May 2001 Column

AIRS E-Certification

 It seems like I have been promising this article for a long time. Since the first of the year possibly. I am, at long last, happy to report the AIRS e-Certification system is up and running and I have successfully passed my test, enabling me to use the designation, CIR, on my website and business cards. I am going to share with you a bit of this experience.

 When you first log in, you are presented with a very simple interface. This appears to be a stand-alone application not linked to the AIRS website. You can take a number of very comprehensive tutorials, take practice exams (timed or un-timed) or you can take the real test.

 I started with the tutorials and I am glad I did. I probably poured over them three or four evenings one after the other. I originally took my AIRS I and II training at least a couple of years ago and needed the refresher. To anyone taking this exam…go through these tutorials very thoroughly. There are tutorials on e-Recruitment, Internet Blueprint, Web Toolkit, Searching Across the Web, AIRS PowerTools, AIRS Destinations, AIRS Opportunity Maps and Contacting Candidates/Building Relationships. All of the major components that make up the AIRS Search Strategy. Thankfully, they are presented in an interactive format, on the Internet (nothing to install on your machine), where you can go at your own pace, and back up to previous topics. Each tutorial has a Q&A screen where you knowledge can be tested immediately. Each also has a summary offering more reinforcement for that topic.

 Bear with me a moment while I take a break from this article and get on my soapbox. Regular readers of this column know that I take exception when recruiters tell me they want to learn x-raying and flip-searching so they can become Internet recruiters. So many times we get emails from recruiters desperate to learn these simple techniques. We normally oblige. Other times we hear from AIRS trained recruiters telling me of the x-raying and flip-searching acumen. I say all of the above are missing the boat. Taking these tutorials and the exam itself only reinforced my belief that I am correct. If you look at the preceding paragraph you will notice a list of 8 tutorials. Each of these tutorials represents a major component of AIRS training. X-ray’s and flip-searches are two of five techniques taught in the AIRS PowerTools session, one of eight major areas of Internet Recruiter training. All the way from your recruiting style and your website to the contacting of the candidates and the building of relationships, with all the x-ray’s and flip-searches you want in between. If all you are doing on the Internet is x-rays and flip-searches, you are not doing too much at all.

 Okay…back to the review. Once you complete the tutorials you are ready for the Practice exams. There are two modes you can be in. One is Learning Mode where your questions are scored immediately and explanations of the correct answers are provided. The other is Practice Mode, which simulates the actual exam, where your test is scored at the end. The interface is identical to the actual exam and the questions cover similar content. You can take Practice Mode tests either timed or un-timed. All of the questions on the Practice and Certification tests are multiple choice (4 choices each).

 There are 92 questions on the Practice Exam. I took it probably 4 times and, as you might expect, kept scoring higher each time. By the fourth time I was near 100% accuracy and feeling fairly cocky about taking the Certification Exam so I logged on, was given two hours on the clock, and started my exam.

 There were questions on Boolean like:

 What is wrong with this search string?   link:abc.com AND CA OR california

 There were questions on Destinations like:

 What is the best way to search virtual communities?

 There were questions on Opportunity Maps like:

                 What specific steps do you take once finding the first good candidate?

 Of the 42 questions on the Certification Exam, those were the easy ones, although I would not have gotten nearly so many correct without the tutorials. The hard part was when they gave you a recruiting scenario (your boss comes in and wants such and such info in thirty minutes), a few keywords, and then expects you to go out live on the Internet and find a specific name of an individual with a certain title that works for a particular company. There were a number of those types of questions that were, frankly, not easy…but I still think I got a lot of those correct as well by following the proper methodology. I was actually amazed when I located the name of someone on the Internet that matched one of the four choices. I ended up timing out with one question to go, which was scored as incorrect but still managed a respectable grade.

 I can tell you that the experience in itself was a boon to me professionally. Not only did I get my certification but also have now been refreshed and have a newfound energy as it relates to proper Internet Recruiting. In taking the test, I learned a lot. Did some things to answer the questions that I will now do in my own searches.

 I think this will be a boon for many other people as well. There are only certain cities where they give the lab and certification exam live. Normally, you have to pay the tuition and testing fee, pay for lodging, pay for travel and pay for other expenses. The travel alone can easily add hundreds of dollars to the total expense. To make things worse, you had to take two days off of work. Now you simply pay for the tuition and testing, log on, practice and take the test. I was able to review all of the tutorials, take all the practice exams and the Certification Exam in the evening, not missing any work at all.

 AIRS e-Certification is priced at $995. AIRS also offers package pricing for AIRS Search Lab and e-Certification. If you sign up for both at once the cost is $2,450 - a discount of $500. Alumni are also eligible for a 10% discount. For more information on AIRS new e-Certification, contact Tim McKegney at 1-800-466-4010, x111, or email him at tmckegney@airsdirectory.com

PCRECRUITER

 PCRecruiter is an excellent networkable, desktop application specifically designed for third-party recruiting organizations. We have written a lot lately about web-based this, and ASP that. Although I use a web-based product in my day job and do wholeheartedly recommend this type of solution for a wide variety of users, I realize this is not the best move for everyone. If you have multiple users that work primarily out of one location and performance is a key issue with you, then a local data database might be best. Also, the web-based solutions normally require DSL or Cable Internet service that is not available to everyone. 

We recently heard from the people from Recruiternet and are delighted to provide a review for one of the products they offer, PCRecruiter. We reviewed one of there other products, PCResume, a couple of years ago, thought it was an outstanding product, and hope to provide an updated review for that product as soon as they will let me. PCRecruiter is a locally installed, single user or networked contact database packed full of features. You can tell there is a lot of recruiting industry knowledge at this system is truly designed from the recruiter’s point of view.

 The application opens up taking up about ¾ of your screen. The first thing I immediately noticed and really liked was the fact they use a single tab for both employer and candidate contacts and call it the Names tab. So many times a job order contact is also my candidate for another job, has been in the past, or might be in the future. It is better to have all the data for that one person in one record rather than two. 

 More on the Names tab…all the standard contact info of course. By doing without a lot of frills, fancy boxes and other space wasting niceties, they have been able to place most of the important information on a single page per contact. All the fields for job titles, skills, education, etc. are totally user customizable as per your industry. They also have included a name and address import feature whereby you copy a resume to your clipboard, then extract the data directly into your new database record. There are also buttons to add notes, activities and resumes. You can also click another button to check sendout activity or job order history for that contact. You can also send that contact a customized form letter with the click of another button. If your PC is so equipped, you can auto dial your contact’s phone number or send them an email directly from the application.

 On to the Companies tab that provides another compact screen containing all of the information you might need for a company, be they a client or not. Again the usual name, address and contact information with other buttons view job orders and interview for this company. You can also automatically email and dial like on the Names tab. Another user-customizable details area as well.

 I need to mention the “Map’ button. This is a neat feature available throughout the application. Any address for either a company or contact can be found automatically by clicking on this button. It brings you to an Internet mapping site and automatically displays the map for your contact or companies address. You can also get driving directions from this site as well.

 Before I go on I also wanted to mention how they treat skills. You can certainly add skills for all of your job orders and contacts manually but since their search mechanism is based on full text searching for a contact’s resume and notes fields, you often do not have to.

 They assist you in your daily recruiting duties by allowing you to create custom lists, Rollup Lists. These lists are placed on your calendar and are carried on your calendar until completed. You can create as many lists as you like.

 The Search tab is next. Very simple, comprehensive interface allowing searching for Names, Orders and Companies. You can also search your calendar for specific items. They also have an auto-matching feature where you can automatically match names to orders.

 The last of the four main tabs is the System tab. This is where you pull it all together. All of your system’s users are listed here, as well as any database locations for networked applications. You can also customized your drop down lists for Activity Types, Custom Fields, Education Codes, Equipment Codes, Options, SIC Codes, Skill Codes, Specialty Codes, Titles and other user-defined fields. You can also create specialty SQL queries using the ‘SQL Workbench” if you are so inclined. Taking the time to customize these field up front will make you data entry less of a burden and make the database more customized for your office.

 Here are a few of the sales items from their website (www.recruiternet.net):

 This product comes in two versions. One is an Access database version that supports up to about seven users. This product runs $4,500.00 and includes installation and training. The other version is an SQL Server version that supports larger offices. This version runs $9.500.00 and also includes installation and training. There can also be additional fees for data conversion that can run $1,500.00 and up to $4,500.00 or so.

 It is often difficult to provide a proper review on a database product as you are normally dealing with test data. You can, however, get a great feel for the product, as I have with PCRecruiter. A lot of its value is in its simplicity and ease of use. I would highly recommend this product to anyone seeking a locally installed, networkable database for their recruiting office.

 I also wanted to briefly mention another Recruiternet offering, YourJobBoard, which is a plug-in to PCRecruiter software (additional fees involved). This product provides a complete e-commerce recruiting solution to PCRecruiter clients and can be configured several ways. No room to expand here but be sure to ask the Recruiternet people about this product. They are willing to offer this integrated add-on at a steep discount to new users who mention the Fordyce Letter.

 Anyone interested in more information, or better yet, a free demo of this product (provided via a CD mailed to you) should call Mic Harris, Sales Manager at 207-774-1411, ext. 12 or his email at mic.harris@recruiternet.net.

 Monster Nightmare

 Last month in this column I wrote about something I hadn’t in a long time…Monster.com. You have not seen a lot of Monster in our columns over the last couple of years as Wade and I move and encourage others to move towards more passive candidate recruitment, in order to better stay ahead of our own clients. I wrote about a fee-splitting arrangement whereby up to five individuals could share one $18,750.00 account, all having their own user names and passwords.

Whew!!! What a big mistake.

 As soon as the article hit the street Amanda from Monster evidently received numerous requests for information from Fordyce readers, normally a good thing if you are in a sales position. I know I always view it as positive when potential clients call me up asking for information. I have also received numerous emails from interested parties as well. But no, no, no…not in this case. These calls actually caused some type of panic at the Monster front offices, causing a frantic call from Amanda with the message that “Monster does not offer split memberships.” An emailed followed: “Unfortunately, since the last time we spoke MONSTER.COM is not offering split memberships.”  The last time she and I spoke was the first week in March and the article was written the last week in March. Frankly, that was all news to me so to make a short story long, and in keeping with my time-honored tradition of being as honest as I can…read on.

 Last summer, I heard from a very respectable recruiting manager at one of my clients here in St. Louis, a telecommunications company with a large operation here. He was having trouble convincing his bosses to pop for the 18+K, had somehow learned that Monster offered this type of arrangement, and had actually called me to interest me in a split membership at Monster. Until then, I had never heard of such a thing. He had another gentleman in N.Y. (who would both be happy to attest to all of this) lined up for a split membership and was seeking three more…all with Monster’s blessing as far as I know. His bosses finally popped for the full membership and the deal was off. 

More recently, at the beginning of March, I received an unsolicited email from Amanda. It was nothing special, I am sure part of a standard mass mailing follow up procedure. Amanda and I spoke and I told her that although I still was not interested in spending the kind of money she was asking that I would be happy to promote the membership splits to the Fordyce readers. I thought this service ($3,750.00) was more in line with what we could all afford and more in line with what their service is worth. We talked about the negatives…and I would never know these unless she and I spoke about them. That the five people sharing the account would have to share 30 job postings…that no company profile or link to a website could be provided…probably others as well. I wrote about all of those in the article, yet people still called.

 So now you know what I know. If any of you Monster subscribers hear from your sales reps that Amanda doesn’t know what I am talking about, please realize she is not being truthful. Much is still a mystery and I would be happy to give any Monster representatives space in this column to explain to us exactly what happened. I think we have yet another indication that the third-party recruiting industry is not even on the Monster radar screen any longer. I am sure since this was written they have turned away numerous potential paying customers…something you will never see me do. Nor will you ever see me promote Monster in this column again. Period.

 FLIPDOG.COM UPDATE

 We recently ran a review on the FlipDog.com site. They had an update to their system and we are happy to include the information. From their email:

 “We’ve included below the announcement of FlipDog.com’s most recent addition to their suite of tools and services, the Executive Finder.  At launch, this new database contains over 50,000 executive biographical sketches, with updates made regularly, adding bios and keeping track of changes to assist in recruiting.  Employing familiar technology from WhizBang! Labs, Executive Finder not only saves businesses time and money, but it also helps them find the most perfect fit for their recruiting needs. We’ll be releasing this announcement over the wire tomorrow, March 6th, but we wanted to let you in on the news first.”

 MASTERCD

 FYI. Another email with an interesting, product. I haven’t talked with these people nor reviewed their product but seems reasonable for anyone into mass mailings, marketing information, etc.  From their email:

 “You can now access up-to-date data for 1.6 million companies worldwide. All of them have their own ‘.com’ domain name on the Internet, making them top prospects for Internet business. MasterCD 2001 provides e-mail addresses, contact names, phone and fax numbers, company SIC codes, and optionally mailing addresses, allowing you to run e-mail and fax promotions, make telephone contacts, and plan marketing strategies. MasterCD 2001 allows you to sort data and choose companies according to your preferences, either by industry classification and/or geographically using Phone Area Codes, Zip Codes, City or State. Data can be exported to contact-management, spreadsheet, and broadcasting applications. MasterCD 2001 costs US $649. Mailing addresses are available for an additional US $399. Semi-annual updates are available for US $199. We are now shipping March 2001 edition.

For a brochure with full details, call (604) 552-4383 or print out and fax the form below to (604) 608-5566.”

 TIP OF THE MONTH

 Segmentation?  Relax - you do it now.  It is just a fancy term for categorizing things so that you can find exactly what you want.  If you are building a sourcing database, it is important that you segment your data.  For example, if you are collecting Network Engineers by harvesting from the Web, it is not enough to call them Network Engineers – you have to learn more about them.  Otherwise you will soon have a huge database, but be unable to answer a job order-driven question like: I need a Network Engineer specializing in Wireless and Optical technologies in a pre-sales environment, designing solutions and presenting them to C-level executives of Telecom carriers in Chicago and Dallas.  If you get a challenge like that and all you can offer your recruiters is: Here are 1,000 Network Engineers in Dallas and Chicago, but I don’t know what they do, then you are part of the problem instead of part of the solution.  There are 2 ways to get segmentation data – call the candidates, or have the candidates profile themselves on the web.  The key is to put a great deal of thought into what data you want to collect to achieve your purpose.  The shorter your questionnaire, but more likely you are to get the data you want.  In the case of Network Engineers, we were able to get the data with just 4 or 5 questions.

 TIP OF THE MONTH – 2

 Anyone having a special need to search the Internet for Adobe PDF documents can now do so at the Google search engine. They have become the first major Internet search engine to offer full text searching of these specialty documents. By using the little known ‘inurl:’ command. Go to www.google.com and type in ‘xxxx inurl.pdf’ (without quotes). Replace the xxxx with the keyword of your choice. Many technical papers and research reports are available only in PDF formats, probably find some resumes as well.

 TOOL OF THE MONTH

 Area Code and prefix phone lookups – http://www.primeris.com/fonefind/. Using a site like this one enables your to drill down into the prefix of a phone number to find out what part of a city they live in.  This is very useful for large metropolitan areas.