Why Boolean Search is Such a Big Deal in Recruiting
In the past, I’ve explained the Boolean Black Belt concept and exposed what I feel is the real “secret” behind learning how to master the art and science of leveraging information systems for talent identification and acquisition.
Now I would like to show you precisely WHY Boolean search is such a big deal in recruiting.
There are 2 main factors:
- Candidate variable control
- Speed of qualified candidate identification.
The goal of this article is to shed significant light on the science behind talent mining, how it can lead to higher productivity levels (more and better results with less effort), why I am so passionate sourcing, and why everyone in the HR, recruiting, and staffing industry should be as well.
Control is Power
Talent identification is arguably the most critical step in recruiting life cycle – you can’t engage, recruit, acquire, hire and develop someone you haven’t found and identified in the first place.
My experience has shown me that properly leveraging deep sources of talent/candidate data (ATS/CRM’s, resume databases, LinkedIn, etc.) can enable recruiters to more quickly identify a high volume of well matched and qualified candidates than any other method of candidate identification and acquisition (e.g., cold calling, referral recruiting, job posting).
The true power of Boolean search lies in the intrinsically high degree of control over critical candidate variables that using Boolean strings to search deep data sources such as resume databases, the Internet, and social media affords sourcers and recruiters.
Applying that that high degree of control to large populations of candidates – tens of thousands (small internal ATS, niche resume database) to tens of millions (large ATS/CRM, Monster resume database, LinkedIn, etc.) enables adept sourcers to perform feats of talent identification and acquisition most would think impossible.
I’ll be at the HCI, LinkedIn, and ATC Talent Conferences
From late April through May, I will be presenting at 5 talent acquisition events in 3 countries and 4 cities.
If you are already scheduled to attend one of these events, please be sure to take a moment to introduce yourself if we haven’t already had the chance to meet in person.
If you’re thinking about attending one of these conferences but have yet to commit, this will be a good opportunity for you to learn a little more and perhaps decide to sign up.
HCI 2012 Strategic Talent Acquisition Conference
Unfortunately, if you haven’t yet signed up for HCI’s 2012 Strategic Talent Acquisition Conference in NYC, you’re out of luck, as it is now sold out – at least for live attendance. The good news is that you can still attend virtually – click here to learn more.
On Monday, April 30th, I will be heading up the “LinkedIn: Beyond the Basics” workshop with Eric Jaquith from 8:00 to 10:00 AM.
We all know LinkedIn is a powerful weapon in the war for talent, but few organizations leverage LinkedIn to their full advantage. Eric and I will be walking the workshop attendees through LinkedIn’s “missing manual,” including:
- Practical and effective LinkedIn recruiting tips, tactics, and strategies
- Powerful, but seldom used search functionality
- How to leverage LinkedIn for competitive intelligence
- How to use profiles to receive top ranking and visibility
- How to find people on LinkedIn that other people can’t and don’t find
- How to get the most value from free and premium LinkedIn solutions
- How to effectively build a far reaching and valuable LinkedIn network
I’m really looking forward to this interactive workshop!
As for the rest of the conference, I am impressed by the speaker lineup and the topics being addressed. I must say I am especially interested in seeing the conference’s closing session by Paul DePodesta, the New York Mets VP of Player Development and Scouting, who is known for his notable appearance in the book Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game - as I’ve read the book, seen the movie, and written a few articles on the subject of Moneyball Recruiting.
LinkedIn Toronto
On May 15th, I will be presenting two sessions at the largest Canadian LinkedIn event ever, which is being held at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre.
As of April 12th, only 2 days after opening for registrations, 450 had already signed up!
I’ll be running two sessions at #inToronto, one for LinkedIn Recruiter users, and one for LinkedIn RPS users.
In both sessions, I will be digging into how to go beyond the basics and the “low hanging fruit” to get maximum ROI from your LinkedIn investment.
If you’re in Canada or in the U.S. and relatively close to Toronto and you didn’t get the chance to attend either of the LinkedIn Talent Connect events (San Francisco in 2010 or Las Vegas in 2011), you will definitely want to sign up for #inToronto!
2012 Australasian Talent Conference
In 2011, I had the honor of being asked by Trevor Vas, Martin Warren, Kevin Wheeler and Horace Chai to present at their talent sourcing event in Melbourne. I must have done a decent job, as they’ve asked me back to Australia in 2012.
From May 22-24, I will be attending and presenting at the 2012 Australasian Talent Conference event – Dealing and Winning in a Roller Coaster Talent Market in Sydney, Australia.
I get the chance to lead several sessions, including a pre-conference workshop on Lean and Agile sourcing, a keynote on the Moneyball Approach to Recruitment: Big Data = Big Changes, a session on CareerOne’s/Monster’s SeeMore and 6Sense technology, as well as an unconference session that is sure to be entertaining!
If you’re anywhere within 10 hours’ flight time of Sydney, you won’t want to miss this talent conference, the ATC speaker lineup is stacked! Dr. John Sullivan, Master Burnett, Kevin Wheeler, Greg Savage – talk about industry heavyweights – and they’re just the tip of the ATC event iceberg!
ATC Agency Recruitment Masterclasses
After the ATC event I mentioned above, I will be leading master-class agency workshops in Sydney on May 25th and in Melbourne on May 28th along with Martin Warren (Principal Consultant, Insidejob) and Greg Savage (CEO, Firebrand).
In these agency-only workshops, attendees will learn tactics and methodologies that will allow you to gain greater business and establish a true partnership, including how to:
- Become a strategic partner by selling the value of your services to corporate recruitment leaders;
- Develop and present visual Sourcing Mind Maps demonstrating your in-depth knowledge and reach within targeted markets;
- Locate and leverage candidates on professional and social network channels such as LinkedIn, Google+, Twitter, Facebook and others that your clients cannot;
- Use channels such as LinkedIn to gain competitive intelligence and prospects for clients and business development; and
- Establish key time management best practices for sourcing vs. engaging critical talent.
Between the three of us, Greg, Martin and I have over 45 years of highly successful agency experience – so if you’re an agency recruitment professional that’s within practical travel distance to either Sydney or Melbourne, you won’t want to miss these workshops!
Hope to See You!
As my speaking engagement calendar develops throughout the year, I will keep you updated on the events and locations.
If you’re ever at an event I am speaking at, please be sure to introduce yourself!
If you’re interested in having me speak at your event, simply let me know – thanks!
The Current and Future State of Talent Sourcing
I had the distinct honor and privilege of serving as the conference chair of the biggest-ever SourceCon, held at the Georgia Aquarium in February. Part of my responsibility in that role involved kicking off the event, and I took the opportunity to touch upon my observations and opinions on the current state of sourcing, as well as what I believe will be the future of sourcing.
Even as I was standing on stage I knew I would be writing a post on this topic, because it was apparent that there is much misunderstanding and debate surrounding sourcing, and certainly no shortage of opinion, qualified or otherwise.
If you’re ready, I’ll walk you though my definition of sourcing, my observations on the current state of sourcing, and what I (and others!) see as the future state of sourcing.
WARNING: If you don’t like/have time to read long posts, I suggest you turn back now. While I could have split this content up into 9 weeks worth of 500 word posts, I’d prefer to give you the goods rather than string you along.
What is Sourcing?
First and foremost, I believe it is critical to have a common understanding of what sourcing is.
I define sourcing to include any and all activities whose primary purpose is talent discovery and identification.
My definition is purposefully broad, because I find too many people seem to associate sourcing solely with searching the Internet with Boolean search strings.
While some companies may limit their sourcers to exactly that – searching only the Internet and generating names for someone else to engage – sourcing is and should be much more than that.
Sourcing encompasses the use of any source of human capital data – an ATS, Monster, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, mobile apps, etc., and it can also include the phone, email, and messaging work of engaging potential candidates and networking with them to yield referrals and the opportunity to identify more potential candidates.
Yes, networking with people – whether they be new hires, existing staff and management, or complete strangers – to find and identify potential candidates is also sourcing, regardless of method (electronically, over the phone, or in person).
Of course, sourcing also includes traditional phone sourcing as effectively addressed and dramatically demonstrated at the SourceCon event by Conni LaDouceur.
And finally, although passive and offering little-to-no control over the qualifications and experience of the talent discovered, job posting is even a form of sourcing – the primary purpose of posting a job is to discover talent.
The Critical Importance of Sourcing
When it comes to the entire talent management lifecycle, nothing is more important than sourcing.
That’s because, quite simply, the entire talent management lifecycle is completely dependent upon discovering and identifying potential talent in the first place.
You cannot engage, build a relationship with, recruit, hire, retain and develop someone you haven’t found.
Period.
Try cutting and polishing a poor quality diamond, or better yet – try cutting a diamond you don’t actually have. You could have the best diamond cutters in the world on your staff, but without a steady supply of high quality rough diamonds, you simply won’t be in business.
When it comes to hiring and retaining, all future outcomes are dependent upon that magical moment when a sourcer/recruiter first finds and makes contact with a potential candidate.
The Current State of Sourcing
I believe that sourcing is largely misunderstood, undervalued, and under-invested in today.
I offer as evidence:
- An alarming number of people seem to believe that sourcing is all about Boolean logic
- There are people who believe that sourcing is a function that can be easily replaced by software
- There are well respected companies who don’t give their sourcers or recruiters any premium or purpose-built tools or resources
- The recently conducted sourcing compensation survey illustrated that 23% of the respondents make less than $40,000 annually
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I’ve Joined SourceRight Solutions, a Randstad Company
When it comes to recruiting – it’s all about timing and opportunity, right?
I’ve had a great 15 year run in the staffing industry, starting off in 1997 at a small privately held company in Chantilly, VA, and ultimately ending up at Kforce after they acquired that no-longer-small staffing company back in February of 2005.
Over the years, I’ve progressed from a top producing recruiter to a VP of recruiting, and I’ve relocated twice with Kforce from Ashburn, VA to Tampa and more recently to Atlanta.
As with most people in the recruiting and staffing industry, I’d received my fair share of opportunity pitches.
Some came from companies I would have loved to work for, but none were the right match for what I was looking to do, and disappointingly, most seemed to be looking for someone to fit into very defined and scoped roles offering little room for me to bring all of my knowledge, experience, and passion for sourcing and recruiting to bear.
I’ve enjoyed many rewarding roles at Kforce that offered me the ability to stretch the boundaries of my job descriptions to be able to add value to the entire firm in as many ways as possible. When I was contacted about positions that were limited in scope and seemed more like the company was looking for a specific piece to fit their puzzle, it was an easy decision to not pursue them any further, as I promised myself I would never take a step backwards, even if it was an opportunity with a marquee company.
However, after 15 years in the staffing industry, the right opportunity finally came along.
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Top 15 Common Talent Sourcing Mistakes
Practically everything I have learned about sourcing and recruiting didn’t come from a mentor or any formal training.
Instead, I learned how to become a top performing recruiter “the hard way.”
What that really means is that when it came to finding top talent, I tried a lot of things that didn’t work, and because I refuse to make excuses, give up, or accept anything less than the best results, I kept experimenting until I discovered things that enabled me to find people that others can’t and don’t.
With over fifteen years of experience in sourcing and recruiting, I’ve made my fair share of mistakes along the way. I’ve also had the opportunity to assess, train and coach corporate and agency sourcers and recruiters, which has exposed me to many myths, misconceptions and mistakes when it comes to leveraging information systems for sourcing and recruiting.
Here are what I believe to be some of the most common productivity-robbing and results-reducing mistakes sourcers and recruiters make when looking for the right match.
In no particular order…
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The 50 Largest LinkedIn Groups
At the time of this article, there were 1,236,675 LinkedIn groups. With so many groups, how do you find and choose which groups to join?
Depending on your LinkedIn group strategy, you may be interested in finding the largest groups of a specific type.
LinkedIn groups are very searchable, and when you start typing letters into the search box, you will get a dynamically updated list of groups matching the letters/words you input, typically (but not always exactly) sorted by the number of members.
Being the search geek that I am, I wondered what would happen if I executed a null search – a query for nothing.
Many search engines/interfaces don’t allow null searches, and others that do tend to return only partial results. For example, with LinkedIn’s people search, you can’t search all of LinkedIn without entering a keyword – you will only get results from 1st degree, 2nd degree, and group connections. You have to enter a keyword in order to dip into the people categorized as “3rd + Everyone Else,” representing the deep end of the people pool on LinkedIn.
However, lucky for us, a null search of LinkedIn groups not only works, it returns all groups sorted primarily by the number of members. That makes it remarkably simple to find the largest groups on LinkedIn.
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The Talent Community Connundrum
First it was social recruiting, then it was mobile recruiting.
Now talent communities are apparently the latest cure for all of your talent troubles.
One the surface, the talent community concept seems like a brilliant “no brainer.”
However, like Socrates, I believe there is value in questioning everything. So when I start seeing a strong buzz about just about anything, I immediately hit it with a dose of healthy skepticism and start asking some tough questions.
I’m well aware that there are talent acquisition leaders out there right now that are saying, “What we really need is a talent community,” primarily because of the buzz the concept has been building over the past year or so. I worry that these same people are placing blind faith into the talent community concept out of the hope that it will help them in some significant manner with their talent acquisition challenges.
When I attended a webinar on building sustainable talent communities the other day, I felt it raised more questions than it provided answers. Because I know I can’t be the only person wondering about the validity of the talent community concept, I thought it would be a good idea to share with you my thoughts and questions.
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LinkedIn Is Making Changes to Prevent Copying Profile Text
Last week, I had someone ask me what was going on with LinkedIn.
She told me she was having difficulty selecting text from a LinkedIn profile in order to copy and paste it into a search engine to find the public profile.
I jumped onto her computer to check out what she was talking about, and I found out that she was definitely not suffering from user error – she was not able to copy text from any LinkedIn profile.
As this was the first time I have ever encountered something like this, I went back to my computer and tried selecting profile text and had no troubles, so I was not exactly sure what was going on.
A part of me wondered if LinkedIn was beginning to roll out a change. Even though I didn’t have the same problem copying profile text, I know from past functionality changes that LinkedIn has made that they typically don’t roll them out to all users at once.
To be honest, I didn’t really think about it much after that day.
Until I got an email later in the same week from someone in my network about the exact same thing.
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Is Your ATS a Black Hole or a Diamond Mine?
Most companies and staffing organizations, ranging from executive search sole proprietorships to staffing agencies to Fortune 500 companies, have internal databases filled with rich and actionable information on thousands to literally tens of millions of applicants, candidates, and professionals.
You would think that a private internal database of people that an organization has actively and passively, tactically and strategically collected over the years would be a prized posession and be viewed and leveraged as a significant resource and competitive advantage.
However, this post on Weddles details that an Online Sourcing Survey conducted by TalentDrive found that almost two-thirds (64%) of the employers represented by the survey’s participants did not know how many qualified candidates were in their own ATS databases.
Yes – you read that correctly.
Most companies don’t even know how many people are in their Applicant Tracking Systems.
Surprised?
While that is an especially disturbing statistic and a sad reality, I’m actually not that surprised.
Most Applicant Tracking Systems have horrible search interfaces and extremely limited information retrieval capability.
As such, like a black hole, prospective candidates go in, but they don’t come back out.
If you can’t easily search your internal database, how can you determine the total candidate population, let alone find the top talent hidden within?
Deposits and Withdrawals
Having an ATS/CRM/candidate database that is not highly searchable is like putting your money into an insolvent financial institution. You can deposit money/assets in – but you can’t easily or reliably make withdrawals.
The bottom line is that data has no value if you can’t retrieve it.
Anything designed to store something should have strong retrieval capability – once you put it in, you should expect to be able to get it back out.
Quickly and easily, no less.
If you can easily enter prospective candidates into your ATS but you cannot easily retrieve the right ones at the right time – you’re essentially sitting on a giant Hidden Talent Pool.
Illiquid Human Capital
Everyone agrees that people are an organization’s most valuable asset.
However, if you cannot quickly, easily, and precisely search for and retrieve highly qualified candidates from your private database, your ATS is essentially a source of illiquid (human) assets.
In other words, you cannot easily convert the human capital data stored in your system into hires/placements.
The Time Value of Resumes
Even after 15 years in recruiting, I am still shocked to hear HR pros, sourcers, recruiters, and talent acquisition leaders comment about how resumes get “stale” and lose their value after 6 months.
While the information on resumes certainly goes out of date over time, the resumes themselves do no lose their value.
In fact, I argue that resumes get more valuable over time.
This is because the active candidates you capture today become the passive and non job seekers in time – yes, those magical people that are supposedly so valuable and so difficult to find.
Right in your database.
With phone numbers and email addresses.
That person that responded to your job posting a year ago will not likely be actively looking today, will not have their resume posted online anywhere, and will not have updated their LinkedIn profile for quite some time – yet, you have their contact information, and it doesn’t take a rocket doctor to figure out what kind of opportunity they would be interested in.
Although you don’t know exactly what a person whose resume is a year or more old is doing now, most people follow a relatively predictable career trajectory.
I’ve personally dredged up resumes from an ATS that were over 4 years old and got them hired.
When I called one of these candidates, he asked me, “How did you know I was looking?” I replied, “I didn’t – your resume is 4 years old – I don’t even know if you’re doing the same kind of work.”
He was.
It also turned out he was beginning to think about making a change, but hadn’t even written his resume.
I had caught him at the perfect time, before anyone else could even imagine of finding him. The funny thing is that most people probably wouldn’t have even called him simply because his resume was “stale” and out of date.
This and many more similar examples I have prove the time value of resumes.
However, you can’t leverage the time value of resumes if you can’t quickly, easily, and precisely retrieve them!
Coal Into Diamonds
For each position sourced for and posted online, there are inevitably volumes of potential candidates that do not fit, as well as candidates that do not get interviewed and hired.
However, this does not mean that they are bad or unqualified people.
In fact, many of the people who respond to job postings are very good candidates – they’re just not very good at matching themselves.
Those under qualified candidates? While they may not meet the basic qualifications of the specific job the responded to, that doesn’t mean that they aren’t fully qualified for other jobs that are open now, or jobs that will open in the future.
In a year or two, they will have a year or two more experience and be a qualified candidate. See the Time Value of Resumes above.
What about those over qualified candidates? While they may be “over qualified” for the position they applied to – they may in fact be qualified for other openings now and in the future.
What about those applicants that are a complete mismatch for the positions they applied to? They often match other currently open and future jobs.
How about the people who almost got the job? For every opening, there can only be one hire, so there is often a slew of strong runners-up that could be fantastic candidates for other opportunities.
Over the years, I’ve consistently found time and again that what appears to be coal can quickly turn into diamonds.
The Black Hole
Just like light heading into a black hole, applicants and candidates often go into applicant tracking systems - but they don’t come back out.
Presumably, there are 3 main ways a person can end up in a company’s ATS:
- They responded to a job posting
- Someone ran a search and found the candidate’s profile/resume on the Internet, on a resume database such as Monster, Dice, Careerbuilder, etc., or on LinkedIn and entered it into the database
- The person was a referral and entered into the system
In all three cases, someone – either a potential candidate or a sourcer/recruiter – has shown interest in a potential match at some point in time, and this should be worth something.
People applying to jobs should be able to expect a response of some kind, and recruiters should be able to easily find well qualified candidates they found and entered into the system in the past.
Looking to Build a Talent Community?
Everyone seems to want to build a “talent community” these days.
What I find funny is that many companies are already sitting on the makings of a talent community in their own ATS.
Anyone in your ATS got there either because they wanted to join your company (they responded to a job posting) or because you wanted them to join your company (you sourced them).
Can you think of a better population for a talent community?
If your ATS doesn’t have CRM functionality that enables you to stay in touch with the people who’ve expressed interest in your company and the people you’d like to potentially employ, it’s time for you to start thinking about what you can do about this, because you’re sitting on a diamond mine.
Sourcer/Recruiter Behavior
Can we blame sourcers and recruiters for NOT searching and leveraging their ATS/CRM if other sources they may have access to (such as LinkedIn and job board resume databases) are 10X more searchable?
If trying to find appropriately qualified candidates in an ATS is as difficult and painful as pulling teeth, we should not be surprised when sourcers and recruiters search the Internet for candidates first, and the ATS last (if at all!).
A company’s private candidate database should, if anything, be MORE searchable and EASIER to use than publicly available systems and databases.
As mentioned previously – people in your ATS have either shown specific interest in your company or were found elsewhere by a sourcer or recruiter and entered into the system.
Both types of people should receive “priority handling!”
Demand an ROI on Your ATS!
Many companies spend tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars on their Applicant Tracking/CRM systems, and they should expect demand a significant return on that money invested.
I say that the value of a database lies not in the information contained within, but in the ability of a user to extract out precisely and completely what the user needs.
If you can’t easily, quickly, and precisely retrieve talent out of your ATS – you didn’t get what you actually paid for.
If you’ve been a corporate recruiter at some point in your career – did you ever have a 3rd party search firm/agency submit candidates to you that you already had in your ATS?
Did you know that some companies will pay a fee or a premium (contract to hire) for candidates that 3rd party firms source and recruit that were in fact hiding in the company’s ATS?
Without going into why companies would actually pay another firm for candidates they had buried in their ATS – the $64,000 question is why didn’t the corporate sourcers/recruiters find the candidate themselves?
The answer is usually quite simple – because the company’s ATS isn’t very searchable.
Perhaps it would be more accurate to call it the “20-30% of the first year’s salary” question.
Ouch!
What You Can Do
To ensure that your private candidate database/ATS isn’t just one big fat black hole where candidates enter but they never come back out, here are a few things you can do:
Replace or upgrade your ATS/CRM
Yes, this will likely involve spending money.
However, if people really are the greatest and most valuable asset of your organization – investing in a system that allows you to effectively capitalize on this asset is well worth the cost, nearly at any price!
From a corporate perspective, moving to a system that makes it easy to find appropriately qualified candidates that you have already sourced or expressed interest in your company can significantly reduce your cost-per-hire as well as your reliance on 3rd party search firms.
From a search firm/agency perspective, investing in replacing or upgrading your candidate database/tracking system can help increase your productivity (and likely profitability) by enabling you to more quickly and effectively capitalize on candidates you have already sourced, interviewed and qualified rather than having to try and source ”new” candidates from scratch for each job order/client request you receive.
Integrate a New Search Interface/Engine Into Your ATS
Typically less expensive than switching out your whole ATS/CRM – there are several 3rd party search applications available ranging from highly configurable text search (Lucene, dtSearch, etc.) to conceptual/artificial intelligence search/match applications (Autonomy, BurningGlass, Sovren, Pure Discovery, Actonomy, etc.) that you can integrate into your existing ATS/CRM to significantly boost its “searchability.”
Some of the aforementioned solutions are free (Lucene) and others are surprisingly affordable.
Train Your Sourcers and Recruiters (AND/OR Yourself)!
Sometimes an ATS/CRM is a black hole from which candidates never return simply because the sourcers and recruiters aren’t very proficient in how to effectively search information systems for talent identification (aka Talent Mining).
If you already have a highly searchable ATS or CRM, invest in training your associates with the latest search best practices, tactics, and strategies.
You don’t need a super-expensive “state of the art” search application to quickly find the right people.
In fact – all you need is a search interface that supports full Boolean logic.
In my first year as an agency recruiter, I averaged 8 hires per month only after 3 months of experience as a recruiter – and my sole source of candidates was an old CPAS ATS developed by VCG. No Monster, no Google, no Linkedin, no cold calls – just a plain old resume database with about 80,000 records and a search interface that supported full Boolean logic.
How’s that for ROI?
The Bottom Line
If your ATS/CRM is as easy to search as it is to put candidates in, you will be able to fill more of your company’s openings from talent you’ve already sourced and from people who have expressed an interest in joining your company.
Any opening you can fill with candidates already in your internal system saves you the time, effort, and cost of advertising and searching for “new” candidates.
Filling openings with candidates already in your ATS can afford you significant and measurable cost-per-hire and time-to-fill savings.
Additionally, having a highly searchable ATS/CRM can help you reduce your reliance on paid resources if you currently use them (such as Monster, a premium LinkedIn account, etc.).
Is it easier to search public systems such as LinkedIn or Monster to find appropriately qualified candidates than it is to search your private ATS/CRM?
It shouldn’t be!
How to Effectively Source Talent via Social Media & Networks
Sourcing talent via social media requires an entirely different mindset than sourcing with other forms of human capital data, such as resumes/CV’s, employee directories, conference attendee lists, etc.
Back in early 2009, one of only 2 guest posts ever co-written on my site was published on the topic of non-standard descriptors and the role they play in social media. Valerie Scarsellato was a Sr. Sourcer at Intel Corporation at the time when she put together the framework for the original article on sourcing via social media, and she has now moved into a Segment Marketing Specialist role at Intel and is loving it. For those of you who feel that employer marketing/branding/communications is a logical extension of sourcing, Valerie would wholeheartedly agree with you – check out this video in which she discussed her award winning _codehearted; work for Intel.
Now that nearly 2 years has passed since the Searching Social Media Requires Outside-the-box Thinking article was published, social media usage has continued to explode – monthly visitors to LinkedIn and Facebook have doubled, they’ve nearly quadrupled for Twitter , and we now have Google+, Pinterest and others springing on the scene, making the topic even more relevant today. As such, I wanted to rework the original piece and update it with a few more examples.
The primary challenge when leveraging social media for sourcing talent is that nonstandard terminology is prevalent – it’s generally acceptable to use slang and other verbiage that would otherwise never be found on a resume, even when it comes to describing one’s profession.
If you use the same query terms when sourcing LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc. as you would when searching for resumes, you will certainly find people. However, you will also exclude a decent portion of the available results, unknowingly relegating them to Dark Matter and otherwise undiscovered talent. This is because you can only retrieve what you explicitly search for.
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