Core sourcing

Crossword - Search engine concepts

2012-02-07T17:35:00.005+05:30

Across

3 : This google update was introduced to penalise websites for duplicated, low quality and thin content (4)

6 : Gathers results from multiple search engines simultaneously through RSS search result (10)

9 : Also called Deep web, deepnet,Darknet, Hidden Web (8)

10 : Many individual words have more than one meaning leading to error in keyword search. (8)

11 : Malicious webcrawlers (8)

12 : This search engine type is focused on a specific topic, industry, content type, geographical location, language, etc.(8)

14 : Searches multiple search engines at one go (10)

15 : Txt file that blocks search engines from crawling (6)

16 : Commonly occurring stop word generally skipped by text indexing systems (3)

17 : This search Uses concept rather than keywords for returning results (10)

18 : An information retrieval technology (search type) allows the simultaneous search of multiple searchable resources (9)

Down

1 : Social element introduced by google to search results. (19)

2 : Enabled Google to display results quicker than before. (8)

4 : The most common form of search on the world wide web (4)

5 : Which Search engine enables users to concert their efforts by collective tagging and allow experts to guide less experienced people through their searches. (13)

6 : A computer program also called Web spider, web robots, web crawler (4)

7 : Used by authors to assign keywords to a web document (8)

8 : One of two or more words in the same language have the same meaning leading to error in keyword search (8)

13 : A computer program that browses the World Wide Web in a methodical and automated manner (7)

Tips for Candidate Relationship management

2012-01-31T20:49:00.002+05:30

In my last post on “Do we need to manage candidate relationship?”, I talked about the common reasons why sourcers/recruiters run away from managing candidates. Lets now look at some pointers for managing candidate relationships.

1.       Present yourself and your company professionally while maintaining a concerned, helpful and positive attitude
2.       Talk to the candidate- Email is not the best tool to Convey feelings or building rapport. Call candidates for status updates. Break the news personally. Follow it up with an email.
3.       Don’t promise the moon - What can’t be given or delivered, Don’t promise. Even if a candidate may not be ft for a current position, he will be either in a capacity to provide you a referral, or will be suitable for some other position. The extent to which they remain approachable, depends how much they trust you.
4.       Add value. - Maintain a concerned, helpful, positive attitude. Assist the candidate in his quest for finding the next job. Simple tips on writing resumes, go a long way in establishing yourself as a consultant. Don’t be afraid to pass on tips of openings in other organizations, if he is not a fit for your open positions. This will harbor loyalty. Always emphasize the “what’s in it for me” of your candidate is important for you.
5.       Keep the Candidate informed. – Don’t keep the candidate guessing. Keep him engaged and informed. Ensure status updates reach them on time and accurately.
6.       Make notes through the screening and recruitment process, and use old communication in further discussions. Make them know you valued the time discussing with them and that you remember them.
7.       Keep in touch -Don’t forget a candidate. Wherever they are, they have referrals to offer. Ensure you track them on social networks, or use birthday/anniversary reminder tools to send them Ecards or updates on any new position that may fall under their area of interest.
8.       Add them to your social networks: An acceptance of an invite gives you the foot in the door required for building a long term relationship. Tag or categorize them wherever you can. This will help you to engage with them more effectively
9.       Seek help -Seek their assistance, but don’t spam. They don’t mind helping you, as long as they believe that you genuinely require their assistance. Make them feel special
10.   Remain accessible - Ensure that the candidate has your contact details and remain accessible 24/7. Ensure that your respond to communication promptly. IT sends a signal to your candidate that you treat them on priority and genuinely care for them
11.   Gather their Pain points- Try and uncover what is bothering them in their current situation. Understand their need to change and address your job as a solution to their challenges. Do your research, and pick up some points, you would like to use to understand the pain points. Don’t assume what they want, find out.
12.   Get an applicant tracking system -Low cost to High end. Applicant tracking systems are available to suit your needs. Pick one. If used effectively, it will turn your dead database into a goldmine of interested candidates.

Similar Posts
Do we need to manage candidate relationship?

Word search Puzzle - Keywords and Alternatives- Testing

2012-01-17T18:48:00.001+05:30

Find testing related keywords /alternatives --- (at least 10)

Scrambled Word - Load testing tools

2012-01-17T18:47:00.003+05:30

RAEPODAPL

MIB RATNOLAI COAPEMEFRNR TETRES

AHCAPE TEEJRM

DOLA ETST

NEDRALNURO

TANPESO

RIKMEEFPRRSOL

SMDAL

IASULV TUSDOI AODL SETT

Crossword - Testing types

2012-01-17T18:42:00.001+05:30

Across
2. Black-box type testing that is based on overall requirements specifications, covers all combined parts of a system.
4. Involves testing of a complete application environment in a situation that mimics real-world use
5. Internal system design is not considered in this type of testing. Tests are based on requirements and functionality.
9. Bottom up approach for testing i.e continuous testing of an application as new functionality is added
10. Testing of integrated modules to verify combined functionality after integration.
11. Testing to determine if a new software version is performing well enough to accept it for a major testing effort.
12. Geared to functional requirements of an application.

Down
1. Testing the application as a whole for the modification in any module or functionality.
3. Also known as Glass box Testing
6. Performance testing to check system behavior under load.
7. To verify if system meets the customer specified requirements.
8. Testing of individual software components or modules. Typically done by the programmer.

Do we need to manage candidate relationship?

2012-01-16T15:01:00.003+05:30

Do we need to manage candidate relationship? I always thought it was a no brainer and everyone will agree that it is a big “MUST HAVE”. To my surprise I was dragged into a discussion on the importance of Candidate Relationship management.

While in principle people agreed that it is good to have, but quite a few believed, we can live without it happily. Let’s look at some of the arguments and contemplate

Takes too much time – the time spent in managing candidates, especially if there are too many, could well be utilized in finding more candidates.
Too complex – Too many loose ends. Too much to remember and plans do not get executed most of the time.
Candidate irritant- Candidates get irritated with irrelevant calls from recruiters. Call , only if you have a job in hand.
Recruitment is not about making friends- As a recruiter, your relationship with the candidate ends once he is out of the recruitment process.
Employer branding is not the sourcers/recruiters job – Candidates will always crib if they don’t get through. Nevertheless, branding is not the job of recruitment or sourcing
Networking doesn’t work for quick to fill and volume requirements- You need time to find candidates through networking, and only job boards can provide the numbers required for volume hiring. Niche hiring is a different case
Only important, when you are doing a passive search- Active candidates, do not need cajoling. It is the passive candidates who need to be dealt with carefully

Whats your take????

Search Engines I - Crossword

2011-08-05T14:48:00.001+05:30

Across

4. Russian search engine (Yet Another indexer)

6. Govt owned Chinese search engine

7. this search engine has a multilingual search interface , europeon languages.

9. an online service that answers factual queries directly by computing the answer from structured data.

Down

1. Microsoft's Bing webcrawler

2.Twitter bio and profile search, even allow you to limit by your personalized friends and followers (site closed)

3. New name for MSN search

4. it is a search engine, a news aggregator, a shopping center, an emailbox, a travel directory, a horoscope and games center, and more.

5. China's leading search engine company

8. A post or status update on Twitter, a microblogging service

10. one among top ten search engines in 2010

How to approach a Passive candidate?

2011-07-05T14:16:00.001+05:30

You will be judged by your behavior not intention!!!!

Understand the mindset of general passive candidates
Most candidates do not want to be seen as actively looking. It’s important you acknowledge this
Remember that no one is 'truly' passive atleast not for long or forever,
Remember that being approached for a position is flattering, discuss with a view to obtaining advice

Don’t Do’s ---- Things that can put your candidate off

Playing Games
Lying
Pushing
No respect for their time

To Do’s

Homework
Research the candidate and don’t blindly rush into the call.
Review their online profiles and check for recommendations, career growth
Collect info on what reasons could compel them to move. Check for chinks in the armour

Have a reason to call Don’t waste the candidate’s and your time with an irrelevant call
Only make calls if you feel the candidate will be happy to receive it
Good idea to email the candidate and follow it up with a phone call

Respect the candidate’s time
Time your call
Don’t be afraid to reschedule
Make sure you keep you appointments

Be open and transparent
Give them a brief outline about the job and check their interest before revealing everything
Know what information to be shared and when

Talk, don’t interrogate
Don’t push
Generate a conversation
Start with something you know about him and which is relevant to the job” I can see you have tremendous banking experience” or you have some wonderful recommendations” or I hear "your work on ... was outstanding
Put the candidate at ease: If the candidate is referred, it is always good to let them know (Being referred is flattering”) “Say something like "you were recommended to me as an expert in...." when they say "who by?” always say that as you rely on anonymous referrals to do your job, you can't be specific - but obviously confirm that it wasn't anyone in their current firm
"Would you be open to exploring a situation that's clearly superior to what you're doing today?"
I don't know if the timing is right for you or not, but I am working on a search that may be of interest, depending on what is important to you in your next position
Sound enthusiastic
Understand the trigger points that could initiate the desire to change but also create an interest level in the new role by highlighting the merits of the role

Respect the Candidates privacy
Don’t send job networking bytes to candidate who are not open to such messages (check the Linkedin interested in option)

Use the right channel
Try networking to get to the person through a friend of his

Stay in control
Believe you have a substantially good bargain for the candidate
Don’t give too much ground, but don’t sound unreasonable.
Show empathy, but not weakness
Control your speech

Track candidates
Keep a list of candidates and maintain their status
Make sure all candidates reach their logical conclusion (Won/Lost)

Sell the Job
Build a relationship,
Uncover the need,
Overcome the objections,
Fill the need
Close the deal.

Act as a consultant
Make the candidate aware of opportunities
Make sure the candidate values your advice

10 Myths – Passive candidate sourcing

Candidate database: Keeping it healthy

2011-06-21T12:01:00.000+05:30

In my last post on candidate databases "Review your candidate database", we talked about the Johari window and how candidates have a tendency to slip into a black hole and the database becomes non productive.

Here are a few pointers on countering this tendency and keeping the candidate database healthy

1. Strategize and Plan
First and foremost activity is to have clarity on what you want in your database and Why i.e. Identify the need for having a database. This will ensure that your database gives you ROI.
Pool your manpower forecasting to determine your need to identify current and future Candidate requirements
Perform a skill gap analysis to ascertain where your database is shallow and where it is effective

2. Identify info criticality
Parsing is a major pain when capturing candidate details and parsers will miss out on a lot of information. Manual entry of all the information is not feasible due to the time it takes. It is essential that you identify “MUST FILL” info and “GOOD TO FILL” info. The meaning of MUST FILL could change with each stage of the selection and screening process. Ideally by the time the candidate reaches the second round all the information should be captured

3. Assign responsibility
Break the task of updating candidate records. It will be too much for one person.
Candidate: Allow him to update his personal details, qualifications, work history. Give them a login.
Sourcer/recruiter: While qualifying the candidate for a job, the sourcer/recruiter can fill the candidate summary sheet, defining the candidate. Will make it easy to search candidates.
Interviewer: Skill Ratings in a predefined format. Will get appended to candidate summary sheet

4. Track and review
a. Periodic reviews: Periodically review the database for its relevance to current and prospective openings. A concentrated third party effort would be advisable.
b. Track deviations: Set candidate record quality standards within the system and flag deviations.

5. Engage and Involve
a. Make it interactive. Don’t just give a form to candidates for filling in. give them a system which is interactive. A system that can tell them the status of their application, jobs matching their profiles, Interview dates and venue. Some tips on guidance and counseling will be the extra mile
b. Respond: Never ever hide behind workload and not respond to a candidate. Always communicate. Use templates, if required but keep the candidate informed.

6. Keep it relevant
a. Rank/Rate: Systematically rating a candidate on a particular skill, job or domain is required if you want to keep the database relevant. Else, you will never know. If the candidate, sourcer/ recruiter and interviewer, play their roles this is possible assuming your database supports such ranking
b. Let go: your size of database is only as big as the number of relevant candidates you have in it. Remove candidates that are not relevant.

7. Keep it feasible
a. Automate: Without automation, it just won’t be feasable for you to keep your database healthy, no matter what your volume.
b. Recruiters mindset: Recruiter/Sourcer doesn’t like to fill forms or sheets. He is better of searching and speaking to candidates. Try to keep the data filling part to the minimal and tune the workflow of the system to the workflow of the recruiters. You will need their support to make the system work. Sell them the value of the database.
c. Search tool: Ensure that the system has a decent search tool, tuned towards the fields or data that your team is filling in.
d. Budget: There is a lot that can be done... And overdone. Ensure that you keep a tab on the cost and the ROI.

8. Ensure use
Use strategies to ensure usage
i. Make people aware:
ii. Establish and publish process
iii. Review use
iv. Enforce/Coerce

The most important aspect of keeping a database healthy is to continue using it…. If not in use, will not be useful!!

Links
Candidate Database System: A perspective?
Review your candidate database

Beliefs of a Passive Candidate Sourcer!!

2011-05-04T13:55:00.008+05:30

Wonder what will pop up if you open a Passive Candidate sourcers head. Probably synapses of Boolean, schemas of social networks, web of search engines and a lot more.

I have come to believe that it is not just the technique and knowledge but the mindset that one carries as a sourcer, which transforms them into what they become.

Sharing a few beliefs that reflect this mindset
• I will eventually find it, the key is in knowing when.
• My angel is in the details
• All roads will lead you there, but there is an expressway
• I am born lucky, and I know it.
• It is always worth the time spent, but there are timelines
• Sometimes I may just have to put my head down and scan through everything
• I will plan my search, but will not always be able to work my plan
• My searches define me
• I practice the secret art of sourcing
• I am hungry for more
• KISS works all the time, but complicated is not always bad
• There is nothing called a perfect search string
• I can’t do, till I know what to do.
• It is easier to find a needle in a haystack, if I know where to look
• I keep my eyes open
• Keywords are the key to finding the information, but knowing how to use them will determine, how quickly I find it.
………………………………… the list can go on………..

I am sure you have more to add

Redefining the Passive Recruiter/Passive Sourcer

Sourcer / E recruiter Assessment- Hiring Freshers
10 Myths – Passive candidate sourcing

Fallen words - Exact word - boolean

2011-04-27T11:45:00.011+05:30

IDENTIFY THE PHRASE FROM THE WORDS BELOW

How to play: Fill in the missing letters in each column of the puzzle from the column of choices below. You can only use each letter once.

U	O		A	I	O
A				A		E
U		E			O
U	E			O
			A	E

                      U       O           T          Y                     O         R

                      A       S           E          S                      A         N

       M         U       R           K          A                   T          O

       Q          P          E           R          A       S            E      O         E

        Q       U          H           R         D       T              I          S          N

CLUE: Exact word

Other game links

Crossword - Basic Boolean

Crossword - Basic Boolean

2011-04-16T16:35:00.006+05:30

*****Should be a cakewalk- Time yourself******

ACROSS
3 An operator (the terms you specify must not appear in the documents)
5 What is cat in the following search string- (cat oR dog) AND pet AND pune?
6 A wild card
7 Type of search (resume OR CV) AND (j2ee OR j2j) AND NOT (apply or submit)
10 Synonyms, alternate spellings, and variant word forms of a keyword
12 Gives meaning to the relationship between words or phrases in a search string
13 An operator (At least one of the terms you specify must appear in the documents)
14 Use of paranthesis

DOWN
1 Generally use to query on phrases
2 An operator (All the terms you specify must appear in the documents)
4 Operators used to refine search
8 Boolean was named after
9 Generally used to group alternatives
11 A combination of words or phrases and operators

Google puzzles - agoogleaday

2011-04-12T17:38:00.001+05:30

If you are one of those, who believe in taking internet search challenges, Google has obliged with agoogleaday.com

Today's Question

My name is Robert. One day before my brother Rohan’s 19th birthday, our father had an album on the Billboard 200. Name the album.

Every Day Google will post a question on agoogleaday.com. It also gives you the solution or answer to the question.

An interesting way to help people understand the power of google searches!!

Links
Word search Puzzle - Keywords and alternatives- Java 1

Word search Puzzle - Keywords and alternatives- Java 1

2011-04-11T15:58:00.003+05:30

There are 8 keywords or alternatives for java, hidden in this puzzle.. Find them

History of Microblogging in China

2011-04-08T19:55:00.002+05:30

While trying to Sync my ushi account with microblogs I expected to see twitter somewhere.

It was not twitter, but Sina and Sohu its Chinese counterparts / Clones.Tried logging in but couldnt make much progress. Though not Greek or Latin, the microblogs are in Chinese. No English versions available.
Digging a little deeper came across these fantastic articles that give you an idea about how microblogging has transformed within china.

Sina Weibo Controls the “Holy Shit Idea of a Generation”, Launches New URL Weibo.com- (Weibo.com translates to microblog.com). this article gives a wonderful pictograhic image displaying the history of microblogging in China

Can Ushi.cn Outcompete JingWei and LinkedIn? - this post gives an excellent narrative on the social business networks like linkedin in china.

Happy reading

Sourcer / E recruiter Assessment- Hiring Freshers

2011-04-01T12:36:00.006+05:30

Recently a question was tossed to me about qualities that you would look for in a fresher, while hiring for a sourcer or e recruiter position.
While hiring freshers for E recruiters or internet search assignments, we have followed a standard process
1) Internet sourcing round: The applicant is given 5 tasks all centered on finding information on the net in a fixed period of time. He is rated on the search string quality, and approach while finding candidates. Finding the answers is secondary.
2) Job spec round: The applicant is given a job description and time to review and ask questions. He is then given a set of 5 CV’s, to match against the job with an explanation. He is rated on his ablity to understand the requirement, willingness to ask questions and application of logic in matching the CV’s to the job description.
3) Personal round: The applicant, who clears the above two rounds, is then taken through a Personal interview, with the manager/HR to check for the behavioral fitment,

Looking at the people that have been selected and performed well, I have come to believe that following characteristics should be looked at while interviewing a fresher for a sourcers position
1) Comprehension skills: Helps them skim through the vast pool of information quickly. Sourcers with good comprehension, screen faster than others.
2) Attention to detail: Helps them to screen candidates better. It also helps them to use the search results in modifying their search more effectively.
3) Perseverance: These are your passive sourcers. They won’t give up easily
4) Listening skills: High on these skills and you have someone who will learn faster. Generally will have better comprehension too.
5) Problem solving ability: While searching, there will always be a roadblock, round the corner. All the good sourcers, I have seen, have been good at problem solving
6) Analytical ability: Freshers, that are low on the analytical skill, are not comfortable with booleon logic, and take time to get over this hurdle
7) Adaptability: to be honest, have had mixed opinion on this skill. One of my favorites, but have had sourcers, who are excellent at one geography/sourcing channel, but not good at others.
8) Willingness to question and learn: Its all about being open to learning. With the speed with which the landscape of sourcing is changing, this is absolutely critical.

Can you add more…….

Links

Beliefs of a passive candidate sourcer

Redefining the Passive recruiter / sourcer

10 Myths - Passive candidate sourcing

Move your Jobs to Facebook

2011-03-24T14:09:00.001+05:30

Imagine, candidates and employees advertising your jobs to their friends and network at one click. With Facebook, the word of mouth just got stronger.

Many companies have now started using Facebook as a medium for attracting candidates. Following are a few methods of putting your jobs on Facebook.

1) Like button plugin on your career site:

The Like button lets a candidate or employee share your job with friends on Facebook. When the candidate clicks the Like button on your site, a story appears in the user's friends' News Feed with a link back to your career site.

This will not only make your job more visible to the relevant group of candidates, but also increase the volume on your career site

2) Facebook Page:

This will allow you to mirror your career site jobs on Facebook and provide the candidates with a single page for open jobs.

3) Like box plugin on your career site:

The Like Box is a social plugin that enables your candidates / visitors to your website, to like your Facebook Company Page directly from your website.

You will also be able to check the candidates, who visited your page and display recent posts from your page.

4) Registration plugin:

If you have a career site, and want users to create a new account with ease, the Registration plugin could be of tremendous help. When logged into Facebook, users see a form that is pre-filled with their Facebook information where appropriate

This allows the candidates to easily sign up for your career site with their Facebook account. Also, Liking and Sharing jobs using the Like button / box from your website will need a facebook login. Ease of sharing should translate to more jobs being broadcasted.

5) Referral applications:

There are a lot of referral applications like hireplug, jobtonic etc which will provide a platform for posting and viewing jobs and make referrals with the chance of being rewarded

With a concentrated pool of candidates interested in referring, it is an ideal method, if you are willing to pay.

6) Facebook Advertisements:

Facebook Ads allow you to easily advertise a destination on Facebook such as a Page, Event, Application or Group, or your own website

You can use it to advertise walkins, careersite, an online event, specific jobs, or your facebook page. They will attract people, which your network may not be able to reach.

Google Images - HERE's SOME FUN MAGIC FOR YOU...!

2011-03-17T16:14:00.005+05:30

Came from a friend (Aswathy Pillai) Via email

1. Go to Google

2. Click images

3. Type "flowers" or any other word.

4. You will get a page which is having full of images

5. Then delete the URL from the address bar and paste the below script (Check Comments)

6. See the magic.

Play around with the x and y values and iterations in the script..

Lifecycle of a candidate record in a database

2011-03-15T12:24:00.000+05:30

If you don’t have a candidate database, you should have one quickly. If you have a database, you need to make the most of it. With the speed with which it can become decadent, you need to keep an eye on it all the time.

Candidates entering the system have got two status
• Application status
• Database Status

Application status: Refers to the status of the candidate against a particular job. Eg : Screening, LI, L2, Candidate Reject, Offer etc. Most of the times, this status will be updated and majority of candidate activity will be updated.
Database status: Refers to the status of the candidate within the overall database. It is the stage in the lifecycle of a candidate. Taken as a whole this essentially reflects the usefulness of the database and the responsiveness of the candidates

The Candidate Lifecycle

The Candidate Lifecycle stages
Cold stage: In this stage the candidate has either not been engaged or has become unresponsive for period of more than a year’s time. Most of the candidate records sourced by sourcers/recruiters would ideally enter the system in this stage. The dead log or unproductive candidate records should be weeded out from this stage as part of periodic cleansing

Warm stage: Advert responses coming directly into the system, candidates through career portals, referrals and vendor profiles would enter the system at this stage. These are interested candidates. They will remain in this stage till they become irresponsive, are not relevant to any current or near future requirement, irrespective of they being selected to move ahead for the requirement, they have been sourced for.

Hot stage: This stage candidates have been spoken to, are keen to be assessed for a specific requirement which currently exists within the system

Hold stage: In this stage the candidate is not to be contacted by the Sourcer/Recruiter. It could be due to certain escalations in terms of validity of record (time, manual flag), candidate debarred, no poach agreement…

The candidate record will fluctuate through these lfecycle stages. It is equally important to remove candidates, as it is to keep them updated.

Indian Recruiters Day - 9 march

2011-03-09T17:49:00.003+05:30

Yesterday was Womans day...
Today is Indian Reruiters Day!!!

Thanks to ERA (Executive Recruiters Association), March 9 has been designated as special for recruiters. A day when you can reflect, the service or otherwise:) done by the recruitment community as a whole.

You can call it mutual admiration, but felt good:)

Small excerpt from Manya Advani's Facebook page..

Stay away from these horror movies

Tadapta Client * Recruiter ki Maut * Katil Manager * Shaitani Recruitement * Backout ka khauf * Sadma Target ka * Pyasa Employer*Chudel ka interview"*Daravni Drives"* "wicked weekends*

Feel good... and have a Happy Recruiters Day.!!!!

Links
ERA
Manya Advani
Happy Womans Day

Happy Womans Day !!!!

2011-03-08T17:31:00.002+05:30

Job Aggregators- the new job boards??

2011-03-05T12:25:00.009+05:30

Indeed has launched its "Indeed Resume" service, which allows candidates to upload their resumes. Job seekers can now create a resume from scratch or upload an existing resume in any common formats including Word, PDF, RTF, TXT, and HTML.

They already have a job post option, where employers can post their jobs, directly to Indeed.

What can follow next with them..
Search resumes on job aggregators?
Social network posting directly from aggregators?

Social networks, have already started competing with job boards, for job broadcasts and are well placed with larger populations in their networks. Employee referrals has also started to run on social networks. With Job aggregators, joining the competition, wondering, what can the job boards do to hold their own. Will they be at best restricted to niche boards? Will only sponsored job postings be charged, and others free? Will they have their own social networks?

Love these transformations!!

Links
Indeed resume
Add jobs to Indeed
Linkedin employee referrals
Social Media Optimisation in recruitment- Employee referrals

Searching candidates on Facebook – Find your friends

2011-03-01T11:22:00.002+05:30

Facebook has good one of the largest pool of candidates outside the job boards. Challenge has always been trying to search for candidates, using its search option.

“Find your friends” gives you an extension to your Facebook search. Following is a stepwise approach that will enable you to search beyond your colleagues, classmates and friends

Step 1: Click on Find your friends from your homepage (Look on your right side of the page)

Step 2: Click on “Show more” from the “Find Friends” page

Step 3 Utilize Search options

On your left side of the screen following options are available

* Current City
* High school
* Mutual friends
* College or university
* Employer

Below each head, you respective schools, colleges, companies... etc will be given as options. Below each option set you will see a textbox. You can use this textbox to do a targeted search

Example: If you want to search for people within Hangzhou china

Type Hangzhou, and select the appropriate option from the dropdown. As you type, the dropdown changes. Will help you with typo errors too

After you select the appropriate option a text box will appear. You can add more locations in a similar fashion.

Using multiple search options
You can use multiple search options (company, school, employer, university, city, etc.) to narrow your search results

Example Accenture+ (Hangzhou OR Shanghai)

And you will get all Accenture employees currently on Facebook and staying in Hangzhou or Shanghai China

Happy Sourcing!!

Links
Move your jobs to Facebook
Your Next Hire: The Social Media Sourcing Specialist
Four Reruiting tools
Recruiting / Sourcing Via Twitter

Linkedin Blocked in China??

2011-02-28T11:51:00.000+05:30

This landed in my inbox this morning, though I would share

"
"Cannot access Linkedin? Did you read the news? LinkedIn blocked in China | VentureBeat

Anyway, Ushi is better so please join my network in Linkedin instead. The Ushi Linkedin import tool is here, and it is so easy to use. Just a friendly reminder so that you can keep on successful networking."

Interesting Article, would also give you an idea about Chinese Linkedin Clones. Also a perspective of how social media is shaping up in China.

I have tried Renren, but due to the language, found it impossible to use effectively. Ushi, has been a very comfortable to use network, and has a good mix of English and Chinese.

Happy networking!

Links

No one goes to Linkedin.. Believe it???

Intersting Posts on Linkedin network size

Linkedin Employee Referral engine- an ethical issue?

Redefining the Passive Recruiter/Passive Sourcer

2011-02-22T16:36:00.003+05:30

Read a post on Boolean Blackbelt “Passive recruiting doesn’t exist” and it has pierced my long founded assumption of Passive recruiting/sourcing as opposed to Active recruiting/sourcing. Let’s redefine the two terms

Active sourcing / recruiting : Reflects a conscious effort towards finding a candidate
Passive sourcing / recruiting: Reflects a laid back approach towards finding a candidate.

Differentiators between the two breeds…

	Active sourcers/recruiters	Passive sourcers/recruiters
Job post	Well made adverts designed to attract candidates. Responses reviewed and adverts refined accordingly. Will respond to all / most of the candidates. Spread the posting across job boards, universities, social communities and other sources	Post jobs and wait for responses. Candidates not responded to. Rely on Print and Job board adverts.
Social Media	Active on social media with sizeable and quality networks. Publicise their company, jobs and themselves. Create / Participate in communities, where candidates are active.	Social media is for personal use
Job board search	Use alerts to keep a tab of which new candidates are posted in their domain. Extensively search job boards, for candidates and referrals.	A weeks search, max a month. Skim through the results.
Agency reliance	Carefully choose the requirements to be given to agencies. Mostly fill the requirements on their own.	Agencies are their best friends. Rely on agencies to fill most of the requirements.
Employee referrals	Push jobs to employees and impress upon them to refer.	Policy is published. Wait for employees to refer
Friend networks	Build friend networks within competitor companies, and keep a tab of what’s happening there	Not bothered about what’s happening with the competition
Mass emailing	Will send customized mailers	Make a draft, and send to all.
Telephone/internet sourcing	Utilise both, depending on the situation	Mostly internet focused. Telephone utilized only for interviewing.
Reason for contacting candidate	Events, birthdays, seminars, referrals, jobs… etc	Only for a job
Candidate network	Build a network of candidates, within their domains and geographies proactively.	Search for candidates when required. Don’t spend energy in building a network.

A Passive sourcer/recruiter will be an inbox recruiter as aptly described by Sarang Bramhe “A Recruiter 1.0 is one who gets a job requirement; post it to various job boards, newspapers etc and waits for his inbox to deliver goods. It’s a classical case of recruiter who “Post and Pray” to get good resumes and fill in the requirement”

An active sourcer/recruiter will work towards expanding his network by increasing his reach across multiple channels (colleges, SPOCS, associations, social networks, Phone sourcing... etc. And strengthen this network by being in touch on a regular basis. This sourcer may
even help the candidate with jobs with other companies, if required.

More than how they utilize the sources, it is the basic approach towards finding candidates and filling positions, that marks them out as passive or active sourcers. At the centre of this approach lies the willingness to keep candidates engaged and build an active network of candidates within the scope of requirements available.

Who are you???? Active or a Passive sourcer/Recruiter!!

Related Posts

10 Myths – Passive candidate sourcing
Beliefs of a passive candidate sourcer

Passive recruiting doesnt exist

Social Media for recruiting- Post and Pray approach

No one goes to Linkedin.. Believe it???

2011-02-21T17:24:00.000+05:30

Just read a post by Tony Garcia, "LinkedIn Admits That No One Goes to LinkedIn"...

Though the title is misleading, it does make you think... The abstract from the SEC site states ….

"The number of our registered members is higher than the number of actual members, and a substantial majority of our page views are generated by a minority of our members."

As any other social community, I am not surprised to read that. What will be interesting is to know the percentage of the majority.
It is natural that most of the activity on any social network will be by the ones with a reason to utlise the network. Could be recruiters, sales or marketing guys, experts... majority of the people do not contribute.

This raises a question on your inmail responses. I generally look at 15 to 20% as a decent hit ratio.

Wondering if LinkedIn can put an activity meter against each member? Moreover, if that activity meter could classify the activity across categories... you will have less inmails... more returns.

Related Links
Interesting Posts on Linkedin network size
Linkedin Employee Referral engine- an ethical issue?

10 Myths – Passive candidate sourcing

2011-02-15T11:33:00.005+05:30

Guess, you already know about them, recruiters weigh them in gold, hiring managers love them, they are difficult to find and they don’t change jobs easily… this is how generally “Passive candidates will be described. Love to be one
Lets try and unravel some myths about approaching these species
Myth 1: Don’t Sell the Job - They are picky, they are sensitive! You may end up offending them by selling the job
The more passive the candidate, the more selling is required. Bland Job adverts or unenthusiastic pitch is never going to land you a passive candidate. If you just brag about the job and its benefit, the likelihood of you convincing the candidate is quite low. The key to selling a job to a passive candidate is to find out one reason, for which he will change the job.
Myth 2: Passive Candidates are not looking out – They are happy with their current job and are not looking for a change.
Just check how any on Linkedin, don’t check “interested in job opportunities”. They are always looking out
There is never a perfect situation. Some irritant in the job will always be there. They may not be interested in moving out for a reason. Find the reason and irritant. You might find the irritant is more important than the reason not to move for some.
Myth 3: Your Call is going to irritate most Passive candidates
Being wanted is flattering!! Yes, they may not be expecting your call and may be taken aback, they may be busy and you may have intruded at the wrong time. If approached professionally, no passive candidate will get irritated. Give them time to get comfortable and don’t forget to follow up.
Myth 4: A “NO is the end of the conversation
The likelihood of the passive candidate saying not interested is higher than the active candidate. I have seen a lot of times, this NO is just a natural response to not being prepared for the call. Always try and understand why they are not interested to change a job. Make them comfortable enough so that they speak atleast 5 sentences. After that you wont have a problem. The first five are the most difficult. Control the conversation and the “No” is easy to encounter.
Myth 5: Calling Passive candidates is not ethical
That’s an internal battle for you to fight. If you don’t feel happy in what you are doing it won’t be good enough. I don’t see anything wrong in offering a change for the better to a candidate. Even if it means, opening the eyes of the candidate.
Myth 6: Always Email First : Don’t want to make an unsolicited call
Safe bet!! Email first, candidate is aware that you are calling, or at least you can say, “I had informed”. The only challenge with this approach is in deciding what information to reveal in the email. I would not want to give a solution, without understanding what’s bothering the candidate but still believe that a well worded email or voicemail wont hurt.
Myth 7: Always Be Honest with the Passive candidate
Won’t dare to say this in public but I am a Sagittarian. Never give a false picture to the candidate about the role and related information. You don’t always have to be honest about is how you found his contact information. Don’t say anything that will make them suspicious.
Myth 8: Passive Candidate will perform better than active candidate
Well, they will be more valued for sure by the recruiters, but can’t say if they will perform better. Assuming that passive candidates are currently performing better than their colleagues, leading to high satisfaction and hence not looking out, it is but logical to assume that they will perform well in the new company. Run a sample.. hire the best performers in your competition, and you will find they may struggle in your company. Apart from skill, it is the company’s culture, policies, procedure, environment, that will determine successful performance.
Myth 9: Job boards don’t have Passive candidates
Hidden in CV’s are references, which could be excellent passive candidates, and also a contact for a ruse to connect. Apart from the references, I personally believe, all candidates who have not update their CV, for more than 3 months have turned passive. Had they been serious, they would have got a job by now.
Myth 10: Passive candidate search is only effective in hiring senior level requirements
For senior level requirements, you don’t have an option on the job boards. Passive is by and large the only source for fulfilling these requirements. For other requirements, job boards, would generally give a decent response. That doesn’t mean, you can’t look beyond them to find more candidates. Definitely try the job boards’ first, easy thing to do. Don’t compromise on the quality of candidate, if you don’t find your best match. Remember, Passive is always an option, albeit a challenging one.

Care to add more!!!

Redefining the Passive Recruiter/Passive Sourcer

Sourcer / E recruiter Assessment- Hiring Freshers

Beliefs of a Passive Candidate Sourcer!!

Intersting Posts on Linkedin network size

2011-01-24T11:42:00.000+05:30

Stumbled upon two ver intersting posts on your network size on Linkedin---

Do You Really Know the Size of Your LinkedIn Network? -
"However, many people don’t know that the number representing LinkedIn users three degrees away from you is just an estimate." - Glen Cathey

Does LinkedIn Limit the Number of Connections You Can Have?

Share on Ushi

Poll: Do you rely on Social media to screen candidates?

2011-01-07T10:32:00.000+05:30

How to search Google Profiles - The Searchologist

2011-01-04T10:34:00.000+05:30

Do men and women have different motivators???

2010-11-29T10:25:00.001+05:30

Milana Nair’s poll on LinkedIn is making me ponder again, on whether men and women have different motivators. Though it’s a very small sample, and can’t be the basis of any argument it is significant enough to make on think.

Do females have a higher craving for innovation than the male population?
Does the male population more conscious about financials (Compensation, Benefits and rewards) than their female counterpart?

Think about it and implications of the same in managing your teams.

Linkedin Employee Referral engine- an ethical issue?

2010-11-11T12:56:00.001+05:30

An employee referral engine from a big social network has finally landed.

Why a referral engine?

The most prominent challenge in employee referral is that mostly it will happen through chance encounters. Not many or in most case not any employee will proactively find friends or associates who fit the job opening. For an employee referral to happen following have to prudentially happen together

1) Know someone who is looking for a job
2) The job seeker says that he is looking out
3) The referee remembers that a matching job exists

Thence I call employee referrals as a result of chance encounters.
If something could eliminate the chance aspect of the encounter, the referral volume will multiply exponentially and as the LinkedIn tool puts it “turn all of your employees into powerful sourcing agents.”

Ethical challenge

No doubt it will be a big boost to sourcing, but there is a challenge, can call it a moral, or ethical challenge.

Employee Referrals are people referred and is it right to refer someone you don’t know well enough? Would you recommend someone for a job if you can’t vouch for him? Have we taken the willingness of the employee for granted? Is referral about getting more reliable and productive candidates, aloowing the employee to select his colleagues and other jazz about traditional referrals or is it just another sourcing channel.

One argument is that we are just tapping into the first level network of the candidate, but in today’s world of online networking, how well do we know our first level connections?

Would love to see how Linkedin deals with this issue and how the ground rules of employee referrals change

Related posts
Social Media Optimisation in recruitment- Employee referrals

Review your Candidate database

2010-11-10T10:26:00.001+05:30

Having a massive pool of relevant candidates at hand is becoming critical and all recruiters/sourcers ideally work towards building this goldmine. I am sure you will agree

Lets look at this database as a system which has negative inertia and will have the tendency to deteriorate over time. what use is a candidate, who has not been contacted for more than 6 months?

To ensure that the database is healthy and appropriate and relevant continual and systemic interventions are required. The following model gives a perspective on how to look at your datbase and determine how your networks/companies candiate pool stands

Database system can be reviewed along the following parameters

Availability: Access to the relevant people
Searchability: Ease of retrieval by the relevant people
Relevance: value of the record to the relevant people.
Completeness: the amount of relevant information available
Credibility: The accuracy of info available. It will erode over time

The following illustration depicts how the candidate pool will get slotted in different stages depending on availability and searchability.

The candidate pool can be segregated in 4 parts depending on Availability and Searchability
1) Open: this part of the database is the most active and productive. It constitutes of candidate records that are publicly available to all relevant parties and easily searchable against a given requirement.
2) Hidden: This part is most of the time outside a Common database and limited to excel sheets, emails, notepads and social networks and accessible to an individual as his personal network. Nobody else is either aware or has access to this pool. There is a greater likelihood of these candidates to slip into the Black hole depending on how structured, searchable and relevant the record is to ongoing needs.
3) Blind: This part of the system is similar to the hidden part with the only exception that this is somebody else’s personal network and not accessible to the user. If the candidate record is not searchable for a relevant requirement due to incomplete or inaccurate data or lack of search capability, the record will fall under this category.
4) Blackhole: It is the natural tendency of a record to slip into the Black hole. A proactive process and approach needs to be in place to prevent this from happening. The Blackhole can’t be measured, but is essentially an inverse reflection of our ability to close candidates with respect to time.

Points to remember
A database should be continually tracked for candidates slipping away from Open stage and proactive and reactive steps taken.
You should never have all the candidates always in the Open stage. This indicates your pipeline is not healthy enough for future requirements, or the candidates are not relevant enough to be closed.
The Blind candidates are the easiest block to be moved to an Open Database. Success in moving this block will also indicate the level of user buy-in towards using the system
The Unknown candidates are your biggest risk. The fact that you don’t know them, gives your competition and advantage over you
The Hidden candidates are your treasure trove. They are candidates with whom ether is already an established relationship/contact. Mining them systematically will be the key to success.

Related Links
Candidate Database System: A perspective?
Lifecycle of a candidate record in a database

Candidate Database System: A perspective?

2010-11-08T19:05:00.002+05:30

A candidate database system is a system that will help you manage candidates and requirements. Primarily it serves the following purpose
1) Storing candidates
2) Searching candidates
3) Tracking candidates against job
4) Tracking candidate communication and employability status
The last point is rarely the focus of attention and primarily the system is used for search, store and track.

Activities
The system primarily has two interrelated sets of activity
1) Requirement management: Involves searching, assigning, tracking, and managing the best applicants for each open requisition
2) Candidate Management: Involves methodologies, systems, and practices designed to acquire, engage track and maintain candidates in the system

These activities would include the following actions
1) Add – Candidate records, requirement and activities
2) Update – Candidates records, requirement and activities
3) Delete– Candidates records, requirement and activities
4) Assign – Candidates to Requirements
5) Track- Candidates against requirements, Candidates against activity and status

.

Objective of the system

Increase Database utilization
Reduce turnaround time in searching relevant candidates
Quick access to data on the most relevant candidate.
Structured database around skills, location, industry etc

Increase Database quality
Automatic sorting and filing of candidate information.
Churn out old and irrelevant candidates
Candidate information stored in a structured manner, easy to retrieve
Keep candidate information updated on a regular and periodic basis

Increase database volume
Identify sourcing channels that could feed candidates into the system
Integrate the sourcing channels into the system

Company branding
Quick response management
Quality emails – (informative and effective)

Improve Hiring decision
Capture information about the candidate at each stage.
Provide a complete view of the candidate by assimilating the captured information
Reduce candidate cost through candidate pool leveraging

Primary Players involved

Candidate:
Somebody who may or may not be looking for a new Job and may or may not be suitable for current or future job requirement within a company
Sourcer:
Searches for candidates from within and outside the database and is the first point of contact to the candidate. Promotes the company and job to the candidate, profiles the candidate, evaluates initial job fit and captures candidate aspirations. After ascertaining a match of interst and profile, he passes the candidate to the Recruiter
Recruiter:
Manages the selection process and coordinates with the candidate and respective parties involved in the process. Closes the deal with the candidate based on the information generated in the entire sourcing and selection process keeping in mind the candidates aspiration
Client:
Could be the practice head or the BD team or any other requirement owner.
Vendor:
External agency supplying candidates on requests provided by the sourcing team
Internal referrer Employee, who refers candidates to the company. The referral doesn’t need to be for a specific position .
All the players and their activities contribute to the level of accuracy and relevance of the database. The system has negative inertia and will have the tendency and will deterriorate over time.

Related Links
Review your candidate Database
Lifecycle of a candidate record in a database

ANZ Banking Group Ltd's expansion into China

2010-09-28T08:56:00.000+05:30

Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited's ( ANZ) expansion into China continues with plans to set up a Chinese language centre and back office activities in support of the bank's operations in China.The operations hub should open in Chengdu in March next year.

The centre is expected to employ 300 people by the end of 2013.

ANZ's locally incorporated entity in China, ANZ Bank China Company Ltd, will be established on October 1.

With three foreign bank branches and two sub-branches currently in China, ANZ plans to establish up to 20 outlets in the country over the next three years.

Social Media Optimisation in recruitment- Employee referrals

2010-07-21T11:37:00.001+05:30

Internal Referrals

Internal Reference are considered to one of the most effective way to get a stable man power with a very good branding alongside. Most of the companies encourage IR by providing a good incentive schemes and a various promotions. However, it has been observed that, most of the employees tend to forget or loose the focus on any job posted as they are busy with their current day to day works.
Approach
1) A Job Roll will be created for the jobs in pipeline and all the employees will have a unique login for the same.
2) Employees can publish their respective job rolls on their social networks, sites, blogs etc.
3) Whenever any one applies through those job rolls, the respective employee would be entitle to IR schemes with a proper tracking system.
4) Any time employee can see their respective IR incentives and also the pipeline referrals generated though their job rolls.

External Referral tool
External Reference are also considered in some of the organization from their ex employees and even with some external sources. This is also done with a good reference scheme or some promotional events. The approach will same as for internal referrals. The only difference will be to add a payment solution (electronic/cheque) similar to google adwords, etc.

Recruitment technology at work

2010-07-21T11:10:00.001+05:30

CV formatting
The client will be able to choose from an existing format or a customised format will be generated. Dataminers will enter the CV into a specified template and the system will automatically convert the given data into the desired client format

CV Parsing
Users will enter the CV in text format. The tool will automatically convert it into database fields and enter into the system

Quality system (QMS)
Critical incidents and profile parameters logged into the system. System will generate quality profiles of client in relation to their comfort level with company

Resource allocation system
One point of resource allocation to all individuals and reports on resource utilisation

Job board
Group of Niche Job boards with possibility of group subscriptions. Build a string of niche job boards, . Link it to a social networking site and feeds coming in from Vacancy tracker. Later link it to Salary benchmark, Training, Resume writing, video resumes and other potential services.

Passive Database
Database of contacts found using internet and telephone research. Can be sold along with CV search subscriptions on Job boards

Knowledge Library
Structure the resources and technical information in a database for easy retrieval

Email generation software
Use functions to derive potential emails and verify emails using email verifiers and mass mailing techniques

Social networks
Social networks including features like, forums, discussion,voting, blogs, videos, chat around specific industry sectors, jobs. To be tied with Job boards for jobs. Where we don’t have a job board, we tie it with Vacancy tracking feeds

Jobs are back!!

2010-07-01T13:38:00.000+05:30

The signs of an increasing pool of requirements are ominous. We have been witnessing a greater demand of our RPO services and it continues to grow with each day.

The Monster Employment Index jumped in June, with increased online job postings across a range of jobs and geographies pushing it to 141 from 134 in May. Check links below.
Monster Employment Index Year-Over-Year Growth Rate Now 21%
Online Job Postings Climbed in June
Monster Index

Work Life Balance is for Wimps

2010-01-05T11:11:00.000+05:30

Just recently finished reading a book “I bought the Monk's Ferrari” by Ravi Subramanian. It’s an interesting read but one thought that was intriguing “Work Life balance is for wimps”.

My first reaction was of disgust, but having spent most of my career in Operations, I have had to face situations where one had to focus more on work than on family and vice versa.

I decided to post the question on Linkedin and had some interesting answers
"Work Life Balance is for Wimps" is the view taken by Ravi Subramanian in his book "I bought the Monk's Ferrari". What’s your take?

Right from DAVE MASKIN’s comment “Without work life balance, we become a bunch of worker ants without a life..” to Phil Lauro‘s view “Work is Life”. There are different views on culture, Stage of Life, Personal inclination.

I personally wake to the smile of my 2 year old, but when at work it is all about professional achievement and personal excellence. There are times I have worked 24*7, but there are also times when I will skip office to be with my family.

Coresourcing

Imagine, going to eBay to buy an RPO service!!

2009-12-28T20:52:00.000+05:30

Process outsourcing has always had a transformational approach where parts of the process are outsourced, without disturbing the process itself. Traditionally offshore RPO solutions have been provided on an effort basis model i.e. per seat/per day.
To make solutions more competitive and beneficial to clients, IRPO is moving towards a Transactional, Product based approach, where they will invoice clients on Deliverables like (per name/per CV/prequalified contact... etc.)

How would companies benefit from such an approach?

The deliverables would be set up right from the beginning itself.
Client would pay for only that which you receive.
Workforce flexibility/scalability is guaranteed. Where previously you were utilizing one resource per day, now you can utilize any number of resources.
Spikes can be countered effectively.
Quicker turnaround time can be guaranteed.
Better bench utilization at vendors end.

Taking their SAAP (Service AS A Product) model to a new extreme IRPO is building an E commerce site where customers could buy CV’s, Interviews, vacancies etc using the portal.

Let’s see how it comes out...

Coresourcing

Making the Offshore Recruitment Process Work

2009-12-26T15:35:00.000+05:30

The Million Dollar Question “What make offshore Recruitment Process Outsourcing (oRPO) work?” has a relatively simple answer: Communication!!

Its 5:00 AM in the morning and my colleague, Yusuf wakes up to the tune of his mobile ringing. Bob, the recruiter on the other side has an urgent assignment that he needs assistance with sourcing. Yusuf still in his sleep asks for 15 minutes to call back. On the call, he takes the requirement, makes notes, and puts the sourcing strategy together. He sends a call summary to Bob copying the sourcer in when he gets back to the office and briefs the sourcer about the requirement. Yusuf manages the search and by the time Bob is back in his office, he has good quality resumes in his Inbox/ATS/Database

Alternatively, Bob drops in an email for the sourcer to have a look at when he comes into work. The sourcer will then get back to Bob with any questions and obtain any clarifications when he is available. The sourcer will in the meanwhile continue working on the assignment.

Once the email reaches Bob, he responds with answers to the questions, confirm the search criterion, and/or change it as per his requirement. The sourcer will then work on the changed criterion and send across matching results.

An inconvenient, but appropriate phone call saved a lot of time and frustration for the sourcer, the manager and the client.

Offshore recruitment process outsourcing has its own challenges, none that can’t be overcome.

For a successful oRPO, it is important that they acquire and disseminate the sourcing skills and knowledge within the organisation, hire the right personality types, keep them motivated, have appropriate infrastructure and a host of other things. All elements are equally important and can’t be done away with. Communication stands out as the most vital, due to the offshore nature of the model. In most cases communication will make or break an oRPO engagement.

There are various factors that contribute to keeping the communication clear of distortions

1. Medium of communication (audible, readable; no disturbances/distortions in the channel)
2. Clarity of thought (Know what you want to communicate)
3. Clarity of Communication (Converting thoughts into meaningful speech/text for the audience)
4. Regularity of Communication (Frequency of communication)
5. Proximity (Physical distance)

The oRPO communication Grid illustrates the situations that may arise due to these factors.

Depending on the regularity of communication and physical distance between each other your oRPO engagement will fall in either of 4 situations.

1) Black hole
These are oRPO engagements which are most likely to fail. The offshore providers don’t have any sort of onsite presence and do not utilise available communication mediums to interact. They may not have prior agreement on any communication system or may fail to follow it. They are not aware as to what’s happening on the other side. Feedback and reporting are completely ignored. Good grounds to breed suspicion and mistrust. The other side of the coin is that the client team does not consider the outsourcing engagement positively or favourably and tend to neglect providing the necessary feedback, which is absolutely essential. This happens when everyone on the team has not bought into the concept.

2) Strangers
These are unlikely oRPO engagements. It is quite rare that inspite of proximity, there will be low regularity. This situation may arise if needs are not properly understood and the parties have not been able to get a rapport going. Clarity of thought and communication or rather the lack of it will be another set of contributors to such a situation

3) Professional
These are efficient oRPO engagements. They will be process and SLA driven and will work towards doing their bit as efficiently as possible. The parties will mostly restrict to long distance but efficient means of communication. It is amazing how your work can speak for your self. Needs will be communicated in clear terms and Feedback will be quick. They may or may not have onsite presence. Most of these engagements will graduate towards a handshake. Frequent visits are conducted by both parties to bridge the offshore gap.

4) Handshake
These will be the most successful oRPO engagements. They will have a substantial onsite presence and tend to develop a friendly relationship. Frequent onsite and offsite visits will be conducted. A dedicated oRPO point of contact will be present onsite and liaison with the operations. This physical presence leads to a better understanding and empathy between the parties. There is more awareness of what actually happens at the other side of the wall, how your assignment or results for the same is being treated. Scheduling, prioritising and managing the execution of the project becomes more seamless. Reaction time and relationships in these engagements sets them apart from others and makes them more successful.

Handshakes are the ideal recipe for an oRPO. Some may argue that this takes away the offshore element; the more complex the service gets the more there will be a need for a handshake

In his presentation at ERA’s 4th Annual Convention on 23rd March 2007 - Mumbai Regan George (CEO OS2i) talks about an oRPO model. He calls it GDRPO (Globally distributed recruitment process outsourcing). It looks to move an oRPO towards the handshake stage.

oRPO’s will have different gradients and mix of the above situation. It would be rare to have complete strangers, black holes, professionals or Handshakes all the time. The same oRPO may have different situations with different clients. Depending on the service and need of the client, the people involved, transition time different situations will arise.

Emails, Chats, Phone calls, Skype conversations, Applicant tracking systems are preferred means of communication. A detailed sourcing form, flexibility of calling time, prompt response, clear feedback, periodic reviews, work schedule, prioritising assignments, and others system can be used to ensure a smooth and precise flow of communication.

Laying down communication processes, systems and enforcing them helps but doesn’t solve the purpose. Empathy between the offshore sourcing team and the recruiters on the strengths and challenges faced on both sides is critical to creating a successful partnership!

Coresourcing

***

Job Trends from Indeed

2009-02-19T14:09:00.000+05:30

Indeed has posted some not so happy Job trends.

Industry Job Trends: Left me wanting to see anything that is not negative
Job Postings per Capita : Essentially a geographic distribution of Job Postings

Interestingly, Indeed which is a search engine for Jobs is not far behind the leading Job Portals. check the Job traffic report from Comscore.

Is the Market Shifting to Candidates?

2009-02-19T13:31:00.000+05:30

With the economic downturn there are more candidates than Job. It seems this will continue to be the trend for 2009 and beyond.

For staffing firms, agencies, job portals, there will be lesser clients and jobs to work on. and more candidates willing to be placed. Does this mean that their focus shifts more towards a revenue model based on fulfilling candidate needs.

With Monster's "Monster Evolutions" and Irish Job's Horizon targeted towards outplacement service there is a signal towards other shifts. Other Portals may follow suit.

RPO's, Job Portals and even Agencies may shift towards gathering a significant portion of their revenue from candidates. Services like resume/CV writing, social media profile writing skills, life coaching and interviewing courses etc could be more attractive.

Personalized placement service could be an interesting model. The candidate will pay a basic fee for their personality branding and pay a placement/interview surcharge.

What do you think?

Links
Monster Evolutions
Monster Outplacement Services
Irish Jobs Outplacement Service

UK job Tracker

2009-02-19T11:50:00.000+05:30

The BBC News website is keeping track of jobs lost and created in the months ahead. This is not a comprehensive study but a snapshot from around the UK since 1 January. Move the slider to see Job Losses.

They also have an interesting Recession Tracker for those who are interested in precedents.

Links

UK job Tracker
Recession Tracker

"From the clients perspective what constitutes a good 360 degree review?"

2008-09-18T11:05:00.001+05:30

In response to John Felkins question on Linkedin

"From the clients perspective what constitutes a good 360 degree review?"

Christopher Morrissette has posted some excellent questions for a 360 degree review that you can ask your client to gain insight on how to better serve your them?

Links
Linkedin Question
Christopher: Linkedin profile
John Felkins: Linkedin Profile

Best Practices for Candidate screening and Prequalification

2008-09-16T18:09:00.000+05:30

Sarang Bramhe from OS2i has posted a question on Best Practices for Candidate screening and Prequalification

Of all the answers liked Jim's Pre-screening Acroynm "SEARCH OUT"

Links
Sarang Bramhe: Linkedin Profile
Linkedin Question
Jim Coughlin : Linkedin Profile

Linkedin Learning Centre

2008-09-15T16:50:00.000+05:30

I am sure you must have noticed.... for those who haven't, have a look at Linkedin's "Learning Centre".

It gives a detailed review on all the features that Linkedin offers and how best to utilise them to your advantage.

This will help in looking at your Linkedin network differently at make it more effective.

Links
"Linkedin's Learning Centre".

Coresourcing

Name generation/Resume sourcing -- Costs and service

2008-09-15T16:10:00.000+05:30

In response to Jay Floersch's question on Linkedin, there are mixed feelings to outsourcing Name generation/Resume sourcing. ?

Question
"Have you worked with a name generation or resume sourcing service? I'd like to know what your costs and experience has been."

Links
Linkedin Question
Jay Floersch Linkedin Profile

Your ideal Sourcing tool or Sourcing Solution?

2008-09-15T16:00:00.000+05:30

Peter Bugnatto , Strategic Sourcing Consultant at Lockheed Martin has asked the following question on Linkedin

"If you had to choose one sourcing tool/solution on the market what would it be?

Let's suppose money wasn't an object. I know, I know...it is. But money aside, if you were told you could pick one tool/solution or even a mashup/combo of a couple of sourcing tools available, to help with your efforts to find talented candidates both passive and active, what would you choose and why?

Clarification added 3 days ago:

Thanks for all the responses thus far. I appreciate it.
To clarify, I'm realy looking for answers dealing with tools/software/products/licenses, such as the Broadlook Eclipse, LinkedIn, ZoomInfo, AIRS Sourcepoint, etc., rather than agencies, search firms, sourcing techniques/advice like using the phone book, etc."

Some intersting Answers already.... have a read on Linkedin

Links
Question
Peter Bugnatto: Linkedin Profile

Search strings to Find vacancies

2008-09-15T15:03:00.000+05:30

Jim stroud has published a list of effective Google Search strings for finding Recruiter jobs

Similar patterns can be used for doing vacancy leads for any other job/industry. Obviously some keywords may change. Lets start circulating

Links
google-search-strings-for-recruiters-looking-for-work
Download PDF

Making a bad hiring decision... Your call!!

2008-09-15T14:17:00.000+05:30

For all of us involved in the selection process quality of hire is critical... unless I just want to close a deal. From my management school days, one debate which i could never get my head off was what is better: "Rejecting a good candidate" Or "hiring an unsuitable candidate". I always though both were equally bad, but the fact that i have to live with the second decision, it became more critical.

Lou adler has given some excellent pointers to avoid bad decisions.... Read the article "10-great-ways-to-make-bad-hiring-decisions

Links
"10-great-ways-to-make-bad-hiring-decisions"

Rogue Recruiting

2008-09-10T18:12:00.000+05:30

SARAH E. NEEDLEMAN has written a wonderful article on the extent these so called "Rogue recruiters" or "Extreme recruiters" will go to fill their open positions. Their tactics can be unconventional, paparazzi-like and some say borderline unethical. Sounds quite similar to telephone names sourcing. Read the article here

Links
Article: "Snack Vendor or Undercover Recruiter"
SARAH E. NEEDLEMAN

Your Next Hire: The Social Media Sourcing Specialist

2008-09-04T19:49:00.000+05:30

Donald Breckenridge Jr talks about the information overload on recruiters in this digital age and a need of Social media Sourcing Specialist to counter it in his article " Your Next Hire: The Social Media Sourcing Specialist".

He mentions some basic and intuitive resources and tools to get started and talks about restructuring the current staffing firm model, where sourcing specialists will work hand-in-hand with recruiters to provide well-researched, qualified candidates based on a variety of resources – both online and offline. This allows the recruiter to focus on income-producing activities.

RPO firms like OS2i provide sourcing services which include both Job board and Passive Search.

Internet Passive Sourcers harness Social media and online databases to generate candidates.
Telephone names sourcers are on the Phone all the time getting past gatekeepers to generate candidates which may not be available on the net
Prequalifying/Prescreening experts will contact the canddiate to do the initial Prescreening
Recruiters can then take over the candidate and spent most of their time in closing deals or geerating new business

The beauty of this approach lies in the way the team functions. Its like a relay race. If they work together, give their best and pass on the baton properly, its a sure shot Winner

Link
Your Next Hire: The Social Media Sourcing Specialist
Donald Breckenridge

OS2i

Four Reruiting tools

2008-09-04T19:38:00.000+05:30

Kevin wheeler in his post "Four required Recruiting tool" talks about the Famous Four recruiting tools.
1) MySpace/Facebook
2) Linkedin
3) Twitter and
4) Personal Blog

Mention of blogging as a tool, is the one that has made me think in a new direction

Links
Four required Recruiting tool: Article

Five Barriers to Phone Sourcing Success

2008-09-03T12:43:00.000+05:30

Moises Lopez has posted an artice on the most common mistakes that are made while names sourcing
1) Being “unprepared”
2) Not preparing a formal script
3) Let your assumptions control your call
4) Simply talk too much and not listen.
5) Not putting yourself in a positive mindset

Simple but effective pointers,You will find the complete post on Recruiters Lounge

Links
Linkedin profile: Moises Lopez
Moises Lopez Blog:
Article: Five Barriers to Phone Sourcing Success

Funniest names sourcing tactics

2008-08-27T15:37:00.000+05:30

Stumbled upon this old post on Funniest names sourcing tactics by Maureen on Recruiters Lounge.

If you cant laugh, be prepared to raise your eyebrows....:)

Jolly reading!!

Links
Funniest names sourcing tactics

Who Killed Kenny the names sourcer

2008-08-27T14:41:00.000+05:30

Joshua Letourneau has posted an intriguing article "Who Killed Kenny the names sourcer" the effects of international names sourcing training on the US Names Sourcer.

He cites the increase in supply of trained and relatively cheaper names sourcers as a reason for decreasing names sourcing rates, something which may drive the US names sourcer out of business.

Recently Jeff Weidner, had posts on reducing costs of names sourcing.
Part I How Low can the Cost of Name Generation
Part II How Low can the Cost of Name Generation

I would suggest you read this article along with Jeffs posts.

Links
Part I How Low can the Cost of Name Generation
Part II How Low can the Cost of Name Generation
"Who Killed Kenny the names sourcer"

Recruiting / Sourcing Via Twitter

2008-08-25T15:51:00.000+05:30

Ritesh nair has posted a tip on using Twitter in his article Recruiting/Sourcing via twitter

Following is a list of Boolean operators that you can use

(Alternatively, you can use the advanced search form to automatically constuct your query.)

Operator	Finds tweets...
twitter search	containing both "twitter" and "search". This is the default operator.
"happy hour"	containing the exact phrase "happy hour".
obama OR hillary	containing either "obama" or "hillary" (or both).
beer -root	containing "beer" but not "root".
#haiku	containing the hashtag "haiku".
from:alexiskold	sent from person "alexiskold".
to:techcrunch	sent to person "techcrunch".
@mashable	referencing person "mashable".
"happy hour" near:"san francisco"	containing the exact phrase "happy hour" and sent near "san francisco".
near:NYC within:15mi	sent within 15 miles of "NYC".
superhero since:2008-05-01	containing "superhero" and sent since date "2008-05-01" (year-month-day).
ftw until:2008-05-03	containing "ftw" and sent up to date "2008-05-03".
movie -scary :)	containing "movie", but not "scary", and with a positive attitude.
flight :(	containing "flight" and with a negative attitude.
traffic ?	containing "traffic" and asking a question.
hilarious filter:links	containing "hilarious" and linking to URLs.

Links
Article
Twiiter search operators
Twitter Advanced search
Twitter Search tool
Searching twitter: helpful tools

6 good Metrics

2008-08-25T15:37:00.000+05:30

Stephen Lowisz has posted modern day metrics to evaluate recruiter performance namely

Performance/Quality of Hire
Manager Satisfaction:
Source of Hire:
Referral Rates:
Candidate Satisfaction:
Pipeline Development:

There are some interesting comments on the lack of control the situation provides the recruiter to be able to be judges on these metrics.

I tend to agree. I would definately not blame one recruiter for lack of a good referral program, or poor salary benchmarks, or lack of good screening abilities.

Dont fail to read Stephen Shearman's comment. He talks about measuring standardized key recruiter/team daily, weekly, monthly, yearly activity results that measures recruiter/team activities.

Links
6 good Metrics

Middle of the night sourcing

2008-08-25T15:25:00.000+05:30

Maureen Sharib has posted an article on names sourcing in out of office hours and how to use it to your advantage.

In fact it is also one of the lessons in the second module of the MagicMethod phone sourcing training series.

Maureen will be holding a chat discussing about some of the things you can do in the middle of the night with a telephone. Dont miss it

Links
Middle of the night Sourcing
Announcement

CV Gadget: People search tool

2008-08-25T13:42:00.000+05:30

CV gadget is a Cool tool to find out people across various databases and networks like linkedin, myspace, zoominfo, xing, ebo, facebook.

Use this tool essentially to find people across the net and verify information posted across networks. As any other names search tool it is not very useful if the person you are searching for has a common name. Its unability to search on location or any other criterion makes it tougher to search. Hopefully some day, we will have a "boolean search string" capability on it.

Links
CV gadget

Happy hunting
Core sourcing

Use of Mobile phones in recruitment

2008-08-19T13:44:00.000+05:30

Effective Recruitment is all about relationships, be it with the clients or candidates. What could built better relationship than clear, precise and timely communication. New age Mobile phones or Smart Phones have provided us with an effective communication platform.

Dr Sullivan writes about how these Samrt phones provide a “single point of contact” allowing the use of every form of messaging in use today at any time during the day and from any location.

Read the article "The Mobile Phone: The Most Effective Recruiting Communications Platform" on ERE.

Links
Article

Yahoo Shortcuts

2008-08-18T18:49:00.000+05:30

Jim Stroud in his video "The recruiters Guide" talks about yahoo shortcuts (both open and custom) and explains how they can be used to make your search better and faster

Something which all internet sourcers should know.

Link
Video

Passive Candidates: How To Engage Them on the Phone

2008-08-18T18:37:00.000+05:30

A sensible and short video by Scott on how to engage Passive candidates.. "Passive Candidates: How To Engage Them on the Phone"

What I found most appealing is the wiilingness and belief that the candidate cant be played with. You cant control the candidate, but yes you can lead him.

You may want to go through this flowchart before you go through the video

Scotts site recruiting mastery has some neat tools

FREE Manager's Tool: Weekly Target Sheet.
FREE Activity Tracking Sheet.
FREE Search Assessment Instrument.
FREE Annual Billing Goal Tool.
FREE Telephone Discipline Tool.

FREE POEM! Got kids? This poem will tell them what being a recruiter is all about. It's called "Recruiter Rabbit Closes a Deal". Click HERE.

Recruiting on Twitter

2008-08-18T14:57:00.000+05:30

Thomas Licari has put a very useful video on Youtube explaining how to use Twitter to recruit candidates.

If you are interested in expanding your sourcing sources, you cant afford to miss this

Links
Powerpoint presentation
Video

PDF Genie

2008-08-18T12:14:00.000+05:30

PDF Genie is a pdf file search engine designed to search for ebooks.

Jim stroud in his article "Search Engine Tatse test: PDF Genie:" writes about its utility to search for candidates.

Its is a handy tool to find candidate, but still quite ripe to replace a Google filetype:pdf search
The search string (java developer c++ atlanta) gives the following results
PDF Genie results
Google filetype results

Moreover the flexibility of google search commands is not present.

Lets bear in mind, this has been designed to search for ebooks, and is not a resume search engine.

LINKS
Search Engine Tatse test: PDF Genie: Jim Stroud
PDF Genie results
Google filetype results

Keep your telephone factory Humming

2008-08-18T12:00:00.000+05:30

As a student of HR I was taught how Human beings are different from other inputs for production.

Human beings as a resource are unique in their ability to transform inputs in different ways. Don’t expect the same output all the time not even from the same individuals.

They will react to the same processing differently, so forget a structured a process. The process doesn’t make them look good; they make the process look good

They are raw materials right, but have the ability to transform themselves

They interpret the same inputs/information differently… One approach/one solution is not possible

In his article “Run Recruiting Like a Factory Manager if You Want to Hire More Top Prospects” Lou Adler compares sourcing to a buying process. He has highlighted the top “Sourcing” and “Non sourcing” problems that are encountered in the recruitment process.

“Too many companies try to solve their hiring problems with a new sourcing-idea-of-the-month program. This is like applying a Band-Aid when major surgery is required.

Instead, think big and fix your scrap rate problems first and then start posting compelling ads in exactly the same places. Before you know it, your talent factory will be humming along.” – Lou Adler

Links

“Run Recruiting Like a Factory Manager if You Want to Hire More Top Prospects ”

Streamlining online recruitment with technology

2008-08-15T12:03:00.000+05:30

In his article on Express Computer Nivedan Prakash elaborates on how Online recruiters are now able to leverage the latest technological advancements to streamline the whole hiring process.
He has given an birds view on most of the technologies, incorporated in a usual recruitment process with exception of Passive Sourcing.
e.gSocial networking sites, passive search engines have been left

Overall an informative article. Happy reading!!

Links

The Article: Streamlining online Recruitment

Wikipedia Search engine

2008-08-14T22:05:00.000+05:30

Wikipidea is an excellent resource for information but I have had a longstanding gripe with its inability to give a good search tool.

Following are a few Links that you can use to harness the knowledge of Wikipedia
Wikipedia Search Wiki
Top_10_ways_to_search_wikipedia
Google Search plugin

Mission Impossible for NGE's

2008-08-14T16:13:00.000+05:30

Here is a cool video for the Mission impossible team of NGE's (VS)

Whats your mission today?

Links
Video

Common Social Networking Mistakes

2008-08-14T16:04:00.000+05:30

This article from Rebecca Beasley on social networking is like stating the obvious. The "obvious" that we generally let past our perepheral vision. Atleast I do make most of these mistakes.

Thought of sharing with you all.

Links
Common Social Networking Mistakes

Googlepedia

2008-08-14T15:53:00.000+05:30

Googlepedia is a completely free Firefox extension written by James Hall.

To install, download the file to your computer, then drag into Firefox. Alternatively, you can download from https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2517

Shows you a relevant Wikipedia article along with your search results. Clicking links in the article will trigger new Google searches, making it a very useful research tool.

Features

Turns internal Wikipedia links into Google search links
Uses Google's I'm Feeling Lucky(tm) feature to find relevant articles
Links images directly to their full-sized versions
Removes Google AdWords
Can be expanded to take the full width of the page
Uses your local language Wikipedia based on the Google language
Hide button to disable Googlepedia
NEW Firefox 3 support
NEW Interface translated into 7 languages - Chinese, German, Japanese, Polish, Czech, Dutch and Portuguese.

Will add a review soon

RPO Interest Grows While Global Hiring Slows

2008-08-08T15:00:00.000+05:30

Leslie Stevens in his article "RPO Interest Grows While Global Hiring Slows" explains how RPO interest is growing inspite of a slowdown in global hiring.

I believe RPO today is not essentially being treated as a cost effective method of fullfilling manpower needs but a specialized process needing focussed attention and specialist skills. RPO's have existed long enough to alleviate concerns.

With individual hiring reducing outsourcing the requirements becomes a more progmatic approach.

Core sourcing

Links
RPO Interest Grows While Global Hiring Slows

How much of sourcing is enough?

2008-08-08T14:52:00.000+05:30

In his article Seven days without sourcing makes a week Shally Steckerl gives some wonferful tips
that a recruiter can use to incorporate internet sourcing effectively.

It is not meant for a fulltime sourcer, but full-desk recruiters who struggle to create enough time for building a pipeline for Passive candidates.

Link
Seven days without sourcing makes a week

Finding resumes on Scribd

2008-08-08T14:36:00.000+05:30

Another gem from Jim Stroud for all sourcers who intend to go beyond job board sourcing.

As so many other passive candidate sourcing , the key is to know how to use them. Jim Strouds article "How to find free resumes on Scribd (Part 1)" on Recruiters Lounge

Happy reading!!

Links
Article

New LinkedIn End User License Agreement

2008-08-08T10:54:00.000+05:30

If you are a regular linkedin user you need to have a look at their new aggreement

Some spooky highlights from a network which has turned into Big brother.

"LinkedIn may limit the number of connections you may have to other users and prohibit you from contacting other users through use of the Services."

" LinkedIn reserves the right, but has no obligation, to monitor disputes between you and other members and to terminate your account if LinkedIn determines, in its sole discretion, that doing so is prudent."

"Dont upload a cartoon, symbol, drawing or any content other than a photograph of yourself in your profile photo;"

"Dont upload, post, email, transmit or otherwise make available or initiate any content that: includes telephone numbers, email addresses, street addresses or any personally identifiable information for which there is not a field provided by LinkedIn;"

"Dont upload, post, email, transmit or otherwise make available or initiate any content that: adds to a content field content that is not intended for such field (i.e. submitting a telephone number in the “title” or any other field)

"LinkedIn may terminate the Agreement for any or no cause, at any time, with or without notice, which shall be effective immediately or as may be specified in the notice"

Links
New Linkedin user aggreement
Summary of changes
Linkedin Answers

Coresourcing

A special place for good candidates

2008-07-21T13:36:00.000+05:30

In his new podcast "Where to Find the Top Recruiting Prospects" Lou adler talks about brilliant candidates and where to find them. His concept of diminishing returns and their mindset as they go about job hunting from one stage to another is appealing and makes a lot of sense.

Starting from tiptoing to the last stage of posting their CV on the Job board they are looking out for a smart recruiter to help them. Amazing Podcast

Core sourcing

Tools to find phone numbers

2008-07-21T12:21:00.000+05:30

Jim stroud has filled up a desperately needed space talking about technology that helps Sourcers...

Find below a tremendous post on "50 ways to find a telephone number"

Thanks Jim:)
Coresourcing

Doomsday.... job boards no longer exist as a sourcing channel.

2008-07-21T11:06:00.000+05:30

There is lot of good talk and clutter on whether the job boards will survive.

Recruiters will realise the value of the job boards once they stop using it for the simple reason that they are the easiest and most convenient source for candidates. Pull the plug on the job boards and most people (Candidates and recruiters) would freak out.

I would say if you can get away with Job boards, you can get away with agencies too. The time, resource and energy needed to maintain a competitive candidate database pool is simply not possible for a corporate recruiter/HR.Job boards are here to stay, but there has to be a change in the model.

Moving away from the product to a solutions approach will make them productive... They have the technology and resources but reliance on agencies will most probably hold them back.As a corporate recruiter you could submit your vacancy to a job board. People/technology send matching resumes and screened advert responses to your database (provided by the Job board/integrated with the Job board). An automated response management system keeps your candidates in the loop....Join hands further to track your internal referral management.
Payment/Fee structure will change but all for the good..

Here are a few good links on this subject
http://thetalentbuzz.com/2008/07/what-would-happen-if-job-boards-became-obsolete/
http://www.therecruiterslounge.com/2008/07/17/pay-to-post-verses-pay-for-performance/

Coresourcing

Job board with mapping utility : Zubed

2008-07-17T17:46:00.000+05:30

Jim Stroud has written an informative and careful article on Zubed Jobs : a job board with a mapping utility.

Employers and Job seekers can now get in touch with each other using location and skill search for Free.

Dont think that geograhical mapping will make any difference to the quality of resumes on the job board, it would definitely increase the ease of search.

Read the ERE article "Zubed Shows You the World and the Jobs"

Free job boards: down the memory lane

2008-07-17T17:31:00.000+05:30

This article highlights the plight of a recruiter in the face of changing job board strategies and how the romance with job boards is fading. Google gets a pat on the back as the largest free job board!!!

What Happened to Free Niche Job Sites

From Transactional to Transformational

2008-07-10T10:46:00.000+05:30

Lou Adler, in his not so futuristic article "A New Perspective on Sourcing Top Talent - Eight New Ideas You Need to Consider" talks about how companies will have to transform their recruitment strategy

"Consumer marketing ideas have overtaken traditional sourcing approaches faster than anyone could have imagined. Job boards are dead; talent hubs are alive. Skills-based postings will soon follow the dodo bird into extinction, and will be replaced with ads focused on the future, not the past. They will be crafted with the latest search engine marketing concepts in mind. If you want your fair share of tomorrow's talent, you'd better start changing how you source them today.".. Lou Adler

All the eight ideas have already created volcanoes in my head... time to unsettle.

Happy reading

How OS2i began

2008-07-08T11:56:00.000+05:30

OS2i was the first company to use the term RPO on their official website. Pioneers in offshore recruitment process outsourcing, this company has played a major role in spreading the concept of RPO especially in India.

Here is a post on How OS2i began:

"The concept was simple. Instead of UK recruiters wasting valuable hours screening and searching CVs, why not outsource these tasks? Even better, why not outsource these tasks to a country like India, where a highly literate, specifically trained, English-speaking workforce could do the work at a fraction of the price that it would cost over here? It was watertight, a real win-win situation."- Regan George CEO OS2i

Gmail enhances security feature

2008-07-08T11:30:00.000+05:30

Gmail has introduced a new Security feature that will let you see how many computers your account is open on. It also allows you to sign-out remotely.

Read more about it on gmails official blog

Another thumbs up for google security after it recently moved its security policy on the homepage.

Names that Guarantee a hire?

2008-07-07T10:39:00.000+05:30

Louise UK Recruiter type pad gives us a benchmark for number of names to look at for an immediate hire.

eg:
Outside Sales Reps 30 - 50
Inside Sales Reps 20 – 30

Read this post "How Many Names Do I Need For One Immediate Hire?" to find more

Telephone Names sourcers: Rating Scale

2008-07-06T23:40:00.000+05:30

In a response to a question "What is the difference between a Level 1 Research Associate and Level 2 Research Associate?" on Linkedin Maureen Sharib has posted her Telephone Sourcing Experience Metrics Model

The model has five levels and uses the following parameters
Type of industry
Target companies list
Management tier
Type of information required
No of Names generated

"All the following levels are predicated on the assumption that the telephone sourcer already knows how to use the web to generate the early information upon which her telephone results will be built." Maureen .

Interesting Gatekeeper responses

2008-07-06T20:38:00.000+05:30

Internet has been my forte. Just recently I have started picking up the tricks of Names sourcing using the telephone. Though most of the responses are from sales people and not names sourcers, I found this Linkedin question and answers to the same quite helpful. Following is a valuable comment (Linkedin Answer) from the other side of the table.

"WHAT WORKS FOR ME? Several people who responded first have already said it but let me just confirm that what they say is true! I will do my best to assist anyone who tells me the truth right off the bat, who gets to the point and doesn't waste my time. Someone who remembers speak with a respectful tone (and not talk down to me) because I am getting nothing out of helping them - they are benefitting. And when they call during a time that I am on a deadline and don't have the time to talk - I appreciate people who are willing to send me an email stating what they need and why they are contacting our company and then I can forward it out to our management team." WHAT WORKS FOR ME? Several people who responded first have already said it but let me just confirm that what they say is true! I will do my best to assist anyone who tells me the truth right off the bat, who gets to the point and doesn't waste my time. Someone who remembers speak with a respectful tone (and not talk down to me) because I am getting nothing out of helping them - they are benefitting. And when they call during a time that I am on a deadline and don't have the time to talk - I appreciate people who are willing to send me an email stating what they need and why they are contacting our company and then I can forward it out to our management team. Helen Laloo- Executive Assistant,

Seven habits of succesful internet Sourcers

2008-07-06T12:07:00.000+05:30

Internet sourcers, while being creative have to be organised to be successful. Each assignment needs a sourcing plan. Following post talks about seven habits that could help you as a sourcer to be effective.

Organize your research
Use Advanced Search Options Wherever Available
Research the URL well
Research Contact Information
Explore the Internet for your executive searches as well
Explore multiple Search Engines
Apply relevant tools

Read the complete post on Seven habits of succesful erecruiters

Branding on Twitter

2008-06-29T17:30:00.000+05:30

This is an interesting post on branding yourself on social networks :Twitter, social media, and unmashing the mashable

Penelope Trunk talks about how different social networks reflect yourself.

"Sometimes I call this a braided career. Sometimes I call this bad branding. It’s a fine line. And some people will say that if you’re truly integrated, you will be your same self everywhere. I disagree. I think that the most socially adept people highlight the parts of themselves that will be most interesting to the people at hand. So I am keeping Twitter separate. I want to play and explore and I don’t care about being consistent with my brand there. I want to show another part of myself on Twitter—a part that I wouldn’t necessarily show on the blog" Penelope Trunk

Interesting viewpoint

Sourcing Sins

2008-06-29T17:14:00.000+05:30

Maureen Sharib talk about the ten deadly sourcing sins and why people fail at sourcing
Here is the link to the post: Ten Deadly sourcing skills

Also an enlightening comment be Ibrahim
"I don't have to be haughty or threatening just very polite, patient and sweet and yet utterly scary because I like to apporach the gatekeepers in foreign languages. I am sure that this might not be an option for you in the US but in Germany (and many other European countries) the saviest of gatekeepers will be put off their game (which they usually master in one language only) and give you anything you want just to be rid of you when you ask them nicely in French or English": Ibrahim Kerem Ergun

Internet vs Telephone Sourcing

2008-06-29T12:40:00.000+05:30

Internet sourcing has been happening from offshore locations since a long time. Names Sourcing using the telephone has picked up. Can they both come together?

An interesting post on Linkedin by Sarang Bramhe from OS2i

Telephone Research Vs. Internet Research - what would you recommend? What are the pros-cons and in what areas these work best? What is the best way they can co-exist?

Offshore names sourcing

2008-06-29T12:29:00.000+05:30

Perceptions take a long time to change... this one just refuses to die...

A interesting thread started by Jeff Weidner on ERE How low can the cost of a name get?

"Cultural issues and language barriers will not be barriers for much longer. These companies will find ways to offset those issues, they will shift their training tactics from a "how and what to do to" to a cultural training and language training."-Jeff Weidner

History of Sourcing

2008-06-17T17:09:00.000+05:30

Jim stroud has created a neat timeline depicting the history of sourcing. It is a continual work in progress, any and all contributions are welcome

Check it out at

http://www.xtimeline.com/timeline/The-History-of-Sourcing-1