The document describes 12 sourcing methods and tools that a sourcer uses daily. They include using bookmarklets, synonym and thematic searches on search engines, number range searches, searching social networks like LinkedIn, Facebook and MySpace, searching for layoffs and competitors, using tools like Jigsaw for business card searches, and conducting diversity searches. The document provides examples and best practices for using each method to find candidates.
2. Agenda – Sourcer’s Daily Dozen
Featuring the 12 free sourcing methods/tools we use practically
every day. A big thank-you to JobMachine’s Shally Steckerl
for contributing some slides used in this presentation:
Bookmarklets (“browser favorites/bookmarks on steroids”)
1.
2. Thematic search
3. Search engine must-know special commands
4. Number range search
5. LinkedIn tricks
6. Social network hacks
7. Free company search (Jigsaw, ZoomInfo & JWT layoffs)
8. Diversity search
9. Metasearch tools
10. Blog search
11. More people search lookup tools
12. Ongoing results via RSS and alerts
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3. Bookmarklets
You just saw a bookmarklet in action – not merely a favorite that
takes you to a website, but it actually DOES something
PROS:
• Usable on search sites of any type, not
just major search engines (prompts for
your keywords and runs rest of
embedded search criteria
• Many other uses across the Web
besides search engine results (extract
email addresses from pages,
select/deselect all checkboxes, etc.)
• Portable (see at right); loads as a
folder in web browser’s
favorites/bookmarks on any computer
• Visit bookmarklets.com to create basic
bookmarklets, search for them online,
ask peers for top bookmarklets, etc.
CONS:
• Usability varies by browser (e.g., Get many useful
different versions may be needed)
bookmarklets
• Need to know some JavaScript to
create custom bookmarklets here
4. Synonym & Thematic Search
1. ~ (tilde) Google command
• Finds synonyms of the term immediately following
• Incorporates terms you might not have thought of
• Example: ~ui finds GUI, user interface, etc.
2. Related: Google
command
• Follow with domain of
site you’d like to compare
• Uncovers competitors,
related associations, etc.
• Examples (sometimes
you need to add www. so
try both ways):
related:www.vldb.org,
related:vmware.com
5. Synonym & Thematic Search
3. Thematic search
• Helpful to understand
related concepts (use it after
a Wikipedia.org search for
technologies or other topics
new to you)
• Use Quintura.com or
Vivisimo’s Clusty.com and
note the special left-hand
pane with link clusters
• Examples: virtualization
hyperthread on Clusty;
“online advertising” on
Quintura
6. Search Engine Commands
Well-suited for people search, but need not limit use to that:
All major engines:
1. site:DOMAIN -- to find things contained on pages in that domain
• Example: with a professional association or conference domain
along with presenter keywords, you find the people! Use specific
job titles to narrow further:
• site:bio.org (quot;chief scientistquot; OR quot;senior scientistquot;) (chair OR
agenda OR keynote OR speaker)
2. (inurl:resume OR intitle:resume) KEYWORDS -send -submit -
template -you
• When looking for resumes, use above NOT (-) terms to eliminate
the job postings
• Example: (inurl:resume OR intitle:resume) boston audit (SOX OR
sarbanes) -send -submit -template -you
7. More Special Commands
All Major Engines (cont’d.)
3. quot;resume bookquot; MBA 2008 filetype:pdf -- great to find collegiate
resumes with certain degrees
• NOTES: a) on Yahoo, replace filetype: with originurlextension: to
run this search type; b) Can have multiple filetypes on Live (e.g.,
filetype:pdf OR filetype:rtf), but only one on Google and Yahoo
On Google:
1. ~cv to find resume terms
(yes, the same tilde used
before); note how ending
NOT terms eliminate job
postings, etc.
– Example: ~cv
KEYWORDS/BOOLEANS -
example -job -jobs -sample -
send -submit -template -your
8. The Power of “Numrange”
• Another powerful Google search command to find pages containing any number within a
specified range.
• Put two periods between the low and high values (no spaces), e.g., 10001..11999
1. Resumes by geography
• Useful for zip code search
• Use a tool like ZipMath’s Zip Codes
in a Radius (under Applications
menu at www.zipmath.com) to find
the low and high zip values
What to avoid:
• number ranges starting with zero
• very low values (<4 digits) that
could be confused with other things
(e.g., year or page numbers)
9. The Power of “Numrange”
• Example:
Seattle area
resumes ~cv
(C++ OR MFC)
~ui
98001..98599 -
example -job -
jobs -sample -
send -submit -
template -your
If you get this
Google error:
Your search looks
like “spyware”…
Change Google
preferences to
10 results per
page
11. LinkedIn tricks
Get a 3-degree network >4 million in 15 minutes on LinkedIn.com (“LI”),
the biggest of the professional social networks (>15 million members):
• • If you’re going to mass-contact,
MyLink500.com and
TopLinked.com have names & better to send an email
links to the highest-connected OUTSIDE of LI to ask if they
LI members. Their profiles are accepting connections
typically list their email
addresses and are very open
to new connections.
• Connect directly to the most-
connected people from their
profile pages (click link after
“Do you know [name]?” or
invite up to 6 at a time at
www.linkedin.com/inviteMany)
• You can import any or all of
your Outlook contacts easily
using LI’s toolbar
12. LinkedIn tricks
Use Booleans to target results (use AND, OR, -) in the
keywords, job title and company search fields). Example:
• Keywords: For maximum results, avoid using this field, because most LI
users DON’T populate their profiles beyond current job title and employer.
• Job Title: (application OR developer OR engineer OR lead OR
programmer OR tech OR technical OR development) -business -channel -
recruiter -recruiting -sales -sourcer -talent
• Company: Deloitte OR IBM OR Wachovia
• Location: Located in or near Country: United States (remove zipcode, if
any, to search all US; leaving it in searches that metro area only)
• LI quirks: “Dir” in the job title field will find Director, and certain terms in
between (e.g., “Dir Marketing” will find Director of Marketing, and Director,
Marketing Operations, etc.) but typing Mgr won’t get “manager” results.
13. LinkedIn tricks
• Use Google hack to find relevant
names outside your LI network &
no 500-results limit!
• Substitute your keywords (skills,
job titles, companies, etc.) in this
powerful template (use LinkedIn’s
metro area names like these for
MA/RI):
• inurl:linkedin.com intitle:linkedin
(engineer OR developer) posix
(quot;greater bostonquot; OR quot;rhode island
areaquot;) -intitle:directory -inurl:jobid -
inurl:answers -inurl:find -
inurl:updates
• If you see “repeat the search with
the omitted results included” link at
bottom of results page, click it to
show additional unique results)
14. MySpace
• ~200 MM users, all social, not much
• Diversity inclusion search:
business
– site:www.myspace.com
• Search MySpace from Google with the ethnicity.*.asian (or latino, black, etc.)
site: command
• Contact by sending a message via
– site:www.myspace.com
MySpace
(occupation.*.CPA OR
• MySpace Classified job ads
major.*.accounting)
• – http://classifieds.myspace.com/index.cf
Limit geography with intitle: for city or
m?fuseaction=classifieds
state
•
– For example add intitle:virginia or MySpace hack (works best on Yahoo
intitle:atlanta to the site: search, or use search)
the previous example with multiple
– linkdomain:myspace.com -
nearby city names:
site:myspace.com quot;software engineerquot;
– site:www.myspace.com
(me OR my OR quot;i amquot;)
(occupation.*.CPA OR
•
major.*.accounting) (intitle:jacksonville Then add your keywords
OR intitle:orlando)
• Works with almost all web 2.0 and
• Filter for specific universities
social networks like LinkedIn, Plaxo,
– For example: university.of.houston
Xing, Xanga, Flickr, etc…
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15. Facebook
• LinkedIn’s “My company is hiring”
– http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=2415694143&b&ref=pd
• Create a company Facebook page
– http://www.facebook.com/business/?pages
• Social Ads seen by users who visit your Facebook page or website site
– http://www.facebook.com/business/?socialads
• Free Marketplace job postings
– http://www.facebook.com/marketplace/editlisting.php?new&category=2303&have&subcat
egory=-1
• Post career fair events
– http://www.facebook.com/s.php?k=400000010&dt=1&n=67108872
• Facebook hack (works best on Yahoo search):
– linkdomain:facebook.com -site:facebook.com (me OR my OR quot;i amquot;)
– Narrow example: linkdomain:facebook.com -site:facebook.com quot;state streetquot;
(me OR my OR quot;i amquot;) (quot;fund accountantquot; OR quot;fund administratorquot;)
For a people metasearch of all major social networks, try Wink.com
16. Jigsaw
Business card search system that Use the Advanced Search:
provides: • Title: Tax Manager
• Name • Company Name: Deloitte
• Full Title • Level: Director and Manager
• Business email
• Direct number (most cases) Now try:
• Business address • Department: Sales
• Points-based, self-correcting • Metro Area: Miami
system • Industry: Electronics
• Get free JigSaw PLAY account
+ 100 extra points via Shally:
www.jigsaw.com/partners/job
machine/
• Or pay $1 per contact
17. Jigsaw
• Downloadable company lists (Search -> Download Free Company Data)
• Run your search; basic info on 1 million companies
• Export up to 50,000 company records in CSV format at no charge at one
time, or in SalesForce CRM format up to 500 at a time
18. Jigsaw
Click “Preview” to see that contact
About 6.7 million
contacts from almost Contact info revealed for 5 points
530,000 companies
Before you purchase contacts,
From the company page:
check:
Click on a level like
•Is it fresh? Outdated contacts
“Manager-level”
less useful.
Or a department like
•Who added them? Is this a
Sales
trusted user?
From the Company
•How many others have
Directory search by:
purchased them? Have too
Level and Department
many people called this lead?
Country, State, Area
•What other versions are there?
Code or Zip Code
What are Graveyard Contacts? Contacts that have been challenged but not updated.
Slide courtesy of Shally Steckerl of JobMachine.net. Used with permission.
19. Find layoffs
Layoffs are an obvious source of talent, but getting comprehensive information in
a timely manner for free is even better:
• The weekly recap by JWT at http://www.jwtec.com/hrlive/layoffs.php (archive
searchable by industry, date, keywords, location, etc.) is great for a free tool.
E.g., High Technology (category), software (keyword), Boston area, last
month date range.
20. Find competitors
Knowing which competitors are relevant – especially under-the-radar players -- is useful
anytime. Here are two of the best free methods:
• ZoomInfo.com – while
it’s known for its paid
tool, the free version is
fantastic for uncovering
lots of companies
(much more detail than
Hoovers.com’s free
version)
• 3+ company name
method – if you know
at least 3 small-
medium competitors in
that technology, type
them on any major
search engine. Results
typically list others
(industry directories,
articles, etc.)!
21. Diversity Search
Some techniques, not foolproof in part because many candidates don’t promote
their diverse status. If your company is subject to OFCCP guidelines, consult
your legal dept. re: if/how you use and document these sourcing methods.
• Ethnicities: “natural phrase” keywords put in an OR clause such as (“African
American” OR “Asian American” OR “Latin American”) added to a string of
professional/educational associations can be effective in expanding results.
• Languages: combine with natural phrases like “native Spanish”, “fluent
Cantonese” or “fluent Korean”. Searching for both the words “Cantonese” and
“Mandarin” is a great way to find Chinese candidates because typically only
native speakers list both on a resume. This works well for other ethnicities
that commonly speak multiple languages (e.g., “Hindi” and “Urdu.” Also try
using the native spelling of their language as a search keyword, e.g.,
Español CPA Miami FL (he OR she)
Significant slide content courtesy of Shally Steckerl of JobMachine.net. Used with permission.
22. Diversity Search
• Diverse fraternities/sororities: Black females (e.g., Alpha Kappa Alpha), Black males
(e.g., Alpha Phi Alpha). Latinas (e.g., Kappa Delta Chi), Latinos (e.g., Omega Delta Phi),
Asians (e.g., Lambda Phi Epsilon is a cross-national Asian fraternity; Beta Chi Theta
focuses on South Asians). A key source of multicultural Greek organizations is the NMGC
(www.nationalmgc.org). Also see nalfo.org (Latino) and blackgreeknetwork.com
• Universities: the majority of alumni of the 114 Historically Black Colleges and Universities
(HBCUs) are African-American (see www.edonline.com/cq/hbcu/). Also see lists of Hispanic
(hacu.net) and women’s colleges (womenscolleges.org). Search through these websites
using the site: command to find relevant points of contact, or use school names in resume
searches.
• Professional associations: acronyms are good keywords, such as NSHMBA (National
Society of Hispanic MBAs), SHPE (Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers), NBMBAA
(National Black MBA Association) or NSBE (National Society of Black Engineers), etc.
Significant slide content courtesy of Shally Steckerl of JobMachine.net. Used with permission.
23. Diversity Search
Putting it all together: examples to use on search engines:
1. Find associations: “African American” Accountants Association, or try (Latino OR Hispanic)
Accountants Association.
2. Narrow geographically if you like with city, state or region names, e.g.:
• (Latino OR hispanic) Accountants Association “New York”
3. Take the name of an organization and combine it with keywords that would reveal members,
volunteers or presenters at that group’s meetings, e.g.:
• (quot;Women in Technology & Industry” OR WITI OR link:witi.com) (member OR speaker OR
panelist OR presenter OR board OR officer OR president OR chapter OR staff OR volunteer)
4. Try keywords that may reveal people at a particular chapter meeting, etc. Example:
• (quot;Women in Technology & Industry” OR WITI OR link:witi.com) (roster OR list OR directory
OR “meeting minutes” OR attendees OR attended OR attendance)
5. Narrow using names/abbreviations of locations, area codes, particular universities, or even
employers. Or include a particular year(s) to get more recent results, e.g., (2006 OR 2007 OR
2008)
Significant slide content courtesy of Shally Steckerl of JobMachine.net. Used with permission.
24. Metasearch Engines
1) Can be convenient to search multiple sites at once.
2) May spot search results in smaller engines not indexed by major
search engines
Examples of the many free metasearch engines:
• AllTheInternet.com – the most basic of them
• Dogpile.com – Google, Yahoo!, Live, Ask, About, MIVA, LookSmart
are among the engines; also has audio, video, image and white/yellow
pages search
• Zuula.com – shows results from each engine in a different tab
NOTE: Special commands from the major search engines are not universal.
Inurl: and intitle: command are the only ones that seem to be common to
metasearch engines.
25. Blog Search – Why?
1. Primarily, to find experts expounding on
their expertise. Contact information is
usually an email address, but
occasionally a detailed profile is
available (e.g., see “About Me” page).
2. Secondarily, to track people who
comment on the writings of the expert.
3. Third, to source competitive
intelligence.
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26. Blog Search – How?
Lots of methods/tools, but these are some of the
best/most comprehensive of the freebies:
1. Major search engines
2. Technorati (note the several tabs of results)
3. IceRocket (esp. its MySpace search)
4. EveryZing (for audio-video search)
Remember to check the blogroll (list of the blogger’s
other favorite blog links), typically along the edge of
the blog homepage, as these are usually peers with
expertise in similar subject matter.
26
27. Blog search
1. Google blogsearch - nice that it
can do very targeted searches,
but it never shows you as many
results as it estimates exist.
Examples:
• Find I work at, I work for, I work
with, etc. for the company or
person following wildcard: “I
work * ibm” OR “I'm working *
ibm” OR “I am working * ibm”
• Find AJAX-focused blogs
talking about Yahoo’s mashup-
related tools (use inposttitle:
command to find posts
containing the keyword, rather
than in blog’s title):
• Yahoo mashup inblogtitle:ajax
28. Blog search
2. Live.com – two good ways to find
blogs (feed: and hasfeed:
commands)
• feed: finds RSS or Atom feeds
(typically blogs) on a website for the
terms you search for. For example,
type posix feed:multithreading.
• hasfeed: finds web pages that
contain feeds, and this example finds
resumes to boot, so check for peers
in their blogroll:
• hasfeed:virtualization (cv | resume
| vita | vitae) -sample -please -
sample -send -submit -you
29. Blog search
• Technorati.com was the first
comprehensive blog tracking site.
• Its Advanced search conveniently
shows results of different types on
separate tabs: individual Posts,
entire Blogs (ones related to your
search, best if you use concept
terms), Videos (mostly YouTube
search results) and Photos
(mostly Flickr results that have
beent tagged with your keyword(s)
• For blogpost search only, use
http://search.technorati.com/
which uses an Authority level to
sift out less authoritative results
(generally, the more blogs that link
to a blog, the higher its authority
rank)
30. Blog search
• IceRocket is a fine blog search tool, but its search of content on the largest
social network, MySpace, is comprehensive.
• Example: occupation.*.accountant intitle:tennessee
• After typing the query
in the search box,
click the MySpace tab
(otherwise, default is
Blogs search)
• NOTE: This finds
more results than the
same search on
Google (adding
site:myspace.com and
filter=0)!
31. Blog search – audio & video
• A proliferating plethora of free video search sites (AOL’s Truveo, Dabble, Pixsy, the
major search engines, etc.), but many only find a fraction of the relevant deep web
content because they only grab metadata (titles, intros, etc.) but not the content deep
WITHIN.
• But Blinkx.com and
Everyzing.com do. They actually
convert the video to text
(Everyzing also does audio),
which is then searchable. So you
can search keywords
THROUGHOUT the file.
• Another bonus with Everyzing is
that results show you where your
keywords appear in the file, and
you jump directly to
listening/viewing the part of the
file where the keywords reside!
32. Great Lookup tools
• Google Groups http://groups.google.com –
great way to search the millions of
newsgroups that comprise Usenet
• Find tech pros in any arena by group or
individual message – the more unique your
search terms, the better. Also, response
messages tend to be from more expert
posters (substitute your keywords for CAPS):
insubject:re MULTITHREAD KERNEL -apply -
available -quot;immediate interviewquot; -jobs -quot;job
codequot; -quot;looking forquot; -requirement -Resumes-
in-IT -softwarejobalerts -quot;updated resumequot; -
quot;urgent needquot;
• Find anybody’s email - use the
@author:DOMAIN.com command to find posts
by people who work at a given company! Click
“sort by date” at top right of results page, click
message title of a recent post, click View
Profile beside author’s name, click 3 dots link
in middle of email, answer image challenge
prompt to reveal full email. Typically it’s
1stname.lastname@ or 1stinitialLastname@
33. Great Lookup tools
• IBM Employee Directory (http://www.ibm.com/contact/employees/us/) – finds direct phone & email
for IBMers in any country; you only need last name. Set browser security settings to high (no
cookies) to avoid site’s daily search limit
• InfoBel.com – online phone directories for almost every country in the world
• Wayback (http://web.archive.org) – older versions of almost any website (even after they’re taken
down by the host!). Use my bookmarklet or type desired URL to search at http://web.archive.org/
• WhoIs (http://whois.domaintools.com) – the best of the free domain search tools, finds some contact
info when no other is available (requires free registration for unlimited searching). E.g., I had the
email mark@ungerman.org but there’s no website at www.ungerman.org so
http://whois.domaintools.com/ungerman.org to the rescue for more info!
34. Great Lookup tools
• Argali.com (free download) –
the ultimate home/business
phone lookup tool that
searches multiple online
directories and de-duplicates
results
Home search: Enter name and
state (not efficient for VERY
common names yielding too
many results)
Business search: Great way to
find lots of small office
locations not listed on
company website with regular
(toll-call) phones so you don’t
show up on caller ID
35. Ongoing results-RSS & Alerts
Free news monitoring: e.g., click the major search engines’ “News” link/tab
Free Alerts: Once you get great results from a search engine, keep getting
them just as you would resume agent results from a job board:
• Google Alerts (www.google.com/alerts) – goes to your email address;
includes News, Blogs, Web, Groups (Google groups includes all Usenet
newsgroups postings) or all those types of search results
36. Ongoing results-RSS & Alerts
Live.com – ongoing web search
results come as RSS feed to your
preferred newsreader or email:
• Just add &format=rss to the end
of any Live search result URL to
make it a feed
• Go to www.SendMeRSS.com and
enter the feed URL
• Microsoft Outlook 2007 - RSS
reader integrated so feeds can be
processed just like emails
Yahoo search results:
• Insert search keywords as
indicated (you can also make this
a bookmarklet!):
http://search.yahooapis.com/Web
SearchService/rss/webSearch.xml
?appid=yahoosearchwebrss&quer
y=YOUR+KEYWORDS+HERE
37. Want more?
• Are we connected directly on LinkedIn? Make the 2 million+ at 2nd
degree of my 14MM network instantly part of your searchable 3-degree
network at no cost: Type my email (glenn@jobmachine.net or
glenn@recruiting-online.com) at http://tinyurl.com/2755ts
• Have a sourcing question? Submit it to my blog:
www.jobmachine.net/blog/glenn or www.jobmachine.net/ask
• Also visit blogs to learn from your peers: besides ere.net/blogs, consider
recruitingblogs.com, therecruiterslounge.com and Shally’s favorite
recruiting blogs list at
www.ere.net/blogs/CyberSleuthing/DCEC4C0E35004B92902198F19D2
28131.asp
• For more detailed yet affordable sourcing training, try jobmachine.net,
recruiting-online.com, risetrends.com, swatrecruiting.com, or for phone
sourcing, techtrak.com
Thanks for your time!