How To Conduct Your Own Executive Search

by Shally Steckerl

* Finding Executives in White Papers *

When an organization recognizes one of its technical leaders as an expert they may exploit that by urging them to write white papers. These specialized reference papers or reports build more than credibility. They also create recognition for both the executive and the organization. No longer just an academic luxury, modern white papers are designed to ultimately attract prospects into becoming customers.

One of the searches we can use to find these technical documents begins with a target company or organization from which we want to recruit. We then add a technical term to our search defining our field of interest and the term "white paper" must also be included. Finally we add the boolean query "author OR by" in parenthesis to help return documents containing a "by" line. In Google we use the company with the inurl: command, requiring results to have the company keyword somewhere in the document's Web address. For this example we chose the technical term, FPGA or Field Programmable Gate Array used like this:

inurl:xilinx FPGA "White Paper" (author OR +by)

Note that there must be a plus sign before the word "by" because it's too common and therefore a stop-term. Without the plus sign in front of it, search engines will ignore it. That search will return about 160 documents, many in PDF format. The first one should be a paper about Configuration by Arthur Khu of Xilinx. Among the first ten results there should also appear a paper on Physical Synthesis from Hamid Agah and one on FPGA Enabled Home Networking from Amit Dhir and Krishna Rangasayee. These are some solid leads from within Xilinx.

Selection of White Paper Archives

Besides finding them through search engines, there are also thousands of websites dedicated to archiving white papers. Here is a selection of some popular ones:

General: http://www.itpapers.com/

Cisco: http://www.ciscoworldmagazine.com/webpapers/webpappast.shtml

Servers: http://www.serverworldmagazine.com/webpapers/index.shtml

Unisys: http://www.unisysworld.com/webpapers/webpappast.shtml

IT: http://www.bitpipe.com/vendors/vendors.jsp http://www.itworld.com/WhitePapers/

Credit: http://www.collectionsworld.com/wpaper_arch.htm

Java: http://www.javaworld.com/white-paper/index.shtml http://java.sun.com/docs/white/

Optical: http://www.lightreading.com/section.asp?section_id=1

* Finding People In Magazine Articles *

Journals, magazines and other periodicals are often neglected as sources of executive lead information. Unless we read every relevant magazine, we would miss important information. The newspapers report headlines that can be easily found online via search engines and news services like Reuters or Associated Press, but magazines report more involved stories. Now it's possible to search magazine archives online.

One way to search magazine article excerpts is to learn how to use Telnet, which comes with almost every modern PC and browser. With Telnet, we can communicate from our PC directly with major academic libraries. Many libraries have Telnet access and belong to CARL, the Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries. Clicking on this link telnet://pac.carl.org/ will open up a Telnet client and connect to CARL. Other Telnet information and a list of Telnet locations can be found here.

The Telnet client is an old fashioned system that runs on PCs and emulates the VT100 terminals of old. Entering PAC at the prompt will bring up a menu of terminals. We select VT100 by simply typing the number 5 and hitting the Enter key. From here we go to CARL, the fourth choice, by typing the number 4 and hitting the Enter key. Choosing Eastern or Western libraries depends on where our target is located. From here we enter 36 and hit the Enter key, then type 84 for CARL, and again the Enter key. It may be necessary to hit the Enter key once more, and then a menu will appear where the second choice is "Current Article Indexes and Access." We select it by typing the number 2 and pressing the Enter key. From there, the on-screen instructions are simple. It's a good idea to explore some of the other resources as well. To exit we just type //exit and hit the Enter key at any time.

Finding Articles

Another way to access articles is through an innovative website which allows users to search article excerpts for free: http://www.findarticles.com/. A non-traditional search engine--this site is a vast archive of published articles searchable for free. Constantly updated, it contains articles dating back to 1998 from more than 300 magazines and journals.

Here are some tips to remember when searching FindArticles.com:

It will return results with any one of the words entered appearing in the magazine name, article title, author name or text of a specific article.

To search only articles containing all of the words in a query it's necessary to use the plus sign (+) like this: +Lucent +DWDM +"Vice President"

Keywords can be excluded by using the minus sign (-).

It is imperative to begin with very specific terms, then broaden, as necessary.

Words in quotations will be treated as phrases. It's possible to search just one publication by choosing "View by Name" at the top of the page.

* RESUME SPIDER FACE-OFF: INFOGIST VERSUS TALENTHOOK *

Money is tight during a soft economy so it's important to make the best of resources we already have. One of the most frequently underused resources are online resume databases. In order to maximize all the free and paid resume databases at our disposal we use a dedicated spider.

The following is a side-by-side comparison of the two best resume spiders available, TalentHook and InfoGIST.

Essentially the type of resumes TalentHook and InfoGIST return are similar with one exception, volume. InfoGIST searches more databases and sites, resulting in more variety and a better shot at finding people off the beaten path. InfoGIST accesses more resumes because of its ability to access databases with complex interfaces. In comparison, TalentHook's technology constraints only allow access to simple password-protected sites in addition to public databases and portals.

TALENTHOOK'S UNIQUE STRENGTHS

Contact Manager

It acts as a stand-alone, non-networked contact manager for candidates with built-in Web resume searching capabilities. The single most impressive part about this, is that it tracks many contacts from the Web. That is, not just contacts and resumes on your PC, but ones it directly finds online. If the same person updates their resume or posts it to a different location, TalentHook associates it with the old record and contact items you had created in the past for that candidate, regardless of where TalentHook previously found the resume. This is accomplished by matching a couple of standard resume features. Occasionally the content of those resume features will change. In those cases the contact will not be matched with an existing record, but for the most part, this is a reliable way to track contacts.

Requirements Manager

TalentHook separately manages the sources it searches for each req. and manager. You can tell it to go find only College sources and paid resume databases for one manager, and only flip sites for another. Since the sources are all separated into folders you can tell which of the different sources are better for each req., thus saving time in future searches.

Document Rejection

TalentHook remembers resumes you've reviewed online in the past and allows you to reject a resume in such a way that you will not likely see it again, even if it's listed in many other databases. TalentHook will eliminate it from all future searches for that req. as long as the identifiable resume features have not changed much. This is different from InfoGIST's duplicate document elimination. This helps those who frequently come across the same people time and again in different locations.

With the exception of the above areas, we didn't see any in which TalentHook performed better than InfoGIST.

Comparison with InfoGIST

InfoGIST accesses many more resume databases than TalentHook, and also integrates with full-featured Applicant Tracking Systems. TalentHook uses more Internet search engines and scans more ISPs (Internet Service Providers) than InfoGIST. However, InfoGIST has the ability to scan business information databases and customized sites, making it the winner in terms of volume.

Search capabilities are one more important difference. While both tools can narrow a search by geographic location, only InfoGIST will search within date constraints and offers the capacity to schedule automatic daily searches to run unattended. Once an InfoGIST search has been conducted it can then be refined easily, a feature not offered with TalentHook. Of the two tools only InfoGIST permits searching through documents saved over a network or locally.

Even though TalentHook's flipping features seem more advanced, in particular as they relate to saving customized flip-searches, they are also available with InfoGIST. The difference is that while TalentHook builds the search behind the scenes using company or organization keywords provided by the user, InfoGIST provides the user with detailed control.

Both tools have the ability to extract e-mail addresses from the resumes and send e-mail directly. TalentHook provides the additional benefit of automating that process so that e-mail is sent as the search progresses, without user intervention. Of course, that could be both good and bad.

In summation, TalentHook's complexity and additional features may increase its price, yet not significantly the quality of its results or therefore its value. Recruiters who do not need such added complexities and the built-in contact manager may find they simply get in the way and may slow them down. In contrast, InfoGIST offers more control over search functions and fewer encumbrances.

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.