The Magical Sourcing Cheat Sheet

by Shally Steckerl, JobMachine.com

There is a real business need to have a deskside reference for sourcing, one that can be referred to quickly, yet will provide instant, but valuable, results. By nature such a tool is not conclusive. It cannot cover all possible sources nor can it involve every angle. And it will not work for those without experience. But when you receive that "red hot" requirement that demands results "yesterday" this is such a tool.

The magic of this Cheat Sheet is that by following a few simple steps, and using unique keywords, a savvy CyberSleuth can obtain some initial results in as quickly as ten minutes or less. Without this tool a recruiter is left to follow their traditional process which could take as long as several days to reap rewards. To cite a real-life example of how quickly this can work, yours truly once received a requirement for a Director of Hardware Engineering with an optical board-level design background and 15 years of experience. Without having previously worked on those type of requirements, there was nothing in the "pipeline" for the hiring manager to look at immediately. After using the Cheat Sheet for about five minutes, there was enough to provide the hiring manager with two solid candidates and buy some time to fill the pipeline.

By applying the suggestions on this Cheat Sheet you can kick start a search. Provide hiring managers with a few solid candidates to keep them busy until the rest of your process falls into place. This will take some of the pressure off you. The Cheat Sheet is designed to be an easy one-page reference for daily use. You can print out a copy to keep on your desk or bulletin board and share it with your team. Please keep in mind, this reference tool is useful only in an "emergency", it is not a recruitment campaign guide.

Here is how it works:

1. Brainstorm a list of keywords related to your search.

2. Of those keywords select the top three "must haves".

3. Are your three keywords unique to the industry or can they be used in other contexts as well?

4. If they are not unique to the industry what other keywords can you think of which have the same meaning, yet are used only by candidates you want to find? For example: "SONET" is a better word because it is more unique than "Optical Engineer" and "ASIC" is a much better search term than "Hardware Design Engineer".

5. Using your favorite search engines enter the search string for each type of search on the Cheat Sheet, using those unique keywords.

6. Some searches work exclusively with Google (marked GG: on the Cheat Sheet), others exclusively with AltaVista (marked AV:).

There are nine search steps to get your results:

1. Resumes
2. Employee Homepages
3. Personal Homepages
4. Membership Directories
5. Alumni Directories
6. Mailing List Archives
7. Website Hosts
8. Links to a Website
9. Newsgroups

• The first step is a basic cursory scan of websites indexed by search engines. We will start with four keywords then add "(my OR home)" to narrow our results. For example, type the following string in Google: SONET DWDM Sales Resume (my OR home). If you have unique keywords this search should bring back dozens of actual resume pages on people's 'home' websites. If it doesn't, you need to find more unique keywords. Adding the search terms "(my OR home)" helps us eliminate corporate pages as well as job postings because those two words are frequently found on personal pages and rarely found on professional ones.
• The second search, Employee Homepages, works only in AltaVista and returns pages which contain links to target employers, as well as your chosen keywords. To use this search you must identify a company which employs the same people you seek. For example, if Lucent employs the type of CCIEs you seek, then enter the following search string in AltaVista: link:www.lucent.com AND CCIE AND (my OR home)
• Millions of people create their resumes on free space. The third search, Personal Homepages, must be done from within communities such as Geocities or AOL. To find Geocities members, go to http://geocities.yahoo.com/ and enter your two most important keywords plus the term "resume" in the "Search or Browse our Directory" box. For AOL Hometown members go to http://hometown.aol.com/ and enter the same terms in the "Search & Explore" box. These communities are good places to get results because few commercial enterprises create their pages there for fear of looking unprofessional.
• Membership Directory search works by adding the terms "(directory OR contact)" to your two most important keywords. It also limits your results to those where either the website's address or page title contain the term "member," effectively bringing you sites mentioning member contacts or member directories. This search could also help you identify associations your candidates belong to and which were unknown to you.
• Alumni Directory searching works a little differently. You are also looking for "(directory OR contact)", as with the Membership Directory search, but instead of "member" in the website address or title, look for the word "alumni". The other difference is that for this search you use only your single most important keyword(s) along with the name of a company that hires the same kind of people you need. For example, type or copy the following search string in Google: Lucent Optical (directory OR contact) (inurl:alumni OR intitle:alumni)
• Mailing lists, online forums and discussion groups may keep a public archive of posted conversations for the benefit of members who want to revisit an old topic. These conversations are a great source of potential candidates and related information. Using your top keyword(s) plus the term "archive" which may appear anywhere in the page plus the term "list", which may also come up in the website address or title, we can find those conversations. Type or copy the following search string example in Google: DWDM archive (inurl:list OR intitle:list)
• Sales candidates are typically difficult to locate since they are infamous for not maintaining updated resumes. One quick way to find them is to look through a company's complete website for any mention of sales contacts. To do this we use your keyword plus either the command "site:" in Google or "host:" in AltaVista. After the command you must include the website you want to examine. For example: searching for "site:www.jobmachine.net contact" in Google will return all 18 pages of our website mentioning some way of contacting us. This search works quite well for technical support contacts and executives as well.
• Usenet is still alive and well. Google has adopted all the archives that were once found at Deja.com and has continued to maintain a Web interface for this complex online community. From http://groups.google.com you can enter your most important keyword plus the terms "insubject:RE" to find only people responding to questions. Use the terms "group:*keyword*" to look only in groups about the keyword you specify. Scanning through these results you will find experts answering questions about your key subject matter. One more way to use this source is to replace "insubject:RE" with "insubject:resume" and limit your results to postings containing actual resumes. You will be surprised at what you find here. Type or copy the following search string example in Google: DWDM insubject:re group:*sonet* Try this other example in Google: DWDM insubject:resume

Download the Cheat Sheet.

Shally Steckerl is CEO of JobMachine, Inc. Founded in 1998 JobMachine, Inc. has been providing the most advanced consulting and training services available to recruitment industry leaders. Shally has propelled JobMachine into becoming a leading edge recruitment intelligence company by constantly innovating the best tactical and strategic methods. Shally has nine years of diverse business experience in the U.S., Latin America and Australia. A Returned Peace Corps Volunteer, he holds a Bachelor of Science in International Business with a focus on Information Technology from well-respected Rochester Institute of Technology. Shally has been dedicated to Internet search excellence since 1996.