John Childs
on May 23, 2011
In a previous article entitled “Boolean Beware: The Case of the Questionable Question Marks,” the case was brought forth as to why, when searching both the LinkedIn and Taleo resume databases, you had to make sure you were using the “correct” quotation marks or else the search results would be random, incorrect, and almost useless.
John Childs
on Apr. 27, 2011
As a recruiter I rely heavily on writing Boolean search strings. This has served me well over the last twelve years, so whenever I find a search string that is not working as I think it should in any database, I become very focused on finding out what’s happening. This article has to do with a situation I encountered in LinkedIn Recruiter. Your input is welcomed!
If most of the Boolean search strings you use in LinkedIn Recruiter (the “not free” version) don’t regularly exceed approximately 100 characters in length, then you might want to skip this article and go to the next.
If you do regularly exceed 100 characters in your Boolean search strings AND you build your long strings in Word before pasting them into LinkedIn Recruiter, then this is something you need to know that could make the difference between a successful and an unsuccessful search.
Samantha Kosko
on Apr. 7, 2011
Boolean searches… at first look I wanted to find any and all methods of sourcing that could eliminate the need of these strings from my tool box. My only knowledge had been from reading the blog posts of Glen Cathey, seeing the pre-constructed strings in the comments from sourcing challenges, and finishing wondering how they could so easily find results from three simple ingredients.
So, my questions became:
With a defined list of questions, I began to do what I do best … search and source until I could find the answers that I was looking for.
Jim Stroud
on Apr. 4, 2011
One thing that is all too easy to do is to get into a sourcing rut. For example, going to the same wells of talent (i.e. Linkedin, Google, etc.) each time you have a sourcing chore, mining it for what its worth, and then feeling like you’ve done all you can do and basically…feeling stuck. Hey, it happens! This is the reason you want to always be on the lookout for new sources to exploit for your various recruiting needs. How? Glad you asked.
Russ Moon
on Mar. 17, 2011
My Introduction to Kettlebell Training
Three years ago I had a bone spur ground out of my right shoulder. I waited longer than I should have to move forward with the surgery because I was getting married and didn’t want my arm in a sling for the wedding photos. My own sense of vanity overrode my common sense, although the pictures did come out great. There was a very intense 3-times-a-day rehab phase where I wondered, “Is this shoulder ever going to regain full motion, and will it ever be the same?” I have been working out for 30 years so not being as strong or active initially was a bummer. The kettlebell turned out to be an experiment that proved to be the solution.
Off I went to Dick’s Sporting Goods where I bought my 16kg Kettlebell (recommended starting weight for most men) and a little DVD. 16kg or 35 lbs., not much for a guy used to incline benching 315lbs in a workout…or so I thought. 45 minutes later I was drenched and promptly lost eight pounds in the first two weeks doing this “simple” “basic” routine. My mental gears went off and began to equate basic with fundamental, which sent me off into some thoughts… “There is something here that feels so much like sourcing/recruiting.” The results were great and I decided to dive deeper, buy some books, begin educating myself, and follow my intuition, which ultimately proved very accurate. (Note to self, don’t overthink things too much.)
Glen Cathey
on Feb. 1, 2011
courtesy of www.funmunch.com
When I write posts about creating Boolean search strings to source and find talent/human capital, I often get responses from readers and those I train, especially staffing industry veterans who focus on executive search, that state that the foundation of recruiting is based on relationships built by human interaction and networking.
I couldn’t agree more.
Why does it seem to be ingrained in human nature to have an either/or mentality – as if things have to be one way or the other, but not both. Like phone sourcing vs. database sourcing. You can and should do both, and I hope you are trying to contact and develop relationships with people identified via both methods.
Glen Cathey
on Jan. 17, 2011
BEWARE: This post takes a contrarian (yet fact-based!) view of the Internet as a sourcing tool that may be unsuitable to some readers. If you don’t want to hear anything other than how awesome the Internet is for sourcing and recruiting, please stop reading now.
Okay, so you can find free resumes on the Internet. So what? What’s the big deal? The fact that the Internet is free? While free is nice and certainly can’t be argued with, I am sure you have also heard that you get what you pay (or don’t pay) for. Or if it’s too good to be true – it is.
So let’s take a look at what you get for free on the Internet:
Not a lot of resumes.
Glen Cathey
on Dec. 7, 2010
If you read certain sourcing and recruiting blogs and discussion groups, you might get the impression that Boolean search pretty much equals Internet search - such as searching for people and profiles using Google, Yahoo, or other search engines. Some sourcing and recruiting professionals may be surprised to learn that Boolean logic significantly predates the Internet and even computers – by a couple hundred years!
Glen Cathey
on Nov. 1, 2010
I wrote an article last year that definitively defined the “Boolean Black Belt” concept. In this post, I explain how to become one. The good news is that you don’t have to be born with the “Boolean gene” (no one is). The bad news (for some) is that it requires a great deal of what is known as “deliberate practice.”
As I have worked with and trained many recruiters over the span of my career, I’ve often had people “explain away” my ability to leverage technology (ATS/CRM, Internet, Social Media, Job Board databases, etc.) for talent identification and acquisition with the excuse that I have a “talent” for it. In my first few years in recruiting, I accepted that at face value. I never really wondered where my ability came from - I assumed I actually did have a “talent” for talent mining.
Over the years I’ve come to understand and appreciate that I don’t necessarily have an innate ”talent” for leveraging sources of human capital data - no one is born with an e-recruiting gene. What I actually have is two factors that I believe have contributed significantly to my skills and ability.
Glen Cathey
on Oct. 18, 2010
Over the years, I have had the opportunity to evaluate several of the “big name” resume and job matching applications that claim to use artificial intelligence, and I can say that the claim that they can find the same resumes that an “experienced recruiter” would choose is both accurate and inaccurate.
From my experience, most AI matching applications can return some well-matched resumes based on an example resume or job description. However, some of the results that are returned are definitely NOT good matches, although I can see why they were returned in the results. This is especially prevalent when searching for job descriptions/resumes/hiring profiles in which many different types of candidates can mention the same words in their resumes.
Welcome to SourceCon: