The Source Newsletter

The last couple of weeks have been fill with news of new and renewed strategic search partnerships. First, the Yahoo!/Bing  search alliance. Then the Kenexa/Salary.com marriage yesterday morning. Late yesterday, the Taleo/Learn.com acquisition.

Now, this morning, Google Inc. and AOL Inc. announced a five-year renewal and expansion of one of the largest and longest-standing partnerships in Internet history. The global alliance, which has at its core Google’s provision of search services to AOL’s content network and properties, in exchange for a revenue-sharing arrangement between AOL and Google, will be expanded to include mobile search and YouTube.

“Today is another important step in the turnaround of AOL,” said Tim Armstrong, AOL’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. “AOL users will be getting a better search and search ads experience from the best search company in the world – Google. After nearly a decade-long partnership in search, we’re looking forward to expanding our global relationship to mobile search and YouTube. All aspects of our partnership will be improved by this deal.”

“We’re excited to deepen our partnership. This agreement combines Google’s expertise in search and advertising with AOL’s strength in online content,” said Eric Schmidt, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Google. “It’s particularly exciting to see our relationship expand into video and mobile. These areas are now at the heart of users’ online experiences and at the core of both of our businesses.”

The partnership includes a broad range of features that will improve and expand the products and services offered to consumers. Those that will be of greatest interest to us sourcers include:

• Search Products: Google will provide AOL with additional features and enhancement to its leading Web search products that will improve the consumer search experience across AOL’s network of sites.
• Mobile Search: As AOL renews its focus on mobile apps and content, the companies will work together to expand the alliance to cover mobile search.
• YouTube: AOL and YouTube have agreed to a content partnership that will bring AOL’s video content to YouTube.
• Global Focus: The alliance is international in scope and will provide improved experiences to AOL’s worldwide audience.

John Hollon over at our sister site, TLNT.com, observed after the Taleo/Learn.com acquisition that vendors seem to be moving “toward a broad and integrated talent management platform and away from the “best of breed” approach.” Interesting, because over in the recruiting and HR offices, the message that is going out to job-seekers is the exact opposite – that specialization and skill focus are the order of the day.

Over on TechCrunch late last week, the co-founder and CEO of voice-application startup SayNow, Nikhyl Singhal, wrote a very interesting post titled Phone Numbers Are Dead, They Just Don’t Know It Yet. The idea behind the post is that with the development of resources like Skype and Google Voice, telephone numbers are dying a slow death. With the growing mainstream acceptance of online communication tools, will we be facing a time in the not-so-distant future where telephone numbers will be obsolete? There is a very real possibility of this. Don’t believe it? Check out some of the main reasons Singhal cites to qualify this theory:

1. No control. Anyone can dial your 10 digits, including your ex-girlfriend, a political campaign worker, or a solicitor.  Unlisted numbers, Caller ID and do-not-call lists all tried to solve this problem, but these solutions still don’t prevent unwanted calls.
2. Phone numbers are tied to a device, not to you. Everyone has multiple numbers, yet your home line is shared, leaving callers guessing the best way to reach you.
3. User experience is very limited. The phone was designed as a utility—dial a number, have a conversation. It’s remained this way since its inception.  It’s not optimized for other experiences, which is why voicemail and conference calls are tedious, and why checking flight status is worse than a root canal. Read the rest of this entry »

Curious to learn more about my upcoming keynote at SourceCon 2010 in DC?

My session will essentially be a follow up to the keynote I presented at SourceCon earlier this year in San Diego. At the very end of my Resume Sourcing: Artificial Intelligence vs. Human Cognition presentation, I briefly covered some “bonus material” which included a quick overview of what I believe to be the 5 levels of Talent Mining.

At the SourceCon event at the International Spy Museum, I will dive more deeply into the concept of Talent Mining and the 5 levels that I have identified.

There are individuals in the HR/recruiting industry who believe that searching databases, the Internet, and social networking sites to source talent is relatively easy and that it can be automated through the use of technology.

On one hand, sourcing candidates is easy because we have more access to more human capital data than we ever have in the history of recruiting (the proverbial haystack is growing by the second!), and there are many solutions available that can automate candidate sourcing.

On the other hand, just because the haystack is growing doesn’t mean it is any easier to find the needles (it actually makes it harder!), and today’s automated solutions have serious limitations in their capabilities and are certainly unable to replicate the performance of a talented and creative sourcer or recruiter.

Read the rest of this entry »

We showed you how Round 1 went down last week. On September 1st at noon Eastern, we’ll begin Round 2.

Eight people made themselves eligible to win a complimentary pass to SourceCon Fall 2010 by solving the QR code puzzle last week:

• Erica Steffenson, Principal Recruiter at ev3
• Charles Bretz, Sr. Sourcing Specialist at CDW Corporation
• Alaina Rivas, Sourcing Specialist at Administaff
• Irina Shamaeva, Partner at Brain Gain Recruiting
• Andrea Mitchell, Talent Strategist at Peerlo
• Andrea Holtman, Sourcer at Systems Evolution, Inc
• Megan Moore, Recruiting & Sourcing Specialist at Administaff
• Srinivas Gundelli, Sourcing and Talent Acquisition EMEA (freelancer)

Several others I heard got close but didn’t complete the puzzle all the way. Details were crucial in Round 1 of the contest, as is true with our jobs as sourcers!

While only these eight will be competing for the complimentary pass, everyone else is invited to participate in the contest. It is open to anyone who wants to ‘play’ so put on your thinking cap and see if you can solve the puzzle. You’re welcome to cheer each other on and help each other out (including the contestants) but part of the fun of the contest will be seeing who can make sense of the clues. Are you good enough to make it all the way through?

Good luck to the eight contestants above, and keep your eyes peeled at noon on Wednesday!

Twitter, the microblog and communications tool we all know and love (loathe for some) has been putting forth a massive hiring campaign lately. Just check out their recuiting video:

In June, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone was overheard saying that his company has about 200 employees and expects this number would double this year. Looking at the official Twitter Jobs website, it looks like any run-of-the-mill corporate career page – but a closer look reveals a page filled with interactive content like photos from Flickr, job opportunities powered by Jobvite (their recruiting software vendor of choice, apparently) and, naturally, employee testimonials from Twitter. Right now they are hiring for about 40 positions – mostly engineering, of course, but also opportunities with operations, HR, and sales and marketing.

Recently, Twitter hired Dan Coughlin to be its new new director of sales for the Eastern (U.S.) region. Coughlin was hired away from Facebook where he was the director of media sales, and prior to that he was with Yahoo, MarketWatch, and DoubleClick. Also, Twitter brought on Amanda Levy from Yelp as the new director of sales for the West (U.S.) region. The two will report to Twitter COO Dick Costolo, according to AdAge reporter Michael Learmonth. ”Both will be charged with building out a team to move what Twitter is calling its Promoted Suite, or Twitter ads that today consist of promoted tweets and promoted trends,” Learmouth said.

Some other significant recent hires for Twitter include:

• Sean Garrett, VP of Corporate Communications (formerly co-founder of 463 Communications and with Bite Communications prior to that)
• Ali Rowghani, CFO (formerly CFO and senior VP of strategic planning with Pixar Animation Studios)
• Bob Lord, Manager of Network and Infrastructure Security (formerly Manager of Network and Infrastructure Security with Red Hat)

As sourcing professionals, we tend to focus on how we, or our clients, can best use this social technology to assist in our hiring practices. But how many times have we stopped to consider how Twitter itself leverages recruiting practices, search, targeting, and social technologies, including its own, to hire internally? I was able to grab a few minutes on the phone with Oliver Ryan, Director of Recruiting for Twitter, and boy do they have some cool stuff going on over there…

Stay tuned for part 2 of this article to learn more about what Twitter is doing with its recruiting!

We quietly ran a contest this week on sourcecon.com to gather a small group of individuals who will be competing against each other online for a complimentary event pass to SourceCon Fall 2010. By quietly, I mean we made no official announcements of running any contest – we just wanted to see who was paying attention to the little hints that we left here and there! If you weren’t aware of it, it’s because part of the contest was actually finding it.
Sneaky, huh!?

Well, eight bright sourcing professionals were able to decipher the clues to enter themselves into the contest. And since the first round of competition is over, we want to show you how we did it.

1. An article was run on Tuesday discussing the use of QR codes in sourcing and recruiting campaigns. In that post, there was an image of a QR code – shown here.
2. By scanning that code with a QR reader, the following text appeared: ‘Want to win a FREE pass to SourceCon Fall 2010 in Washington, D.C.? Go to http://www.sourcecon.com/2010dc/QR and enter the passcode: dmsb09ahtr06′
3. After going to the contest website and entering in the code, further instructions were detailed on how to enter, including emailing some information to a specified account, following @TheSourceNews on Twitter, and DMing that account with a unique passcode that was provided.
4. Over the course of the week, I dropped subtle hints about the contest via tweets, hints to “scan” the website, and even a note at the top of the email subscription page alerting readers that there was a contest going on.

The goal of this contest was to get your attention and challenge you to look for clues and use your sourcing brain to figure out how to enter.

Congratulations to our seven participants! The next round of competition will begin very soon – keep your eyes peeled.

Sidenote: today is the last day to take advantage of the $895 pricing for attending SourceCon Fall 2010! After today, the price goes up. If you want to get in on the savings, register today!

Last week, I looked out the window in my home office and noticed a spider had spun a web just outside my window. I found this interesting since it obviously took a lot of work for her to set up her web in that spot – there is a significant distance between the wall that juts out on the left side of the window and the landing area to my front door that is way to the right of my window. I started wondering, “Why on earth would this spider go to all that trouble of spinning a web there?” As I pondered this, I began to put together the pieces of the puzzle:

• Spiders eat insects (duh) – including moths
• Moths are drawn to light (another duh)
• I work in the evening quite often, after it gets dark (lightbulb moment!)

I live in a pretty woodsy area, and when it gets dark here, it gets DARK. When I work at night, there aren’t any other lights on other than the one in my office, which shines brightly through my window. The spider set up her web in front of my window because when I work late at night, it is a beacon for all types of insects, which she can then easily catch.

She set up her web where her target audience would gather.

Over the last few days, I’ve noticed the web has moved a little bit – probably due to repairs needing to be made after catching a meal – but it has remained right there in front of my window. She obviously has been doing well having set up shop in that location. My window spider is an out-of-the-box thinker.

So is James Bromley of MailOnline, a UK web news source. Earlier this week, John Zappe wrote a great article on ERE.net about a source code ‘job posting’ that appeared in the robot.txt file of www.dailymail.co.uk – seen here:

Talk about targeted marketing! Any of you sourcers recognize this concept? Using source code to hide a secret message? If you need a hint…. think about Rob’s Dog. And Jim’s Dog. Contests put on by two sourcing masterminds to see who can think outside the box to solve a problem and prove their professional skills. And in the case of MailOnline, to hopefully find an excellent SEO Manager. Brilliant!

Set up your sourcing campaigns where your target audience is sure to see them. You’ll have better luck ‘catching’ what you’re after!

By the way – we’re currently running a contest here on sourcecon.com – the prize will be a complimentary pass to SourceCon Fall 2010 in D.C. As of the time of this post, you’ve only got three hours left to get in on the action and qualify for the first round. The catch: finding the contest is actually part of the contest. I suggest you scan the website carefully…good luck!

That title is kind of a ‘duh’, isn’t it? But it’s amazing how often developing a good list of keywords, and then putting them to good use, is overlooked when formulating a successful sourcing campaign.

In a post written yesterday on the Search Engine Journal, Case Ernsting shares his thoughts with SEO professionals on how keywords are important to writing good copy. I would like to take this piece and put a sourcing ‘twist’ on it to fit with the notion that to conduct a good sourcing campaign, keywords must be your guide. Please make sure to check out Ernsting’s post as well – it echoes some things that were shared recently here on The Source by guest author Adam Wiedmer, Tools & Techniques for Writing Strategic SEO Job Postings.

This is hardly a new concept, as many sourcing pros will tell you that starting a campaign with Keyword Research is a “Best Practice”. But many times some of the hidden gems of keyword research go unnoticed. A carefully chosen select set of keywords is the fuel for a well structured, effective sourcing project. Your list of targeted words and phrases helps you find competitors, perform peer regression analysis, target the right industries, define relative terms, and, most notably, determine where these keywords can be readily found.

Read the rest of this entry »

HotJobs officially became part of Monster on Tuesday, completing the $225 million purchase announced last February.

The acquisition — and arguably its most important part — makes Monster the exclusive provider of jobs and career services on Yahoo North America for the next three years, with a prime position in the portal’s navigation bar.

According to Monster, the traffic deal combined with its existing worldwide traffic gives it access to some 43 million unique visitors, “88 percent more than the next largest competitor.” That would be CareerBuilder.

Monster will pay Yahoo separately for traffic the portal sends it. The cost of that traffic arrangement wasn’t disclosed, though it may be part of a future filing with the Securities and Exchange. In a filing with the SEC today, Monster said it would be submitting financial statements in the near future.

Globally, however, Monster will have to negotiate traffic deals for Europe, Asia, and Latin America. The traffic arrangement gives it an exclusive right to negotiate with Yahoo for a portal presence outside North America “subject to certain (undisclosed) limitations.”

In the U.S., Monster gets a network of about 600 daily and weekly newspapers, which focus mostly on local and regional recruitment advertising. Put together several years ago, the newspaper network joins the 400 papers already aligned with Monster.

The company also says it “gains additional job posting strength in three important sectors: healthcare, finance/insurance, and retail…” Employers in these sectors tend to recruit locally, which is where newspapers are strongest.

Monster’s announcement says that it expects that with the addition of HotJobs customers it now will be doing business with 97 percent of the Fortune 1000.

Many of the largest employers were doing business with both Monster and HotJobs, so they’ll see some savings. Monster says that it will continue to operate HotJobs separately until at least the first quarter of 2011, when it expects to launch an integrated site.

It’s not clear what that means. A FAQ accompanying the announcement says, “We’re selecting the best products from both organizations to deliver effective solutions…” That suggests something more than just migrating customers to Monster may be in the works, though it’s hard to imagine what that might be. Yahoo hasn’t invested much in HotJobs in the last few years, so chances are the “best products” are probably job delivery and distribution tools.

reposted with permission from ERE.net