Job 107203

Here are what I consider to be the most critical parts of internet research. I thought I would call them the ten commandments because if you do not apply one of them appropriately your sourcing effectiveness will drop.

1. Plan your search - Begin a planning process, assessing requirements.

2. Define what you are targeting - Identify each important concept, focusing on the skill more so than keywords

3. Know your search engine - Use the search tools to the fullest to find information about an target companies. Search within those companies for hidden talent. Research candidates employed by them.

4. Use multiple search engines (or metacrawlers) - No to search engines are alike. You might be surprised with how little search engines overlap (If you are curious check this site out http://ranking.thumbshots.com/ for result comparison between search engines)

5. Search for people, not resumes - What does your prospective candidate’s world consist of? What you know about the habits of the target candidate. What magazines or journals do they read? What conferences might they attend? Who do they talk to everyday? What are they like? Anything else you view as important and that you think I have a need to know.

6. Develop a search strategy -  Use boolean operators (implied boolean counts too). Try different combinations with as many advanced field commands as possible to increase the likelihood of success.

7. Use synonymous concepts to expand your search -  Start you search with one or just a few keywords; as it progresses additional keywords are connected using appropriate Boolean operators &/or attributes to create search concept blocks.

9.  Persist - Don’t give up, consider alternative method, tools and strategies and persevere. Good things come to those that wait.

10. Search don’t surf - Searching is for results, surfing is for fun

If you disagree or if you can think of any thing I missed, shoot me a line. Even if you don’t disagree I would like to hear from you.