aid PERS (a proprietary
E-Recruitment system) to insure Internet recruiting success.
Recruiters-Aid provides Internet candidate-sourcing services.
Audra
was kind enough to answer a few questions posed to her about herself and her
company. Any ‘Internet Recruiter’ wannabes out there should read this
carefully. As follows...
How
did you get started?
Recruiters-Aid
was created over two years ago by recruiter’s who realized there was a need in
this area for expert sourcers. We
started small and continue to grow at smaller increments because we believe our
value lays in the quality of work and service we perform.
We derive most of our business from referrals and continuing customers.
We have over an 85% retention rate that is amazing for this industry!
What
set’s you apart from your competition?
We’ve
been doing this longest. Most of our competitors are small two person shows who
have copied our business model. We
focus on quality and customer service. We
offer the most value for the least price.
About
how much time and effort is required to attain your level of Internet Recruiting
expertise?
I’ve
been doing this for years but in all honesty, it’s not so much time but effort
and personality style. A successful
Sourcer is an unusual breed of individual.
A great Sourcer does not make for a great Executive Search Recruiter; the
dynamics needed for each position are in contrast to each other.
This is another reason why our business complements so many Executive
Search firms’ business models. The
typical Executive Search individual would get bored fairly quickly searching on
their computer all day with very little client contact.
Tell
us about the “Guaranteed Search Method”?
We
created an elaborate, multi-step search method or strategy that focuses on both
“active” and “passive” candidates and allows us to offer a guarantee of
sorts in results. Unfortunately,
there is no Robot or Spider that can search automatically for what a Recruiter
needs; they do not understand concepts, years of experience, industry
experience, career paths, stability etc. We
use a process that is most efficient but insures we are hitting all potential
matching locations on the Internet.
How
much of your sourcing relies on AIRS techniques and methods?
We
are Airs certified and do endorse their process but have taken bits of the Airs
process along with a lot of other tricks/techniques to create our own...it is
proprietary. We have to use what
works and gives us the most quality and efficient results.
We have to stay abreast of everything new on the Internet because we
don’t train on this stuff; we use it to get results, which is more imperative.
We recommend that everyone in this industry invest in some sort of
Internet training for his or her own marketability if nothing else.
Most of our best clients are AIRS certified...they get it but realize
they have no time to source for all their positions.
About
how many ‘duds’ do you have to run through before you find one to send to a
client?
Each
Sourcer here generally reads through hundreds of resumes a day and uses over 10
different types of search strings to find 10-20 strong looking candidates.
When we source “active” candidate locations we are only going back 30
days tops.
Do
you find that more and more companies are outsourcing their candidate sourcing
functions?
I
have found that most companies don’t understand the benefits of sourcing vs.
posting and are simply relying on their job postings to work for them.
Executive Search firms are a different matter entirely.
Executive Search firms have always believed in great research since it
has been at the core of what they do for years.
Many organizations are trying to hire in-house sourcers that are entry
level and still don’t have the process, training or access to the best sources
on the Internet. Companies put
their in-house teams against one of our sourcers all the time and there is
usually no comparison; we do this all day and have been for years!
How
do third party recruiters fit into your marketing plan?
We
happen to work well with third parties because we do the research, deliver the
results and they do what they do best, contact candidates and close them.
Most third party recruiter’s contact and close candidates better than
corporate recruiters. We regularly
refer our clients to third parties for orders we were unable to fill.
We consider third party recruiters the highest level of recruitment.
Recruiters-Aid is not a one-size-fits-all service.
What
is the future of Internet recruiting and how do you fit in?
This
is the wonderful thing about our business!
Our database is the Internet, which is always growing, always changing
and more than likely not going to go away.
People wonder why we divulge so many “trade secrets” on our site
about searching. The answer is
simple, even if a recruiter knows how to source, they still don’t have the
time, energy or desire to source for all of their positions.
Let us do the boring work...we love it!
Audra has also put together what I think is a wonderful list of advice and tips for Internet Recruiters she calls her “Top Ten Rules for Successful Internet Sourcers”. This list first appeared in ERExchange on 1/17/01 (links to all of Audra’s articles on ERExchange can be found at http://www.erexchange.com/articles/). She has graciously allowed us to reprint them again for the benefit of the Fordyce Letter readers and has edited these tips specifically for this article. Not in any particular order (and several may look familiar to regular readers of this column) here are her “Rules of the Road”.
1. Research Comes First -
Every great Sourcer should have an organized library of resources.
Whether this comes in the form of organized bookmarks and favorites or a
notebook, it is imperative to track your research.
Sourcers also understand the necessity of tracking their research and
search strings using research forms.
2. Homepages ARE Resumes -
I can’t stress how important it is for Recruiters to think out of the box when
it comes to Internet research. For
instance, if I found the homepage of a candidate who listed their interests as
java programming and has links to several java sites do you think I can consider
them for my possible java developer opening?
Of course!
3. Always Use the Advanced Search Function When Available - Since you are an advanced Sourcer, you should always use the
advanced services when available on a search engine or other directory or
look-up. You should have a listing
of industry specific search strings which include x-raying and flip searching
every url of each industry competitor and having this in cut and paste form so
you are not always reinventing your power search string.
4. No Access, No Problem -
A good Sourcer knows that just because you are not allowed access to a page,
does not mean you can’t still get in. If
you can’t get in the front door of the site, then back door the server by
using the advanced function on a search engine.
You can do this relatively easy by x-raying the server.
X-ray allows you to ask a search engine for every web page on a server.
5. Always Look at the URL -
Too many times we click to a page that has some of what we want but not all and
thus we hit our back button and continue on.
A good Sourcer always reviews the url of the page to see if they can peel
back each sub folder to find what else is on the site.
Many times behind a resume page is a directory of other similar resumes
or an additional page that explains a lot more about the candidate in who’s
resume you are reviewing.
6. No Contact Information, No Problem - Many sources on the Internet will list names but not contact
information of potential candidates. You
see this many times in press releases or when x-raying a company server.
A good sourcer knows this is not a problem.
If the name is unusual like mine (Audra Slinkey) you can find out more
about your “potential” candidate by simply going to a meta-search engine
like Profusion or Dogpile and typing in the name within quotes.
If you’ve already determined that the candidate is someone you
definitely want to talk to then finding the contact information is easy. First, check the worldwide yellow pages by going to www.worldpages.com,
secondly you can try www.theultimates.com
which is a meta-search engine for contact information.
7. Executive Searching is Easiest on the Internet - The Internet has really turned this field around in the sense
that any good Sourcer rejoices when having to source high-level executives
because they are the easiest to find on the Internet. Tremendous sources for finding high-level executives are
company profile sites like www.hoovers.com,
www.edgar-online.com,
or www.herring.com.
8. Don’t Stop at One Search Engine - Do you know which search engine is the largest, meaning it
indexes the most of the World Wide Web? Most
would probably guess AltaVista and would be very wrong.
Search engines are wonderful things, but the problem is that none of them
have indexed even half of the Internet. This
means if you enter a search into AltaVista and get zero results, this may not be
the case if you go to Northernlight or Google.
Each search engine indexes the web differently, searches the web
differently and thus has very different results.
A good Sourcer knows that they should be searching a few search engines
before exhausting the search.
9. A Good Sourcer Knows When to Use What For Best Results - There are plenty of people who know how to Flip Search, X-ray,
Peel back, etc. There are very few
people who know when it is best to use which technique.
I also see people mix up the techniques so that they are x-raying a
company server as well as asking for “resumes” in their search string!
It is very important to not only understand each technique but WHY and
WHEN you would use it.
10. Continuous Training is Imperative to Success - The Internet is like an ever-changing medium. What worked yesterday, may not work today. In fact the page you found yesterday that had a list of all those great candidates may be unavailable today. Successful Sourcers are on top of their industry and are very aware of new techniques as well as what works. The best training one can get is simply practice, but there are several resources including www.recruiters-aid.com and www.erexchange.com that teach Sourcers how to be better at their jobs.
Many
thanks to Audra for spending the time with us this month. I hope everyone
learned something from this article today.
You cannot be all things to all people. Do what you are best at and, if
appropriate for you, think about outsource some of this type of work to the
experts.
Their
pricing is very simple and straightforward. Unlike most sourcing firms that
charge by the hour, Recruiters-Aid has two services with pricing offered up
front. They do require credit card payment before services are rendered.
They are...
ExecuSearch:
In 3 days, for only $795 Recruiters-Aid will deliver resumes and Internet
Research (names, titles, numbers, emails etc.) that match your job
description’s specifications!
30-Day
ExecuSearch: This service adds some extra attention and flexibility?
An experienced Internet Researcher will work with you for 30-days to
source and deliver a steady stream of qualified resumes and Internet Research.
For only $2895 you have the flexibility to modify your job requirements to work
with changes in your clients orders.
**For
each search, Recruiters-Aid performs in-depth Internet research to source out
resumes as well as potential candidate information by using advanced Internet
search techniques, such as, flip searching, x-raying, peeling back, searching
virtual communities, press releases, alumni and association sites and much,
much, more.
Anyone
wanting more information or that has any questions or comments can visit the
Recruiters Aid website at www.recruiters-aid.com.
You can also contact Audra directly at aslinkey@recruiters-aid.com.
If you have
questions regarding the Recruiters-Aid services, please call Todd McKendrick at
1-888-654-0020.Re
RECRUITERS NETWORK
Can’t
go wrong here. Straight from their latest email: “Recruiting on the Web” is
a free electronic newsletter published by Recruiters Network.
Recruiters Network is the Association for Internet Recruiting. It is a
free organization for HR Professionals and Recruiters.
Unbelievable
but true. An entire website dedicated to our industry. This is a place to go to
and come back again and again. Looking at the February issue of the newsletter,
I notice topics including Trials and Discounts For Members; New Internet
Recruiting Book; Poll Results; Upcoming Conferences; Upcoming Job Fairs; Site Of
The Month - AllInOneSubmit.com; Recruiting Tip - The Click-Ready Job Posting;
and Headlines. Something for everyone.
Besides
their monthly newsletter... they have a number of other useful pages on this
site.
They
have a Resource Center for Internet Recruiting that contains dozens of links to
information related to our industry including, but not limited to, career sites,
statistics, ‘how to’ white papers, resume databases, seminars, job fairs,
software, recruiting reports, etc., etc., etc. They also have a free guide to
career sites, a free guide to free job posting sites, links to free trials, and
all kinds of other free items.
They
say that 98% of membership are either HR professionals or recruiters, even
linking to a job site dedicated to recruiting and other HR positions.
I
spoke with Brian Weis, their President, who encouraged all Fordyce Letter
readers to visit the site, sign up for the newsletter and check out the resource
center. You can visit their website at www.recruitersnetwork.com.
Brian can be reached via email at brian@recruitersnetwork.com
or voice at 414/357-8350.
Mike
Clark’s Resume Robot is different than most of the other passive candidate
recruiting tools. Mike has personally developed this resume-specific search
engine for his Hawaii-based company, Coconut Island Software, Inc. Mike got an
early start in passive candidate recruitment, developing the original
flipsearch.com in 1998, which became the original back-end for the AIRS search
tool. Resume Robot was initially developed 1999 first began commercial service
in February of 2000. They now have
over 500 members and are growing daily.
This
service locates resumes on personal home pages, within “virtual communities”
such as aol.com or geocities.com, on university servers, commercial websites,
free resume databanks, and in many other locations.
There are about 350,000 resumes in their database at this time.
They
offer several search tools including the primary Resume Robot search engine;
Sweepsearch, which provides real-time “smart” searches of major search
engines; X-ray, which allows you to find pages within a company domain; and
Flipsearch, which targets individual company domains to find employees and
ex-employees of those companies.
As
always, I ran a very broad St. Louis search using a search string similar to one
I would normally use in AltaVista (minus the resume words). Not even seeking IT
resumes but simply any resumes in certain Missouri area codes.
This is not an exact science. I was initially returned 693 pages. When I
added the keyword unix, I received 140, engineer got 222, cobol 29, and
accounting came in at 41.
Although
they are in the midst of a major upgrade (with an accompanying price increase),
a downside is the lack of a comprehensive search interface.
The main search engine allows a few keywords or a search string so you
still should know Boolean if you plan to use this service. Thankfully, since the
database is all resumes, you can and should omit all resume keywords from your
string.
I spoke with Mike and he is ready to hand out a free trial of their service for the asking. Anyone wanting to take Mike up on his offer or with any questions or comments can reach Mike via telephone at 888/999-2181 or email at robot@resumerobot.com. Please visit the Resume Robot website at www.resumerobot.com.
Just
keeping you abreast of our progress with Sendouts.com, the web-based applicant
tracking system my own agency converted to several months ago. We are still
going strong and learning more about the system daily. They have added many new
and exciting features their system included in one major-league upgrade and
numerous additional updates. As always, they have been extremely sensitive to
our questions, problems, and requests.
The
most useful for me is their new resume parsing engine that extracts all the data
from a resume, saving you time on data entry.
You create a new record, cut and paste a resume into the resume editor,
click on the parsing button and it extracts all contact, employment and
education data into the proper field in the candidate profile.
For example, it extracts the dates, company, position title, city, state,
and responsibilities into separate fields for each employment. We are anxiously
awaiting the inclusion of skills parsing as well. An excellent new feature
solving a very common recruiter problem…lack of typing skills.
They
have also added many new reports, a new calendar system, mail merge, local data
backup, and have linked to MapQuest for mapping. With the addition of 500 new
users in just the past few months, the base of recruiters using the integrated
recruiter-to-recruiter exchange for splitting fees has grown considerably,
meaning more split-fee placements.
Will
keep you posted.
MONSTER.COM
Here is something we don’t write about very often any more. Wade and I both have generally advised a move away from the resume/job posting boards and towards the more passive candidate marketplace. We do firmly believe that as more and more of our clients use services like Monster, and we must continue to source and recruit better candidates than our clients can recruit for themselves, the passive candidate search mode offers us the best opportunities. Having said that…I assume that there are a number of you that do and will continue to use Monster. There are also those of you that might use Monster but cannot handle their low-end service change of $18,750.00 per year. I found out recently and wanted to make anyone interested aware of a program whereby up to 5 users can share a Monster account. These 5 do not have to work for the same company and can split the annual fee. This comes to a total per person of $3,750.00 per year…a much more manageable sum. The contract includes 60 job postings that would be shared as well. I told my contact at Monster, Amanda Blevins, that I would field any requests from the Fordyce subscribers so if anyone is interested in splitting a Monster membership, email me at the address below. Anyone that has any questions about Monster in general can contact Amanda directly via email at Amanda.Blevins@Monster.com or via telephone at 800-MONSTER (666-7837) Ext. 8261. You can also check out the Monster website at http://www.monster.com.
AIRS E-CERTIFICATION
Please
accept my apologies for another delay in the review of the AIRS new web-based
E-Certification program. As readers know there were at least a couple of delays
in getting the beta ready for review. I did have a chance to spend a couple of
evenings on the site once it was up and can tell you that it seems like it is
going to make getting AIRS Certified a lot easier. By the time the product came
out of beta there was no longer any time to review the final product before the
deadline for this article so…once again…I will tell everyone that this
review will occur in next month’s column. Please believe me because I really
mean it this time.
TIP
OF THE MONTH
Let’s talk search philosophy for a moment. The old saying is true: “Birds of a Feather…” Where do they flock on the Internet? When you find these places, you find your candidates. The first place to look is industry associations and their related trade shows and events, then local associations, etc. Universities are also a great place to look. This approach works for almost any type of search, but for our example, let’s look for a Human Resources consultant with an SPHR certification and Big 5 experience in Dallas.
Remember
that we are not looking for the candidate yet, we are looking for the candidate
pool. In Altavista (advanced search mode), type: sphr AND (links OR resources OR
association OR conferences). This pulls 7,000 hits – way too much information!
Let’s refine it by geography. Type: sphr AND (links OR resources OR
association OR conferences) AND (214 OR 972 OR 817). Now we are down to 193
hits. Some quick observations: First, it is quickly apparent that SHRM is the
professional organization that sponsors the SPHR certification. Quickly visiting
shrm.org we see a consultants directory by state that lists SPHR certification
holders. This is a good place to do some networking. Next we visit the link
called www.Dallas_HR.org,
and observe that the Dallas chapter has 1,500 members. Click the site map and
look at the Board of Directors link –plenty of SPHRs there to network with to
source a Dallas candidate. Next, look at the Independent Consultant Directory
– again, plenty of Dallas SPHRs to network with. Next, look at the Independent
Consulting Committee – more Dallas SPHRs. Under Member benefits, notice the
resume book of members currently looking for jobs! Ask one of your contacts to
loan you a password to the membership directory. Notice all the SPHRs that are
Past Presidents! I’ve only invested a few minutes in a search for something
that is not my specialty and I’ve already produced a lot of good leads – yet
I haven’t even tried to find a resume! Something to think about…
Special thanks to Alice Pollack and the members of the Central Missouri chapter of the Missouri Association of Personnel Services (MAPS) who recently hosted Mark and I for a Saturday “hands-on” session in a college computer lab in Springfield, MO. You were a wonderful group!