Tips For The New Sourcer, Going Beyond The Job Boards

By: Jennifer Hale

Have you ever been stuck trying to find quality candidates on the Internet? Are the famous job boards just not doing the job? Here are some helpful tips for sourcing beyond the job boards:

1. Networking. I cannot praise this tool enough. Recruiters know how vital networking is, in fact I know of recruiters who place most of their candidates from networking. Internet sourcers should network within their industry, with other sourcers. I started doing that, and there are several with a wealth of information on job boards, new sourcing strategies, etc.

2. Search engines. Most of us (recruiters and sourcers) know about Google, Altavista, Northern Light, etc. There are several ways in which you can take advantage of the major search engines: Boolean searches, flip searches, and x-raying.Here are some examples of Boolean searches: If you are seeking a logic design engineer in Texas, here are some ways that you can find this person.

You could do a simple query like this: "Logic design engineer" AND "Texas" or
if there is a certain skill you could do: "Verilog" AND "Texas"

Now if you really want to get specific, you could do: ("Logic design engineer" AND "Texas")

There are also ways of finding candidates in certain companies.
For example: "logic design engineer" AND "Company X" ("Logic design engineer" AND "Company X") AND "Texas"

X-raying and Flip Searches are useful for finding candidates within certain companies. You can find contact info, email addresses, phone numbers, company directories, etc. If you are seeking a company directory, you need to find a term that would find on that site, for example: "Meet the people"

Here is an example of this type of search: Host:ibm.com AND title:resume
Now, you can get more specific if you wish, for example: (title:resume OR url:resume) AND "CA" AND l link:www.ibm.com

There are several ways that you can specialize your Boolean query to match what type of candidate you are seeking. You might want to check out some of the books or seminars on Internet Sourcing that include detailed descriptions of these types of searches. Barbara Ling's "Rise Seminars" and the AIRS Certifications are very popular.

3. Cold Calling. If you are like me, you don't like cold calling, but you know that sometimes it is essential in doing your job. I have come up with some tips on cold calling:

a. Sound confident over the phone, don't sound shaky or nervous, the receptionist or person answering the phone will sense that.

b. Know exactly what you are looking for, know the information about the job description. What usually helps me are technical white papers. For example: Let's say you are seeking a Technical Support Rep for a company, and this candidate needs to know HTML. What I would do, is say that I am writing a white paper on HTML, and I need to speak to somebody in their technical area supporting HTML. This especially works in the IT industry, half the time the receptionist won't know the technical jargon and transfer you. Even if you don't get to the right department, at least you are past the receptionist, the hard part is over! For some technical words, I would definitely check out some white papers on the skill that your candidate needs to know.

4. Chat Rooms and Message Boards. A really good Tool that I use is "messages sorted by". This shows you all of the discussions about a certain skill. For example: Go to Google and type in "messages sorted by" AND "Verilog". This will show you all messages in chat rooms and messages boards associated with Verilog.

5. Referrals. Nothing beats having good referrals within the industry. When I sent out emails to candidates, I always put at the bottom "Is there anyone else you know with your skills?" usually if that person is not interested in the position you have to offer, they might know of someone who is.

6. Organization Lists and Home Pages. There are many organization lists out there that you can find the member lists for, for example the Electrical Engineering Association, or ieee.org. Home pages are great; you can go to members.tripod.com, or aol.com and look up member pages. They usually have a tool on their web page where you can look up a resume.

I have given you tips on several ways of Internet sourcing for top quality candidates. But here is the most important advice that I can give you, Know Your Industry!!

About the Author: Jennifer Hale has been in the sourcing industry for over 2 years, in several areas: Engineering, IT, Administrative, HR. Please send comments on this article to: jlh@cox-internet.com