June 2002 Column

Comments From the Trenches 

I remember addressing the Dallas Technical Recruiter Network last March (2001) and telling them that if they were still relying on Monster.com to find their candidates as a recruiter for an agency or contract firm, then they probably wouldn't be in recruiting within a year.  It wasn't a popular statement.  I still managed to get invited to Cathy Peterson's annual Christmas party (Cathy is the President of the Dallas Technical Recruiter Network, and a long-time friend) where I met a slightly drunk young recruiter who had attended my talk.  He said that my remark "really pissed off" a lot of the recruiters in the room, but "darn if it didn't work out to be true".  Mark, my co-author, and many of the distinguished contributors to The Fordyce Letter, has previously written why Monster.com isn't the place for an agency recruiter to find candidates today.  We are in the value-adding business, not the paper and email forwarding business.  The good news is that this recession is apparently short-lived.  The question is, are you ready for the recovery?   

If my current employer's situation is any indication, large companies are beginning to explode with orders for key personnel - and middle level technical personnel - but the rules have changed.  Vendor agreements from large companies, often one-sided affairs written by so-called former recruiters in HR departments, are often not in your best interest.  Body shopping is dead.  Mass resume mailing is quickly dying, if not dead already.  You will make your money delivering value - better candidates, hidden candidates, "not posted on every resume board on the Internet" candidates.  What a mess the Internet is becoming for large employers with regard to finding candidates.  Resume blasters and cross-posting tools are causing corporate recruiters to drown in resumes - the same old resumes, over and over.  Don't fall into this trap.  While the corporate recruiters slog it out in the mud, you can swoop in on the executives with strong value propositions that create more than a single placement opportunity - if you know how to research, present, and sell/close.  We just opened the Armory section on the swatrecruiting web site, and already innovative recruiters are taking advantage of the free resources to build powerful value propositions for their clients and make money in this so-called recession.  You already have the tools to succeed - strong phone skills, closing skills, presentation skills, etc. from your traditional practice.  Large retained firms have the internal research departments to identify industry opportunities and market share analysis that leads to informed sales calls on key executives to win retainer business.  You can also move past the traditional Flip & Xray techniques to new, more powerful tools and techniques that will set you apart from your competition in terms of the speed and quality of the results you produce.   

Don't fall into the Monster.com, vendor list trap.  Add some new skills to your armory and keep adding value.  Remember, you are sales professional and the market needs you. 

Highlights from the Armory - Feedback from the Field 

Deep Web section - IncyWincy: What is it?  An invisible Web search engine.  Why should you care?  It can find directories and other important documents that you can't find using traditional Flip and X-Ray techniques on standard search engines.  One consultant from a large retained firm told me that he booked a placement directly as a result of IncyWincy finding a company directory he couldn't find through other avenues. The happy consultant also mentioned that he found IncyWincy much more useful than Lexibot, from Bright Planet, in terms of eliminating duplicates and producing relevant search results.  He appreciated the power that the resources of the Armory gave him to quickly find the key hidden talent his demanding clients are willing to pay a fee for.  If you haven't had a chance to try out IncyWincy, take a test drive at http://www.swatrecruiting.com in the Armory section. 

Free Resume Database Announcement from Bret Hollander (Sourcers Apprentice) - "Just released the largest resume database known to mankind. It contains over 60 million free, fresh resumes. http://resumezilla.cjb.net" 

Cyberspace Jealously Guarded Recruiting Secrets 

Back in 1999 Wade reviewed a copy of Judy West’s Internet recruiting book, Cyberspace Jealously Guarded Recruiting Secrets. I believe it got a good review and now she has come out with a new edition of this resource for Internet recruiters. We were unable to obtain a copy for review but Judy has graciously allowed us to reprint her top 15 “Unlayer the Net” Recruiter tips. Here they are: 

Tip 1.      Plan Your Work - Work Your Plan" - cliché, yes but a MUST!  Have a Goal.  What is your motivation for finding this information.  Define your passion.  Ask yourself "how, when, what, where".  If you are truly a newbie on the Internet, you might want to start with a tutorial on surfing the net.  A great bare bones tutorial can be found at:  http://www.sc.edu/beaufort/library/bones.html .   Step 1 - Get Organized.  In your favorite browser (Netscape, Internet Explorer (IE) or AOL are the top 3), set up file folders to save your findings.  We have IE but the steps are similar in all three.  Click on Favorites, Click on Organize Favorites, Click on Create Folder and now name your Folder.  You should set up folders for your favorite Search Engines, one for Dictionaries & Reference Sites, one for Chat, Discussion Groups, one for Associations / User Groups, Passive Search i.e.- ezines, white papers, press releases, etc.;  Active Search, i.e.- resumes.   Break down the folders into subfolders for skill sets so you can find and utilize your findings easily. 

Tip 2.      Define your keywords.  Don't give up! Use specialty dictionaries and a thesaurus to help you come up with your keywords.  Our favorite dictionary site is http://www.yourdictionary.com where you will find over 1500 dictionaries in 230 languages.  See our Top 10 Search Engine list.  You might be asking, "why would I need 10 search engines?  Guess what, I have a list of 1200 and I use no less than 20 Search Engines and 20 Meta Search Engines for every research project.  Experts say traditional Search Engines have access to only a fraction of 1 percent of what exists on the Web.  As many as 500 billion pieces of content are hidden from the view of those search engines. We are going to teach you how to "unlayer the Net" to get to the targeted information that will WOW your peers, clients, customers, etc.   Critical to your success is a huge list of "keywords". 

Tip 3.      Unleash the power of "The Net" with Boolean Commands.  Search engines are programmed to understand commands like AND,AND NOT, NOT, OR and  symbols like +   -  (  )  "  "  *  Note: They must be "all caps".  Some of these commands are summarized below, the rest are covered in our training manual and/or seminars. 

+ AND           Instructs the search engine to scan for all the key words thalamic AND pain + stroke 

-  NOT         Instructs the search engine to exclude the word named after the NOT or the - AND NOT                                                java –coffee finds java programmers but eliminates anything to do with coffee 

            OR                Instructs the search engine to look for one or the other but not both  key words

thalamic OR retrolenticular OR posterior OR "central post" 

       “  “               Instructs the search engine to look for the specific phrase "retrolenticular syndrome" 

 (  )                Instructs the search engine this is a complex query (thalamic AND pain OR "posterior thalamic") 

 *                  Also known as a wildcard, instructs the search engine to accept all information before or after the * 

Tip 4.     Advanced Surfing Techniques to unlayer the net require using "Advanced Modifiers".  There are over 30 advanced modifiers covered in our reference manuals.  We have given you five of the most powerful commands here to add to your arsenal.                               

title:                   Instructs the search engines to scan the html title line of each web page title:thalamic AND pain 

url:                    Instructs the search engine to restrict the search to only the content within a specific web page address;  url:.com AND thalamic OR retrolenticular OR posterior OR "central post" Try: .net, .gov, .mil, .org, .edu 

domain:             Instructs the search engine to find pages within a specified domain or website domain:.ca AND "retrolenticular syndrome"  finds info in Canada For a list of all the domain names and country codes go to: www.aldea.com/bluepages/domain.html 

host:                Instructs the search engine to find pages a specific computer / server host:.com AND "thalamic pain" 

linkdomain:       Instructs the search engine to find links to a specific domain name linkdomain:____.com AND "dejerine roussy" 

Our much sought after laminated Top 20 Search Engine Quick Reference Guide with all 30 of our Advanced Modifiers and all of the Boolean Commands comes with your reference manual purchase or if you attend one of our seminars.  This card will save you countless hours of time by reminding you where this command works and where it doesn't.  It will serve as a memory jogger of how to use the command.   Our customers tell us that they keep this card by their PC and use it dozens of times every single day. 

Tip 5.    To access all the resumes on AOL for FREE, go to:   http://www.altavista.com and in the home page search box, key in: url:aol.com AND resume.  This netted 31,000 resumes.  Now go back and narrow your search by adding your keyword.  Example:  url:aol.com AND resume AND java -coffee  This netted 705 java candidates.  Experiment! Experiment!! Experiment!!!  To narrow even further, add your area code, zip code, state, state abbreviation and/or city.   Always try every search on the Homepage Search section and on the Advanced Search Page of your favorite search engine.  Try multiple search engines.  The url: search works best on:  AltaVista, Northern Light, All the Web, Go.com, Lycos and Yahoo!  Remember, you must have your spacing, punctuation & capitalization precisely correct!  That's why our book grew to 932-pages.  Every search is documented with pictures and step-by-step instruction so you don't waste precious time trying to refigure out that awesome search.  Don't trust your memory, document those WOW searches.  Trust me you'll regret it if you can't duplicate it again…  Not interested in resumes, just replace resume with your keyword. 

Tip 6.    To find passive prospective candidates or potential sales leads in any company worldwide, go to: http://www.networksolutions.com and click on the WHOIS icon near the top of the home page.   This will bring up a page with a search box labeled "Search Our WHOIS Records".  In this box, key in the company domain name that you would like target.  Example:  eds.com and click "GO".  This will give you the companies’ headquarters and some of  their locations.  Now go back to the WHOIS search box page and key in *@eds.com in the search box. Then be sure to select "ALL" under the "Search WHOIS By:" before clicking "GO".  You now have a list of key employees of EDS that are responsible in some capacity for managing web development.  It gives you their email address, phone number, fax number, and if you click on the code numbers beside their name it will give you their business location and snail mail address. The ‘*’ is a Wildcard. 

Tip 7.    Target skills and narrow your search to your backdoor -- Go to:  http://www.northernlight.com and in the search box key in:  resume.html java C++ (214).   Replace java C++ with your keyword(s) and replace 214 with your area code, zip code, state or city.  Try it with and without parenthesis.  Try abbreviating your State or try (TX OR Texas) or (Dallas OR DFW).   Remember your Boolean commands are always capitalized - AND, OR, NOT, AND NOT, etc. Multiple words must use "  ". 

Tip 8.    Want to find thousands of passive potential sales prospects or candidates in Employee Directories?  Go to Alta Vista and type in - host: *.com AND "employee directory".  This netted us 6200 Employee Directories.  Now go back and add your keyword.  We added AND oracle which netted 224 Employee Directories with oracle.  Replace "employee directory"  with staff, member, "user group", list, "press release", roster, alumni, .  Don't forget to try all the domain names:  .net, .edu, .gov, .org, .mil, .biz, .info, .cc, .to, etc.   To turn this into an active candidate search to find resumes just key in, host:*.com AND resume AND oracle or try host:.com AND title:resume AND oracle  There is always multiple ways to unlayer the hidden information.  Combining your Advanced Modifiers is a powerful way to source.  The  host: command asks the server for every web page on the server.  That means you pull linked and unlinked pages. 

Tip 9.      Top 30 Advanced Modifiers for unlayering the net… 

1.  title:                  6.  text:           11.  t:                16.  feature:applet         21.  ~a               26.  *@

            2.  url:                   7.  anchor:      12.  u:               17.  feature:acrobat       22.  ~s               27.  NEAR/

3.  domain:            8.  applet:       13.  link:           18.  script language:       23.  ~g               28.  FAR/

4.  linkdomain:       9.  object:       14.  like:            19.  feature:script          24.  ~dc             29.  ADJ/

5.  host:                10.  image:      15.  TICKER:   20.  newsgroup:            25. .  PUB:        30.  +site: 

Tip 10.  Time is money!  Learn time saving shortcuts like the "Find on Page" feature in both Internet Explorer and Netscape Communicator.  Speed it up by using the keyboard shortcut.  Ctrl/F opens the "Find on Page" dialog box or click on Edit, select Find and key in your search word in the "Find What search box".  Using keyboard shortcuts saves you countless amounts of time and helps you read resumes faster by finding your keyword faster.  You will receive our laminated Keyboard Shortcuts bookmark to keep by your PC when you attend one of our seminars or purchase either of our reference manuals.  It's all about time! 

Tip 11.  Check references on everyone!  Always ask for 6 or 7 references and never settle for less than 3.  Get as much information on each reference, email address, phone numbers, company that they currently work for, specifically what they do, title, etc.  Go to the Internet and see what else you can find out about them. The referenced person will be very impressed with your knowledge of their background when you call or email.  Now here's the tip.  You know this person is obviously your candidate’s buddy or mentor so that doesn't help you.   To get to the real references, engage the reference in conversation and design your questions so that your response can be "Who can Verify That?" "Who Can Verify That?"  "Who Can Verify That?"  This is your real reference and your best prospect to recruit in the future.  Now take your newly found names along with the clues you got from the individual that gave you their name to your favorite Search Engines and Lookup Directories and track down this persons contact information and background info.

Tip 12.  Striping & Peeling the URL.  Start looking at all url's.  You can do a technique called stripping or peeling the url.  We selected a sample url that we received in the search above to demonstrate.  You simply strip back or peel back each page. 

  http://members.aol.com/drpainn/review/staff/index.htm

  http://members.aol.com/drpainn/review/staff

  http://members.aol.com/drpainn/review/

Delete page by page by deleting all characters to the "/" mark and click enter.  Strip back page by page and you will be amazed at what you can find.  Staff list, member directories, association member lists, etc.  Start noticing all url's and peel them back for hidden pages you would never access otherwise. 

Tip 13. The linkdomain: command restricts a search to pages containing links to the specified domain.  The net lingo for this                 search is called "Flipping".  First we copied one of the URLs which is a well known prescription drug company and                 we are going to us the command to find every link to them.  Here is how you do it.       

                                              http://www.merck.com/pubs/mmanual/sectio...ter174/174b.htm

First peel back the url all the way back to the main domain name then go to HotBot at http://www.hotbot.com and key in the Home Page Search Box:  linkdomain:merck.com AND thalamic

The results are amazing.  You have just found every link to a major drug company that has anything to do with your keyword "thalamic pain".

Tip 14.  Want to find Associations try these examples.  In your favorite browser address box we chose our favorite search engine http://www.altavista.com.  Select "English" in the language menu.  In Alta Vista's Home Page search box key in:

                                title:association AND _______ (your keyword)

                                title:assoc* AND _______

                                title:directory AND "_____   _____"

                                title:member +"_____   _____"

                                title:roster +______ 

Keep your searches simple but try many different keywords.  This netted us 13 results.  To find your keyword in a flash use shortcuts like the "Find on Page" feature in your browser.  In Internet Explorer click on "Edit" then "Find", key in your keyword in the "Find What" box and click on "Find Next".  Keep clicking "Find Next" and every place in the page that "your keyword appears it will be highlighted for you.  This procedure works on Netscape also.  In place of association, try "support groups", "support group*", assoc*, group*, article, member, directory, roster, doctor, medical, pain, staff, press release, paper, "white paper", etc.  Remember spacing, lower case and punctuation must be precisely correct.   

Tip 15.    The greatest recruiting tip that I can share with you from my 20+ year career as a recruiter and sales professional has nothing to do with the Internet and is the most important tip you can ever learn but you can use the Internet to take it to a higher level. To be a successful recruiter or sales professional you have to put everything else aside and first and foremost, genuinely "make a friend".   Building that relationship sets you apart from all the other recruiters and salespeople that call those needle-in-a-haystack prospects and candidates.  Using the Internet to do your homework will help you do just that.  If you do it right, that candidate or customer becomes your ambassador recommending and choosing you above all others years down the road when they are in a position of authority.  Answering what's in it for THEM with KINDNESS wins every time.  Using the Internet to find out "I care" information will impress and make them a loyal advocate for life. 

Judy is charging $395.00 for the 900+ page tome. She can be contacted at Judy West Productions; 1060 W. Frankford Rd., Suite 203, LB-123; Carrollton, TX 75007 or at her email address: judywest@cyberrecruitingsecrets.com.