Recently while I was responding to posts, twitters, and emails, I came across someone who asked what are the types of trainings that a “black-belt recruiter” would take. What makes someone a “black-belt recruiter” or “ninja recruiter”? Would there be separate programs for sourcing, employment & HR law, phone sourcing, and technical training? My answer is that if it is possible, and it is, the best scenario would be to take a course that encompasses every component and successfully ties them together. I, myself along with James Duran have developed a training program that produces top-level sourcers and recruiters. Now by “ninja recruiter” what do I mean? Well that should always include the following:

• Recruiters that contact any candidate whether by phone or internet. They are required to do good amount of role-playing on the phone to get their telephone sourcing skills up to par. They must also be able to manage expectations of potential candidates. • Recruiters will sometimes work for companies that cannot afford the luxury of a dedicated sourcer. In today’s recruiting environment, that means the recruiter has to generate their own source data and have search skills on par with Name-Gen Researchers. • An understanding of technology on a basic level. This is one place where I see many people in staffing fail. It’s not just a matter of copy ‘n paste technical acronyms from job req into candidate search. With every job req, their is an underlying technology that average people cannot discern. Our job as technical recruiters is not to program a C++ API or know how to create a CAD layout for a ASIC chip. But we should know the basics that are involved. By doing this, you gain credibility with not only your candidates, but the engineering hiring managers as well. • Being able to handle the hiring process is a huge deal, especially if you are a recruiter. We train in every aspect of it, from initial candidate contact, phone interviewing, onsite interviewing, managing candidate & hiring manager expectations (again!), the correct components of an offer, what parts of an offer that can be flexible, and how to successfully close a candidate. • Understanding all legal aspects of searching for potential candidates and hiring them: EEOC, Visas, terms of employment, HR hiring issues, etc… • I know I mentioned it before, but internet sourcing a must. It’s not just job boards or even personally posted resumes anymore. The perfect candidate could be a Facebook friend or someone who you find by search Twitter, or someone who belongs to a specific association. Someone who is a ninja sourcer should be able to find any candidate by any means available to them. And if the means are not there, then they should be able to create them. It’s not about memorizing search strings, it’s about being able to be creative and come up with new techniques on-the-fly. These are all must-haves for the types of recruiters/sourcers that we have trained. And in my opinion, for any “black-belt” or “ninja recruiter”. - Mark For more information, please contact me at: 408-540-0076 or markt (at) duranhcp (dot) com (the ninja way to write your email so you do not get spammed!)

I always see comments on recruiting blogs and ERE about the use of Twitter as a sourcing tool.  Twitter broadcasts about your status in short, text-based posts.  It’s a great way to stay in touch with friends and other people with similar interests.  You can even follow the postings (or Tweets) of famous people like John Mayer, Heidi Montag, Gavin Newsom, Al Gore, Lance Armstrong, or John McCain (if you’re into that sort of thing).  I, myself follow some of my favorite musicians, directors, and staffing professionals like: Trent Reznor of NIN, Imogen Heap, Lisa Nova, Michael Ian Black, Kelly Dingee, and Jim Stroud.

But can this cool, connected medium be used for sourcing?  The answer is yes! And to help illustrate, I have enlisted the services of my friend, Plugged-in Pete.  He is going to demonstrate the benefits of using search.twitter.com with the right search strings.

Click on the image below to see:


Great demonstration from Pete! By entering some simple words or phrases that a software engineer might “tweet” about, you can get yourself a geographically targeted list of passive candidates. Here’s the example of the search we used:

coding OR “source code” OR compile OR compiler OR OOP OR OOD OR “object oriented” near:”mountain view” within:50mi

Even though Twitter profiles have limited contact information, there is enough to go on so that you can track down the individuals. They contain name, location, and sometimes personal websites or company references. From this point, you take all that information and start your sourcing to find the individual’s contact information. For more help on that, see my other posts about finding people online:

People who need Pipl 1, People who need Pipl 2, and People who need Pipl 3.

Happy hunting!

- Mark

Your company has some critical positions that need to be filled. You have been informed that you cannot hire any more staffing contractors due to budget constraints and liability issues with contractors. How do you solve this problem? By using the RPO model.

Recruitment Process Outsourcing can be a great way for companies start and stop recruiting services as they are needed. By engaging with an offsite sourcing/recruiting team, you can specify the number of resumes or candidates that you need to receive at anytime. If your budget is being scaled back, you can cut down the number of sourcers or recruiters without worrying about lay-offs or contractors. The liability of the staffing contractors falls on the staffing agency and not your company. Also, you do not have to worry about housing any extra employees since the staffing agency is offsite. The key factors are flexibility, scalability and cost containment. When times are better, you can go back to hiring and developing a loyal internal team – if it makes sense. Learn to manage your RPO service provider and you may find that you will reconfigure your Talent Acquisition team to a new staffing and resource utilization model.

Typically this model is headed up by a Sourcing Manager or a Staffing Project Manager. They are the individual who interfaces with the client company, understands the company’s needs, has a complete picture of the job requisitions, and instructs their sourcing team where to find the target candidates. The Project Lead will also interface with the client onsite, speak to some or all of the hiring managers for the groups that are hiring, and provide weekly reports that meet the agreed upon metrics.

Sourcing and recruiting onsite at a client company is usually the best scenario in staffing. But if that is not possible, choosing a scalable RPO model is the next best thing. For more questions, please contact James Duran at Duran Human Capital Partners.

- Mark

The Recruiting Roadshow is an event masterminded by John Sumser. In 1995, John started his own company Interbiznet, where he wrote a daily column on using the internet and technology for recruiting. He wrote the first book describing the internet as a sourcing and recruiting tool in 1996. The idea for the Recruiting Roadshow was brought on by the fact that recruiting can be vastly different from one metropolitan

area to the next. Recruiting methods and tools do not work the same for every staffing organization across the country. Each region or city faces unique challenges. The Recruiting Roadshow addresses these issues and makes it possible to connect with local recruiting communities. First and foremost, networking is the goal of the show. In addition, you will get the opportunity to hear experts address topics like: • John Sumser - “Spiky and Flat”, an overview of some ongoing multi-generational issues and geographic shifts in the workforce • Nicole St. Martin - Search Engine Optimization Recruiting • Don Ramer - Recruiting As If People Mattered • Sourcing: Best Techniques From The Pros - a panel discussion with Mark Tortorici, Dan Harris, and Chris Murdock John continues to explore the importance of culture and communications through new technologies and forums like Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and blogging, all of which allow us to meet and connect with people we might not have found in another era, and perhaps say things we would never say in person. To quote John Sumser: “The Recruiting Roadshow was designed to actually bring people together in the same room to connect and talk in “real time.” Even with the coolest networking tools, there is still no substitute for sharing a meal and a conversation, for looking people in the eye and seeing them laugh.” The event is on October 23rd and is being held at Adobe Systems in San Jose. Registration starts at 8:00 am. Register Here - This free event runs from 9:00 am until 1:00 pm. Lunch is served at 1:00 pm. More information can be found on the Recruiting Roadshow page. Duran Human Capital Partners is helping with this event and I - Mark Tortorici, will be presenting sourcing techniques in a Q&A panel with take home materials for all attendees. - Mark

If you want to target new grads, there are a couple of approaches you can use. One of the best ways is to target your search using the site: operator with the type of degree you want. Let’s say we want to find computer science-degreed new grads from Berkeley. We start off looking for resumes, cv’s, bios and other profiles. You can easily do this search in Google by using the similar ( ~ ) function:

~resume

Which will get you pages with the words resume, cv, curriculum, bio, profile, and jobs. We will get rid of the pages that contain jobs later. Now let’s target the school we want:

~resume site:berkeley.edu

Next, let’s add in the type of degree we’re searching for, which is a computer science degree. For recent graduates, we will also add in the year:

~resume site:berkeley.edu (bscs OR mscs OR “computer science”) (2007 OR 2008)

And finally, let’s get rid of any job pages that may come up in your search using the intitle: operator.

~resume site:berkeley.edu (bscs OR mscs OR “computer science”) (2007 OR 2008) -intitle:job -intitle:jobs

Now that you have your string set up, you can switch out the school domain with other top-tier universities like Stanford, Carnegie Mellon, and MIT.

- Mark

In April 2008, the US DHS (Dept. Homeland Security) published some new guidelines enabling (Technology) employers to hire F1’s on OPT (Optional Practical Training) status.

Previously, the rule has been that OPT is authorized for one year and one year only. During this time the employer had to process an H1B application. The timing window was narrow and basically translated to preferred hiring consideration for qualified STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics) students who graduated in December and March in order to file for and receive an H1 visa. Technically, June graduates could be excluded from consideration, which is a huge problem, since that’s when most of them graduate.

In April, we learned that instead of 12 months, the student OPT authorization could be extended for an additional 17 months for up to a total of 29 months. On the surface, that sounded very good, because it meant that for the most part, we could look at any qualified student, no matter when they graduated, and it would not interfere with the H1 process.

Now, with the additional published guidelines, we understand that in order to qualify for this program… “The student must have a job offer from an employer registered with the E-Verify employment verification system.”

When we go to the USCIS web site, we see that… “As a participant in E-Verify, employers are required to verify all newly hired employees, both U.S. citizens and non-citizens.
Employers may not verify selectively, and must verify all new hires while participating in the program. The program may not be used to prescreen applicants for employment, go back and check employees hired before the company signed the MOU, or re-verify employees who have temporary work authorization.”

This is a problem, because according to the US Chamber of Commerce… “The program is “rife with errors and inaccuracies.” An estimated 0.1% of native-born citizens and 10% of naturalized citizens have incorrect data stored in the Department of Homeland Security or Social Security Administration’s databases — those citizens would likely not be named eligible to work by E-Verify.”

The debate concerning the use of E-Verify goes on. I thought that the 17 month F1 extension for a total of 29 months was a boon to high tech employers, but now I see it as a policing action for an inaccurate system that employers could be saddled with.

jd

Video Resumes, Video Cover Letters or Video Interviews - The benefits of video services like Vipe, as shown by Plugged-in Pete.

I think that these video resumes, or as I call them, “video cover letters” can be a very good initial representation of a candidate. This is the candidate’s opportunity to get their best foot forward when presenting themselves. Or I guess in this case it’s their best face forward!

Sure, they can be done over and over again before they are sent, but that’s the point. If their best video still doesn’t make a good impression, then you have just saved yourself the headache of flying out a candidate for a potentially expensive interview. Let’s take a practical look at this newer and very useful approach with Plugged-in Pete.

Click on the image below to see:

There are services like Vipe that allow candidates to record answers to questions that the client specifically asks of the interviewees. Others include Hirevue, Recruitv, and LiveHire, but the interface & simplicity of Vipe seems to resonate with their users.

Mark

Just when you thought it was safe to have a separate work/life existence, they find yet another way to keep you connected to the world!!! But don’t worry, at least this one is fun! What am I talking about? I’m talking about micro-blogging!

Micro-blogging can give your personal network constant updates regarding your status. These can be sent from anywhere in the world. The great thing about micro-blogging is that you probably use one of these tools already. Whether it’s Twitter, FriendFeed, your Facebook status, your cell phone’s SMS texts, or your Gtalk status. These are just a few examples, but the more important thing to think about is how you can connect these.

Some of these sites like Twitter, can receive text message updates from your phone. Are you running late and need to update your status message for your network to see? Send a text message from your phone to Twitter and it will automatically update it.

Other sites like FriendFeed allow you to share videos, photos, links, bookmarks, blogs, books, news, and status between your network. The major benefit to sites like these is the fact that you can set them up to share information, and then you only have worry about updating one website status! To illustrate this concept, I have enlisted the help from a friend of mine named Plugged-in Pete.

Click on the image below to see:

Now how can this be used in the world of recruiting? First of all, you can search status messages within a network or with some sites you can go beyond your network. This is still a relatively new medium, so there aren’t a lot of hard-lined rules yet. I also have another article that details how to search with Twitter.

Now, since some of these sites tie into SMS text applications, they must follow the 155 character limit for SMS text. Now how can you send super-long URL’s if you only get 155 characters for your message? The answer is with tinyurl’s. These 2 sites: tinyurl.com and snipurl.com allow you to take a long URL and save it as a very short URL. Now you can post that super-important YouTube Video or news article and not have to worry about space.

Stay tuned for future episodes of Plugged-in Pete and Recruiting Today.

- Mark

We explored in the last posting how to use Google to find your candidate’s contact information. If you are trying to track down a company email for a candidate, the best way is to enter @companydomain.com in a search engine like Google. You should see other emails that exist on the internet for this company and more importantly, you should see the email format that this particular company uses. More than likely, it will be either firstname.lastname or first initial+lastname or firstname+last initial.

Be warned though, sometimes employees of a company get to choose the username they want. This could be a set of initials, a first name, or a nickname. If you feel that you are sure about the address, you can always send your email and see if you get a response. If you don’t, then another email to the next one. If the email doesn’t exist, then you will get a bounce back from their server. If their mail server accepts SMTP authorization, then you can use one of the email verification tools we talked about in the previous article.

Some potential candidates can’t be found anywhere on the web except postings in technical newsgroups. The newsgroups or Usenet is what the internet used to be before we entered the wonderful world of hypertext documents back in 1991. Engineers and research scientists still use newsgroups to post a topic and start a discussion. Everyone who belongs to these groups has to sign to use & respond to them. Google now owns the web-based version of these newsgroups. Luckily for us, they can be easily searched. The trick is to search either the name of the individual you are looking for, or use the author: command.

Click on the first image for the slideshow:

- Mark

We explored in the last posting how to use a People Search engine to find your candidate. Some candidates you find out, are just not on any search engine and barely have any web presence at all. This usually happens more with technical candidates who are so busy with their work that they do not have time to network and be as involved with others online as we are.

You can use Linkedin, which is a good resource provided you have Inmails available to you or the prospective candidate is within your extended network. There is always possibility that the candidate refuses your Inmail, so the next best thing is to search for their email on Google. Start off by searching their full name in Google, but pay attention to pages that could lead you to a personal site or blog:

Click on the first image for the slideshow:

There are also email address testing tools that can help verify an email domain or address. They’re not foolproof and if the mail server doesn’t accept SMTP verification then you are out of luck. Still, they are better than nothing!

Mail Tester

Validating Email

Join us next time when we talk about searching for corporate emails and emails that are found in Google Groups.

- Mark