Top 10 Tools & Techniques for Recruiting

24. December 2013

Are You Frustrated With Healthcare.gov?

Filed under: Musings — admin @ 21:02

Just wanted to share my ongoing problem with securing coverage after jumping through all the necessary hoops and finally getting to the last step, where my coverage was selected, and all the site had to do was confirm my selection, and begin my coverage which would have taken effect on 1 Jan. But that will never happen on 1 Jan or even 2020, if the problems persist and their call center support is effortless to resolve anything. Below is a sample chat session, which will exemplify the ridiculousness of this site. LOL

++++++++++++

[7:56:33 pm]: Thanks for contacting Health Insurance Marketplace Live Chat. Please wait while we connect you to someone who can help.
[7:56:36 pm]: Please be patient while we’re helping other people.
[7:58:06 pm]: Please be patient while we’re helping other people.
[7:59:38 pm]: Please be patient while we’re helping other people.
[8:01:08 pm]: Please be patient while we’re helping other people.
[8:02:39 pm]: Please be patient while we’re helping other people.
[8:04:10 pm]: Please be patient while we’re helping other people.
[8:05:40 pm]: Please be patient while we’re helping other people.
[8:07:11 pm]: Please be patient while we’re helping other people.
[8:08:40 pm]: Please be patient while we’re helping other people.
[8:10:11 pm]: Please be patient while we’re helping other people.
[8:11:42 pm]: Please be patient while we’re helping other people.
[8:13:12 pm]: Please be patient while we’re helping other people.
[8:14:43 pm]: Please be patient while we’re helping other people.
[8:16:13 pm]: Please be patient while we’re helping other people.
[8:16:54 pm]: Please be patient while we’re helping other people.
[8:18:26 pm]: Please be patient while we’re helping other people.
[8:18:35 pm]: Welcome! You’re now connected to Health Insurance Marketplace Live Chat. Thanks for contacting us. My name is Jean. To protect your privacy, please don’t provide any personal information, like Social Security Number, or any other sensitive medical or personal information.
[8:19:47 pm]: Bret
Application ID: XXXXXXXXX
Date: 2013-12-24 07:52:56
Sorry, an error has occurred. Please try again. If that doesn’t work, log out.
Error ID: 500.300588
I have tried logging in and out over a dozen times in a period of 8 hrs. I am trying to process my enrollment selection choices for medical and dental and cannot get past the final confirmation stage. I have also called your user support, and waited each time for over 90 minutes to get a representative, several times, and they cannot resolve this problem and simply tell me to wait and try to log in at another time. I’ve been trying to get my coverage confirmed for the past week, since the expiration for 1 Jan coverage is, I believe, tonight. The error will not go away and it seems like I’ll never get coverage.
[8:20:40 pm]: Bret
????
[8:21:33 pm]: Bret
Hello – anyone helping here?
[8:21:49 pm]: Jean
I apologize for the inconvenience. I’ll be more than happy to assist you today. Before we proceed, may I please ask in what state you reside in?
[8:22:00 pm]: Bret
Florida
[8:22:56 pm]: Jean
Thank you. One moment please while I look that up.
[8:23:13 pm]: Jean
I can answer your questions about the Marketplace and how you can enroll. You can also use HealthCare.gov to find this information and what programs you may qualify for, as well as find and apply for coverage, compare plans, and enroll in a health insurance plan. You can apply now through the end of open enrollment. Open enrollment for health coverage in 2014 closes on March 31, 2014.
[8:24:09 pm]: Bret
Huh – that is not an answer. I can’t believe I had to wait 20 minutes for you to send me a boilerplate response.
[8:25:19 pm]: Bret
Did you read my problem or are you just programmed to send these crazy messages?
[8:26:36 pm]: Jean
Thank you for your interest in the Marketplace and for sharing your feedback. We apologize for any technical difficulties you may be experiencing as you use HealthCare.gov. We know this can be frustrating, and we’re working around the clock to improve HealthCare.gov and to make sure your experience with it is a positive one.
[8:27:27 pm]: Bret
Give it a rest Jean. Your chat help is a joke if you continue to send me these nonsensical messages.
[8:28:23 pm]: Bret
I need resolution, not excuses.
[8:30:19 pm]: Jean
I understand that you are experiencing issues with the health insurance marketplace application and are unable to complete the process. I apologize for the inconvenience. Due to security purposes I am unable to access your marketplace application and check what the issue could be. You will need to contact a health insurance marketplace call center representative. We are available to help you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. You can reach us toll free at 1-800-318-2596.
[8:31:16 pm]: Bret
What is the purpose of help if neither you or phone support cannot resolve my problem. What alternative do I have for a quick remedy?
[8:32:58 pm]: Jean
I apologize for the inconvenience. You can remove an application that you started or completed, but you’ll need to start over with a new application and get new eligibility results. If there were errors or issues that stopped you from editing, completing, or submitting your application, you can remove your application and start a new one.
[8:33:49 pm]: Bret
I have called your call center reps over a dozen times and waited over 90 min each time with no assistance as well. Is this the best you can offer. I have already created my second application which is this one and was handled and created by a call center phone representative. Any other bright ideas Jean?
[8:36:47 pm]: Jean
I do apologize for the inconvenience I understand that there is a wait time at the moment. We are currently experiencing a high volume of callers. Please try again later.

And that is how you get “Help” from this program.

30. September 2013

Interviewing with Skype: Discover if your callers are telling the truth

Filed under: Musings,Tools — admin @ 18:17

KishKish
KishKish Lie detector offers you a tool to detect the stress level of the person you communicate with over Skype. With the use of KishKish Lie detector you can monitor in real-time the stress level of the person you talked with.

This allows you to gauge the level of stress and modify your questions in real time. You can also use the KishKish SAM VSA that allows you to record the call and analyze the stress level offline.

14. March 2013

Tips for the Social Networking Recruiter: Cheat Sheet Series

Filed under: Strategies,Techniques — admin @ 12:57

The following Cheat Sheets were produced by: http://www.marketo.com/about/

Pinterest & Instagram Cheat Sheet
Understand why images are so important in your marketing mix, and how you can use them on Pinterest and Instagram to drive engagement, increase social sharing, and improve your SEO and content marketing mixes.

Blogging Cheat Sheet
Discover tips for optimizing your blog to drive more leads and improve search results. Find out what makes a blog post truly stand out, plus rules to consider for your company’s blogging policy.

Google+ Cheat Sheet
How to create your About page, leverage Google Events, Google+ Hangouts, and Google Circles, and what you need to know about Google authorship and its contribution to search rankings.

LinkedIn Cheat Sheet
Learn how to use Company pages, Product pages, LinkedIn Advertising, and LinkedIn Groups. You’ll also see how you can use LinkedIn for targeted account marketing and to improve your company’s organic search rankings.

Facebook Cheat Sheet
Everything you need to know about EdgeRank, Facebook ads, Facebook groups, Facebook lists, Facebook apps, and promoted posts. Learn how to boost your numbers of interactions and shares, plus two key questions you should ask yourself before every post.

Twitter Cheat Sheet
How to use track and engage your key followers and influencers on Twitter, plus everything you needed to know about #hashtags, @mentions, tweetchats, promoted tweets, and the all-important 4-1-1 rule for social content.

13. February 2013

Beyond LinkedIn: Must Have Apps For Power Networking

Filed under: Strategies,Tools — admin @ 13:34

Power Networking

Now that many of you have spent some time with LinkedIn, you need to know about the next generation of apps poised to help you network, host effective calls and manage your meetings, follow-ups and contacts? These apps will help you stay productive and manage the most important actions you can take for a successful career: networking and building relationships.

1. Rapportive – http://rapportive.com/

This app allows you to learn everything about a person without ever leaving your Gmail inbox. Forget about searching Google; simply hover over an email and the contact’s photo, latest tweets, Facebook profile, LinkedIn profile and more will show up in your sidebar. This is incredibly useful for vetting someone, learning more and finding those unforeseen moments.

This app is a free add-on available for Chrome, Firefox and Safari. At its most basic, the tool lets you put a face to a name, but it can also act as a lightweight customer relationship management (CRM) system if you take advantage of all the integrated features.

2. Speek – http://www.speek.com/

Do you find yourself constantly fumbling for a phone number and PIN, only to join a conference call at the most awkward moment? The super-simple and free conference call platform lets users choose a unique and personal link (i.e., speek.com/bret) rather than a traditional phone number and PIN to connect conference calls.

Once you’re on the call, this app provides a visual experience that lets you see who’s joined the call, see who’s talking, share files and mute participants. Plus, it’s integrated with your social media accounts, so you can connect with callers on LinkedIn or Twitter.

3. Contactually – http://www.contactually.com/

Relationships are the basis of any good career, and this app helps you manage timely interactions with your most important relationships. Follow up with potential clients, keep warm leads from getting cold and remember to email that mentor who will find you your next job.

Particularly good for sales professionals, freelancers and true go-getters, this system automates your contact management (i.e., the crucial networking you have to do to be successful). Every day, you get a list of people you need to reach out to, and you can track all your progress and communication patterns in your personalized dashboard.

4. Ecquire – http://www.ecquire.com/

Another browser extension, this app integrates with existing Web services, like Salesforce, Highrise, MailChimp, LinkedIn, Twitter, HootSuite and more, to help you easily and automatically add and import information about your contacts no matter what site you’re on.

No need to remember multiple usernames and passwords or enter information multiple times. And if you’re used to having to remember to “bcc” or forward important emails to your CRM system, forget about it. This app has a great interface that is completely unobtrusive until you need it and delivers all your notes and details to multiple apps simultaneously.

5. Highrise – http://highrisehq.com/

This app is a cheaper, more intuitive and simpler version of Salesforce. But it’s not just good for managing sales and business development; you can also manage people and processes like your job search, clients, blogger outreach, customers and more through the use of tags, custom fields and cases (like folders).

You can keep notes about how many daughters your newest partner has and if they prefer to receive an email over a phone call. Integrate this app with some of the other extensions and apps on this list to make the simple database truly powerful and intuitive.

6. WorkFlowy – https://workflowy.com/

As both an outlining and note-taking tool, this app is the closest thing to pen and paper while also featuring the powerful features needed in today’s productivity apps.

Take notes during a call or create an outline before a meeting with this app’s deceivingly simple interface. When you’re ready to do more, this app has you covered with search, collaboration tools, tagging, the ability to zoom in and out of certain projects and more so you’re always prepared with the people you want to impress.

8. February 2013

Social Recruiting Guide

Filed under: Strategies,Techniques — admin @ 21:59

Social Recruiting Guide: How to Effectively Use Social Networks and Avoid Legal Risk Building Critical Talent-Pipeline

Social networking sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn are some of the most powerful tools available to recruiters today. Facebook has more than 146 million U.S.-based members and regularly surpasses Google in site visits per day. LinkedIn has increased its number of registered users from 4,500 in 2003 to more than 161 million worldwide in 2012—with 61 percent of those users in the U.S…

Download the free Oracle White Paper at: http://www.brethollander.me/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Social-Recruiting-Guide.pdf

3. January 2013

Maximizing Your Social Media Impact

Filed under: Musings,Strategies,Techniques,Tools — admin @ 13:01

Social Media World

Check out how how to use these Social Media websites to benefit your business.

8. November 2012

I Enjoy My Dead-End Career

Filed under: Musings — admin @ 12:58

Dead End CareerThroughout the world, societies seem to be moving further by singing the praises of the drive for power and wealth. You’ve heard the sayings about the downsides of the “rat race” and “keeping up with the Joneses” — but at the end of the day, we need only look in the mirror to see a perfect example of the people we’re mocking.

I’ve decided to pursue a life of recruiting and sourcing. There is little to no prospect of “moving up” since I don’t plan on going corporate, and I’ll probably spend most of my of time working from home in my undies…!!!

So why would someone do something so ridiculous? Here’s my argument for abandoning the career ladder and instead pursuing a so-called “dead-end” career.

If You Have the Right Job, You’ll Love Working

Our society likes to say that a well-adjusted person “works to live” and doesn’t “live to work,” but I say that’s totally backwards. If the part of your day that you are working doesn’t count as “living,” then half of your life will be irrecoverably lost.

Instead, find the life you want to live and then figure out how to make a living from it. As a recruiter, I view myself as the consummate marriage broker, fulfilling the expectations and desires of both the candidate and the employer. My career choice gives me the ability to do what I want to do for fun, and to get paid enough to live for it.

Getting to Be Different

There’s something appealing and satisfying about leaving behind the pursuit of social status and trading it in for the pursuit of personal perfection. Beware, though, that abandoning the eternal hunt for power and wealth can make you look rather alien in an increasingly suburban world.

Ending Performance Anxiety

I am not ambitious. I’m considerably more interested in making my work acceptable to myself than I am in making it impressive to my peers. I don’t need upward mobility, because my current momentum will already carry me to or beyond where I want to be.

Financial Independence

How can making less money give you greater financial independence? The answer lies once again in social status. Many of the most expensive things we buy (like sporty cars, McMansions with serious acreage, or that 500 sq ft home theater) are luxury items that serve as a black hole for our incomes.

There is, of course, a certain level of income needed to live while being financially independent, but that number rises and falls depending on where you live and your own perceived social status.

How does pursuing a “dead-end” career fit in your lifestyle?

5. November 2012

How To Use The Internet When The Internet Is Gone

Filed under: Musings,Techniques — admin @ 11:27

In late October 2012, Sandy stormed through the Northeast, knocking out the electricity. Lights went out, and so did Wi-Fi. Though a laptop was still charged, it was without Internet.

 

The local cell networks were both degraded by the weather and instantly overloaded as thousands of people around called their friends and family to ask, “Did your power just go out? Are you OK?”

 

Your phone is getting service, but just barely. Calls are patchy. 3G and 4G Internet aren’t working at all, so neither are your apps. All you can depend on is the most resilient, and limited, feature of your cell service: Text messages.

 

The Washington Post had a great post up about how to use Twitter (http://wapo.st/S6M5D4), which was originally a text-based service, without Internet access. But there’s a lot more you can do with SMS — from Twitter and Facebook to email and search. Here’s how to access the Internet without the Internet:

 

You can still use Google even if all you have is SMS access. Just add 466453 (GOOGLE) to your phone book, then text to it as if you’re searching.

 

Here’s something you may not have known about your phone number: It has an e-mail address. Almost every carrier operates what’s called an e-mail gateway, meaning that you can send and receive e-mails via text.

 

Here’s how to figure out your phone’s e-mail address:

 

If you’re on Verizon, it’s yournumber@vtext.com (as in 5551234567@vtext.com), or if that doesn’t work, yournumber@vzwpix.com

 

If you’re on AT&T, it’s yournumber@txt.att.net, or if that doesn’t work yournumber@mms.att.net

 

If you’re on Sprint, it’s yournumber@messaging.sprintpcs.com

 

If you’re on T-Mobile, it’s yournumber@tmomail.net

 

(For other carriers, or to troubleshoot yours, check here.)

 

Now, to receive your e-mail via SMS, you’ll need to forward it to your gateway address: Most e-mail services offer this for free in the settings page. Here’s how to do it in Gmail, for example. You’ll have to turn this on before you lose Internet access. So, like, now.

 

If this doesn’t work, depending on your carrier and e-mail provider, you can try an automated forwarding service such as TXTJet.

 

Add a forwarding address

 

To send e-mails via text, you can usually just enter an e-mail address instead of a phone number. These same e-mail gateways work in reverse, meaning you can either respond directly to messages forwarded through the gateway or send a new message by entering “email_address@whatever.com” in the recipient box in your texting app. This works on many older phones, too, though typing out email addresses on a T9 keypad will be a chore.

 

It’s not the most graceful process, but it works.

 

You can do almost anything on Twitter via SMS, which, if you’re interested, you can read about here. But in the event of an outage, there are really only two Twitter SMS features you’ll need.

 

To get simple updates from any account, set up an SMS Fast Follow. This does not require your Twitter account, and will keep your text volume low. Just send “Follow [username]” to 40404. (No @ symbol required.) This will let you receive updates from important accounts, but won’t let you post. Some suggestions and example for Fast Follows, though yours will be location-specific:

 

@nycgov

@wsjweather

@fema

@twc_hurricane

 

To post to Twitter, follow these instructions from Twitter’s FAQ:

 

How to add your phone to your existing Twitter account via SMS:

- Send a text to your Twitter code [40404] with the word START.

- We’ll reply and ask you to text YES to the Twitter short code.

- Text your username to the same number. Do not use the @ symbol or quotation marks. Send your username ONLY. For example: netrecruiter

- Next, text your password. This is case sensitive, so be sure you are sending your password correctly.

- That’s it! You’re ready to go!

 

Your account can now be used with the whole range of Twitter text commands, found here. A few important ones:

 

ON: turns ALL your authorized Twitter updates and notifications on.

 

OFF: turns ALL phone notifications off.

 

Otherwise, anything you send to 40404 will be posted from your account. (These instructions only work for Verizon, AT&T, and affiliated MVNOs.)

 

This used to be more functional, but you can still have Facebook forward you notifications and private messages via SMS, as well as post status updates. You can also respond to private messages, which is potentially valuable if you don’t have someone’s phone number but happen to be Facebook friends.

 

To activate Facebook via SMS, go to your Facebook account settings and click “Mobile” on the left side of the page. Turn on Facebook Message forwarding and Notifications. (You can customize which ones get through in a submenu.)

 

Once this is set up, you can also post a status update by texting it to 32665 (FBOOK).

16. May 2012

Going Virtual

Filed under: Musings — admin @ 10:29

Just think of it! Sipping a frosty drink while sitting in a lounge chair on the beach – and on your lap sits a computer with an aircard. Your “virtual office”.

When I first starting dreaming about working from home full time, visions of a clean house, on-demand gourmet lunches, and selling my car clouded most of my reasoning.

While the benefits of going virtual are obvious, how to get your boss to see those benefits can often be less-obvious.

But the truth is, this move does have to benefit your company or boss in some way for them to agree to let you work remotely. So before you ask for a meeting with your superior, sit down and compose a request by answering the following questions:

1. First and most importantly, will working from home actually help you do your job?

Unless you’ve done something to personally insult yours, bosses make decisions based on job performance and productivity.

If your job description involves the physical supervision of employees in their cubes or work spaces, you probably need to consider a career change rather than going virtual. If, however, your position requires a high level of creativity and focus and you spend most of your day alone, bring that up.

Working in a loud, booming office environment can make it hard to concentrate, and sometimes even to get things done. Emphasize that working virtually will allow you more control over your environment and allow you to focus on providing high quality work. What’s not to like about that?

2. Does your company’s communication structure support going virtual?

Does your company already include several virtual folks. Are meetings held on Skype or GoTo Meeting conference calls, or do you spend the day with your eyes glued on the Microsoft Outlook home screen.

This is an ideal situation for going virtual, but perhaps it is not your situation. If you can be patient, take the long-term guerilla approach by slowly suggesting best practices and different technologies that can build toward a more virtual business structure six to 12 months down the line.

3. Do you have comfortable and relaxed communication habits with your supervisors and teammates?

Maybe you use Skype and are well-liked on your team… but could you shoot a text to someone who does graphics or pick up the phone and call your editor without extreme awkwardness?

The state of your current team interaction can either be a hindrance (Uhh…why are you calling me?) or a blessing (Hey, what up?). Strong relationships that will encourage cooperation and teamwork regardless of where you work is what makes a team shine, virtual or not.

If this does not describe your current situation, put your time and effort into building those kinds of relationships rather than crafting the perfect thesis on working virtually. Because without this vital piece, your transition probably won’t be smooth anyhow.

4. Have you proven yourself to be a resourceful, passionate and dedicated employee?

Here’s a wake up call: if you’re new to the company (six months or less), you’re wasting your breath with this request and possibly harming your reputation.

Working virtually is about trust. If your boss, HR or the CEO doesn’t trust you without hesitation to work the hours you say you have worked (and even sometimes, honestly, if your boss/HR/CEO doesn’t like you), virtual will never happen for you. Work on being likeable and give it time.

5. Do you have a dedicated professional working space at home?

Make sure you let your boss know how you’re going to do your work. Speak up about your reliable internet, scanner, printer and dedicated phone line. If you have a full-on home office, all the better.

The goal here is to give your employer the picture of an idyllic, calm and controlled workspace that just happens to be in your house instead of in a cube.

6. Finally, don’t make demands.

You’re asking a big, fat favor. You’re asking for a gift, for trust and for someone to help you make your life easier. The last thing your proposal needs is a tone of entitlement.

Give your boss every reason to say yes by suggesting it as a suggestion. Offer your reasoning, ask for permission, and ask for it to happen on a trial basis.

Try a closing line like this on your written request:

If you would allow me to try this schedule on a trial basis with room for feedback and flexibility to attend important meetings and events at the office, I feel that this venue would enable me to reach my best potential at this company.

A little groveling with a lot of logic and reasoning will pass on the perfect tone.

4. April 2012

16 Unique Job Boards to Help You Find Your Candidate

Filed under: Strategies,Techniques — admin @ 12:16

Whether you want a candidate in tech, television or typography, there’s likely a specialty job board out there designed to meet your specific desires. Here are 15 unique job boards to help jump-start your next candidate search:

1. Escape the City (http://escapethecity.org/) – Talented 20-somethings looking to ditch the 9-to-5 and “do something different.”

London-based founders Rob and Dom believe there’s more to life than doing work that doesn’t matter to you. More than 50,000 corporate professionals around the globe use this site to make their next career move.

2. 37signals Job Board (http://jobs.37signals.com/) – Programmers, designers, business types and iPhone developers.

Since 2006, this no-frills website has connected job candidates with industry leaders like Apple, The New York Times, Facebook and American Express.

3. Krop (http://www.krop.com/#!/) – Creative job-seekers from art directors and copywriters to web designers and developers.

This site works double-duty as a portfolio host and receives more than one million visitors each month. We love the Pluck-t portion of the site, which profiles a daily hand-picked peek at a portfolio.

4. Mediabistro (http://www.mediabistro.com/) – Anyone who creates content – whether you’re an author, blogger, writer or editor.

Frequently updated job boards keep job-seekers coming back, but it’s Mediabistro’s bulletin boards, classes (both online and in real life) and in-depth “how to” informational pieces that create community.

5. Tweet My Jobs (http://www.tweetmyjobs.com/) – Anyone who’s tired of filling out long (and exhausting) applications on online job boards.

It’s like Mad Libs for job-seekers. Type in your desired role and industry and how you wish to receive job leads (via email, mobile or Twitter) and matches are sent directly to you. Heavy hitters like Starbucks, UPS and Verizon all use this hiring tool.

6. Glassdoor (http://www.glassdoor.com/index.htm) – This little black dress of job board sites offers resources for a wide variety of fields – from customer service and clerical positions to health care and human resources.

It includes lots of employee-generated content, which means an insider peek at anonymous salaries, company reviews and a sneak peek of interview questions and protocols.

7. Talent Zoo (http://www.talentzoo.com/) – Advertising, creative, digital, marketing and new media folks.

This easy-to-navigate site not only connects qualified individuals with clients, but also offers helpful blogs and columns from industry thought-leaders.

8. Job Postings (http://www.jobpostings.ca/) – College students looking for practical job-hunting advice, who want to connect directly with employers.

This one-stop career resource offers a wealth of information, including articles, blog posts, a monthly e-advice column and a quick and easy “dream job” search engine. Its magazine is Canada’s largest career lifestyle magazine for university and college students.

9. Indeed (http://www.indeed.com/) – Anyone who seeks a more efficient job-application process.

With a few clicks of a mouse, applicants can narrow down job possibilities by position, salary, title, location and job type.

10. Chef2Chef (http://www.chef2chef.net/) – Culinary art students, chefs and hospitality industry types looking for positions in culinary field.

Whether you’re a baker, bartender, restaurant manager or sommelier, this site features jobs across the country, as well as resources for those still in school, just starting out or looking for a career change.

11. Journalism Jobs (http://www.journalismjobs.com/) – Anyone involved in publishing and media.

Not only does this site offer extensive job listings, it also features fellowship, internship and online contest opportunities. We love its savvy industry commentary and event listings, too.

12. Think Beyond the Label (http://www.thinkbeyondthelabel.com/Job-Board/Job-Board.aspx) – Workers with disabilities.

Job results are prioritized to first list those companies that are actively recruiting qualified job candidates with disabilities. The site also provides tools to employers so can they hire people with disabilities and seamlessly integrate them into the workforce.

13. Law Jobs (http://www.lawjobs.com/index.jsp) – People looking for careers in the legal field.

Job-seekers can browse by category or location for everything from contract work to in-house positions. The site offers many resources, including connecting workers with temporary legal staffing agencies and legal recruiters.

14. Public Relations Society of America Job Center (http://www.prsa.org/jobcenter/) – Public relations, communications and marketing job-seekers.

The site offers handy education and professional resources from entry to senior level, as well as a tool for those considering a career change to public relations.

15. Mad Jobs (http://jobs.mad.co.uk/) – Design, marketing and advertising types.

This UK-based creative firm has its finger on the pulse of the new media industry.

16. Careerjet (http://www.careerjet.com) – Gives job seekers access to a huge selection of jobs that are sourced from various internet sites, saving the trouble of having to visit each site individually.

8. March 2012

Do Your Passwords Suck?

Filed under: Strategies,Tools — admin @ 00:44

The only person you can rely on to keep your password secure is yourself. You’re probably not doing enough to keep number one safe. The reason: Your special lump of letters, numbers, and symbols are likely spread over too many sites, are not long enough, and are probably too personal. Most of our passwords suck. And it’s kind of a big problem.

 

The thing to understand is that the biggest threat to your security isn’t some creep sitting in front of your email login screen, randomly bruteforcing his way into your account. Nope, you’re up against computers that can run thousands of encrypted passwords by dictionaries of several languages, everything in the World Fact Book, and Wikipedia in a matter of minutes.

 

Numbers substituted for letters is really, really bad. Most password applications will try that before they do plain English. Patterns on a keyboard are bad news, too. It doesn’t require much to fell some 6-character entry made from your dog’s name with some digits tacked on. People will use their birth year. If there are four digits at the end, it’s not a remarkable coincidence that most start with 19.

 

What can you do about it? The most important thing you can do to a single password is to make it long. Adding one more character makes it exponentially more difficult to break-even if you don’t use silly characters. Focusing on length, Appppppppppple with 11 ‘P’s,’ is actually really good. Size does matter – suggest a password 12-14 characters long.

 

Storing your passwords in a spreadsheet or email is also a BIG No-No. One breach means access to your whole life.

 

One trick is to start with a line from a favorite song. Pull the first letter of each word in the line and stick them together for something that’s easy to recall but very difficult to crack. This trick provides length—which stifles brute force attempts—and randomness—keeping clear of anything that would pop up in a dictionary.

 

Or try using every tool you can on your keyboard. You can use parentheses in your password. Letters, numbers, special characters, and upper case—if you’re allowed to, you should use them all.

 

Keeping track of the dozens of passwords you’re required to remember is pretty daunting. There are just so many other things we have to keep straight. Get yourself a password manager service. These will allow you to create crazy-secure 14-character, dictionary-search proof, symbol-using passwords for every site you visit, without relying on your brain to remember all the gibberish. Here are some to consider:

 

LastPass (https://lastpass.com/) – manages all of your passwords, as well as additional data in a simple, easy-to-use interface

Price: Basic for Windows, Mac, Linux: Free. Premium (includes mobile) $1/month

 

1Password (https://agilebits.com/onepassword) – desktop versions of the client will also sync via a Dropbox account with iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad versions

Price: $50 after 30-day trial. $10.00 (iPhone and iPod Touch) and $15 (iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch).

 

KeePass (http://keepass.info/index.html) – open-source application with a sizable user base behind it

Price: Free

 

Clipperz (http://www.clipperz.com/) – online password manager that doesn’t require you to download any software

Price: Free

11. February 2012

I Finally Found a Purple Squirrel

Filed under: Musings — admin @ 00:09

Purple Squirrel Here is my proof!!!
Example 1
Example 2
Example 3
Example 4

8. February 2012

Top 10 Strategy – Spam Avoidance

Filed under: Strategies — admin @ 10:31

There are easily-avoidable problems that can make your email look like junk mail, the first being sloppy design.

This includes writing in ALL CAPS or random bright colors, using spammy keywords, and creating one giant image and pasting it in, instead of creating real content for people to read.

Broken HTML code can also cause spam filtering issues, which is why you should test, test, and then test again before you send your campaign. Make sure everything works.

Sending too often or not often enough can also be a problem, so respect your list. Think about how much stuff you’d like to receive. If you decide to change your frequency, do it with fair notice to your list, and expect some unsubscribes due to the change.

For even more detailed tips, read the How to Avoid Spam Filters guide by MailChimp.

6. January 2012

10 Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Tips To Get You Started

Filed under: Strategies,Techniques — admin @ 12:12

1.       Monitor your search standings.

2.       Be conscious of placing appropriate keywords throughout every aspect of your site: your titles, content, URLs, and image names.

3.       Integrate internal links into your site (link back to yourself) — it is an easy way to boost traffic to individual pages.

4.       Add a site map — a page listing and linking to all the other major pages on your site — makes it easier for spiders to search your site.

5.       Make your URLs more search-engine-friendly by naming them with clear keywords.

6.       Flash and AJAX all share a common problem – you can’t link to a single page… Don’t use Frames at all and use Flash and AJAX sparingly for best SEO results.”

7.       Spiders can only search text, not text in your images — which is why you need to make the words associated with your images as descriptive as possible.

8.       Content needs to be fresh — updating regularly and often is crucial for increasing traffic.

9.       Distribute links to fresh content on your site across appropriate social networking platforms.

10.   Direct more traffic to your site by developing relationships with other sites.

29. December 2011

How to Access the Free Monthly AIRS Sourcing Report

Filed under: Strategies,Tools — admin @ 11:55

To get your report sent directly to your email address, you will need to register with AIRS (reports are free) at: http://www.airsdirectory.com/mc//training_news_newsletters.guid

The AIRS Sourcing Report offers free monthly tips, tricks and groundbreaking technologies to help you find the best talent online.

If you want to first evaluate the content of these free sourcing reports, go to: www.google.com

and put in this search string:

site:airsdirectory.com “AIRS Sourcing Report”|”Sourcing Report” Current|recruter|guide|solution|”press release”|training inurl:*2011*

From these results, you can quickly view, print out, or save the AIRS Sourcing Reports from Sep – Dec 2011, and other earlier ones as well.

23. September 2011

Making Simple & Easy Choices to Creating a Secure Password

Filed under: Strategies,Techniques,Tools — admin @ 19:17

There is no such thing as a perfect password. A committed hacker can crack any password, given enough time and the right “dictionary” or “brute force” tools. But just like breaking into a car, if the protection is strong enough, the hacker will become discouraged and pursue an easier target.

 

1. Start With a Base Word Phrase.

 

A good password starts with a base word phrase. Choose a memorable catchphrase, quotation, or easy-to-remember saying, and take the first letter from each word. Choose a phrase that is memorable to you.

 

Examples of some base word phrases:

 

    * Can’t See the Forest Through the Trees:  cstfttt

    * Put Up or Shut Up:  puosu

    * If the Shoe Fits, Wear It:  itsfwi

    * You Can Lead a Horse to Water:  yclahtw

    * The Last Mile Is Always Uphill: tlmiau

    * I Think, Therefore I Am:  ittia

    * Oh Say Can You See:  oscys

    * My Dog Quinnie Loves Mystery Suprises: mdqlms

 

Suggestion: try this list of acronym phrases you could use for inspiration

http://netforbeginners.about.com/od/internetglossary/a/glossary-of-internet-jargon-and-abbreviations.htm

 

Suggestion: try this list of famous quotations and catchphrases

http://forum.digital-digest.com/f41/famous-cliches-quotes-1-liners-etc-86123.html

 

2. Lengthen the Phrase

 

Passwords start to become strong at 6 characters long. While a long password can be annoying to type, a long password really helps to slow down brute force hacker attacks.

 

Tip: lengthen your password by adding the website name or computer software name to the base phrase. For example:

 

    * cstftttGmail

    * puosuVista

    * itsfwiEpinions

    * yclahtwWin7

    * tlmiauMac

    * ittiaAboutdotcom

    * oscysPayPal

    * mdqlmsEbay

 

Tech tip: passwords that are 15 characters and more are extremely strong, because Microsoft Windows will not store scrambled passwords in hidden files once they are 15 characters or longer.

 

3. Scramble the Phrase

 

Scrambling does not necessarily mean rearranging the letters. Rather, scrambling your password can effectively be achieved by swapping one or more of the password letters with a non-alphabetic character, and then purposely including uppercase and lowercase letters within the password. Scrambling creatively uses the shift key, punctuation marks, the @ or % symbols, and even semi-colons and periods. Using numbers as substitutes for letters is another strong scrambling technique.

 

Examples of scrambling:

 

    * CstftttGm@il

    * Puo5uVista

    * 1tsfwiEpinions

    * Ycl@htwWin7

    * 7lmiauMac

    * ittiaAboutdotcom

    * o5cysPayPal

    * mdqlm?!Ebay

 

4. Lastly: Rotate/Change Your Password Regularly

 

At work, your network people will require you to change your password every several days. At home, you should rotate your passwords as a matter of good computer hygiene. If you are using different passwords for different websites, rotate portions of your passwords every few weeks. Note that rotating parts of the password, not the entire passwords, will help deter hackers from stealing your phrases. If you can memorize three or more passwords at the same time, then you are in good shape to resist brute force hacker attacks.

 

Examples:

 

    * mdqlm?!Gmail

    * CstftttVista

    * Puo5uEpinions

    * 1tsfwiWin7

    * Ycl@htwMac

    * 7lmiauAboutdotcom

    * ittiaPayPal

    * o5cysEBay

 

5. Advanced Password Tips

 

There are several other resources for building strong passwords.

 

    * See more samples of strong passwords here.

http://netforbeginners.about.com/od/lockdownyourpc/a/examples_of_good_passwords.htm

 

    * See other personal password suggestions.

http://netforbeginners.about.com/u/ua/lockdownyourpc/user_suggestions_creating_strong_passwords.htm

 

    * A FREE online password generator.

http://javascript.about.com/library/blpasswd.htm

 

    * There are multiple drag-and-drop software tools that help you bypass hacker keylogger software.

 

Free tools like:

 

KeyWallet Password Manager

http://www.keywallet.com/kw_download.php?id=4

 

KeePass – a free open source password manager, which helps you to manage your passwords in a secure way.

http://keepass.info/download.html

 

Roboform

http://www.roboform.com/dist/RoboForm-Setup.exe

 

work well because you can avoiding typing your passwords entirely, and just let your mouse do the data entry.

 

    * You can also employ a digital vault like Password Safe. This kind of software creates personal “lockers” to keep all your passwords locked under a master password.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/passwordsafe/files/passwordsafe/3.26/pwsafe-3.26.exe/download

 

    * Or try phrasing tips for password generation.

http://antivirus.about.com/od/securitytips/a/passwords.htm

29. July 2011

Pros and Cons of a Virtual Career Fair

Filed under: Strategies,Tools — admin @ 15:10

Cons:

 

Distractions. Virtual job fair recruiting booths are staffed from the comfort of a hiring manager’s computer. That also means the possibility that recruiters or hiring managers may simply forget to sign in during the ‘live’ hours of an online job fair. To overcome this limitation, virtual job fair organizers need to obtain the buy-in of hiring managers and recruiters including blocking short spells of time on their calendars.

 

Overly Objective. The virtual career fair misses the combination of eye-contact and other body language that allow a job candidate to make a good first impression, or a recruiter to obtain first impressions. This is the biggest limitation of a virtual career fair – the absence of face-to-face contact, the absence of softer aspects that go into forming first impressions about a job candidate or a hiring organization’s culture. To counter this objection, one must remember that the virtual career fair is designed primarily to serve as a powerful pre-screening mechanism rather than an interview tool. Recruiters who may have at their disposal tools such as web-cams to bridge the distance, are still hesitant to use them in a virtual career fair. That is because of the gray area of repercussions relating to matters of equal employment opportunity, should a candidate not make the first cut after a virtual web-cam session. A virtual job fair is for recruiters to make instant contact with the best job candidates, no matter where they are physically located. Often, job candidates might be busy at work or located in faraway places. The virtual job fair wraps itself around their schedule, allowing them to log in and directly talk to hiring managers from the privacy of their computers for the initial screening.

 

Inertia about New Technologies. Recruiters and hiring managers may have an apprehension about learning to use a new tool for recruiting, no matter how simple it may be to use. This is a normal human reaction to any form of change. Look for technology that allows recruiting booth owners to add and manage their own content. A highly responsive technical support team hand-holds even the novice user. With repeated use of the platform, this issue is easily overcome.

 

Pros:

 

Incredibly Convenient. The single biggest advantage of virtual job fairs in the minds of recruiters as well as job candidates and organizers that we have heard over and over again is that it is ‘extremely convenient’. A virtual booth can be set up typically within an hour. It may take some time to plan out the content in the virtual recruiting booth. However, after that it is simply point-click actions, requiring no special software downloads and no special knowledge of software programming.

 

No Travel. When job candidates from the military plan their return to civilian duty they can use a virtual job fair platform to connect live with recruiters even before they return home. Overseas job candidates, many from the U.S. Military, can now apply from various remote locations. Only a virtual job fair makes this possible.

 

Quick Turnaround Time. Change the job listings in your virtual booth with a couple of clicks, then instantly publish and preview your virtual recruiting booth. Now you are ready for your next virtual job fair. Only in a virtual job fair is such a quick turnaround time possible. Market it and promote it in any part of the world you desire using the power of social media and the Internet. With a virtual career fair, rinse-and-repeat is probably easier than doing laundry in a modern washing machine.

 

Virtual job fairs are definitely worth a try, and you might even be able to weave it into your regular recruiting program without straining your budget too much, because they are highly cost-effective.

 

+++++++++

Some Virtual Recruiting Providers

Unisfair
UBM Studios
CareerArc Group (TweetMyJobs was acquired by them)
iTradeFair (see there YouTube Infomercial)

13. April 2011

Top 10 Tool – CraigsPal Free©

Filed under: Strategies,Tools — admin @ 23:48

CraigsPal Free© (Craigslist Reader Pro) is composed simply of the search screen from the CraigsPal© member software, with NO search limitations. It is free to use, and gives you tremendous power to search and browse Craigslist. It also gives you an idea how the search section of the CraigsPal© organizer software works.
Download free version at: http://craigspal.com/Download-CraigsPal

Features:

- Personally selected search parameters
- Custom multi-city, multi-state, multi-country – Craigslist Nationwide Search
- Advanced keyword interface(positive/negative keywords, OR, AND, phrase, group)
- Craigslist preview browser screen
- Browsing, filtering, flagging with keybord shortcuts
- Sort results by price, date, location
- Unwanted ads/spam flagging feature

16. November 2010

Top 10 Tool – Boolean Bar Toolbar

Filed under: Strategies,Tools — admin @ 08:53

The Boolean Bar Toolbar is compatible with the following Internet browsers:

- Microsoft Internet Explorer versions 6 and above on Windows Vista, XP, and 2000 operating systems
- Mozilla Firefox versions 1 and above, including beta versions, on Windows (Vista, XP, and 2000), Mac, and Linux operating systems.

+++++++++++

Examples of the some of the many search algorithms found on this toolbar:

site:360.yahoo.com keyword skill (inurl:profile OR intitle:profile)

site:weblogs.com keyword location

site:weblogger.com keyword location

site:typepad.com skill skill location (“about me” OR profile)

site:technorati.com keyword keyword location

site:blogs.msdn.com location skill skill keyword

site:wordpress.com skill “job title” location -how -write

site:livejournal.com “job title” location profile

site:xanga.com keyword skill profile -how

KEYWORD (intitle:contact OR inurl:contact OR intitle:contactus OR inurl:contactus OR intitle:company OR inurl:company OR email OR phone) -inurl:product -inurl:scholar -inurl:books -site:edu

KEYWORD site:linkedin.com intitle:”company profile”

KEYWORD (intitle:”board of directors” OR intitle:”board members” OR inurl:investors OR intitle:investors OR intitle:”share holders” OR inurl:”share holders” OR founder OR CEO OR “chief executive officer”)

KEYWORD (site:linkedin.com OR site:hoovers.com OR site:jigsaw.com OR site:zoominfo.com) -(-inurl:find OR -intitle:”linkedin directory” -inurl:dir)

KEYWORD site:spoke.com OR site:amazon.com OR site:jobster.com

KEYWORD (intitle:about OR inurl:about OR intitle:aboutus OR inurl:aboutus OR intitle:profile OR inurl:profile)

KEYWORD site:myspace.com OR site:facebook.com OR site:twitter.com

KEYWORD (site:digg.com OR site:ryze.com OR site:hi5.com OR site:plaxo.com OR site:friendster.com OR

site:wink.com OR site:xing.com)

site:www.naymz.com inurl:search (“keywords” OR “keywords”) “title1″ OR “title2″ “United States”

site:zoominfo.com intitle:”business people” keyword skill location

site:pipl.com “job title” keyword location (inurl:people OR intitle:profile) -jobs

mailto=*=merck.com OR email=*=@merck.com senior.auditor (atlanta OR georgia OR ga)

mailto: “@merck.com” (philadelphia | wayne) Vice OR VP 212

“email * * merck.com”

(keyword 1 OR keyword 2) (inurl:list | inurl:~members | inurl:directory | intitle:list |

(“DNA sequencing” OR PCR OR metabolic) (inurl:list | inurl:~members | inurl:directory | intitle:list | intitle:~members | intitle:~directory | inurl:staff | inurl:association | inurl:board | inurl:committee | intitle:association | intitle:board | intitle:committee | intitle:staff) (email | contact) ext:xls

site:twitter.com intitle:on “San Diego” “software engineer” java -jobs

use search.twitter.com – engineer j2ee near:”San Diego” within:100mi

site:twitter.com intitle:”on twitter” “bio * * “software engineer” ”

site:craigslist.org inurl:location inurl:res “job title” (“keywords” | “keywords” | “keywords”) (inurl:contact | intitle:contact | intext:contact | email | phone)

9. August 2010

Search Tools to Maximize Your Twitter Presence

Filed under: Tools — admin @ 09:24

oneforty gives you access to the very best tools that make Twitter valuable. This is your chance to find, rate, collect and share the best tools for you, and to tell the world what you’re accomplishing with Twitter. Below is a sample listing of search tools that can maximize your Twitter presence.

Addictomatic – Inhale the Web. Meta and social real time search engine that includes results from twitter, blogs, news, flickr, youtube and more. Great read more…way to track your brand, ego surf, or create a buzz dashboard with one click.
BackType – real-time search engine for news and opinions. It lets you see what people are saying about topics that interest you.
Cascaad – interest-centered social hub and networking service that helps you discover and join relevant conversations on the topics read more…that you care about. Cascaad filters your social streams based on your personal interests and recommends new content that you might like. Cascaad also organizes conversations in topics page, so that you can easily track the relevant discussions on your favorite topics and find people with similar passions. The service is accessible via our Web site and iPhone app, as well as through APIs available to third-party developer.
ChirpCity – web-based Twitter app for looking at tweets that related to a specific city. On the front page, you see a big list of US and read more…Canadian cities. If you click on a city, it shows you a list of tweets about that city, a list of tweets from that city, and at the top of the page is a row of the top Twitter users from that city. You can also search for any city you want, if your city isn’t listed on the front page.
CrowdEye – new generation of search engine which looks at the worldwide web in a new way. By tracking discussions on Twitter, we can read more…help our users find out what’s important to them right now in real time. CrowdEye has created innovative technology to scan through tweets, retweets, twitter links and more. We then provide you with powerful yet easy ways to slice, dice, summarize and categorize the data to answer your questions. Whether you’re interested in following your brand, baseball, celebrities, movies, or anything else people are talking about – CrowdEye can help you know what people are thinking.
Eventbrite – empowers you with simple but powerful tools to manage, promote, and sell out your event. It’s free to sign up and get started. read more…Attendees can add their Twitter handles when they register for events and Tweet to their followers their registration. Promote your event with a #hashtag.
FAROO – Peer-to-peer web Search Engine, that integrates Twitter search to discover discussions and people related to the query.
find2follow – minimalistic approach to finding people you may like to follow on Twitter. It’s free, fun, and safe! No sign-in, no sign-up, just read more…one textbox and a button. Interesting twitterers just 1-click away. It also has an anti-celebrity filter that makes the search result set even more relevant to you. Enjoy!
GovTwit Directory – World’s largest government social media directory, highlighting government agencies worldwide using Twitter.
LazyTweet – service akin to Yahoo Answers, albeit one which doesn’t require the user to sign up. It expands the question’s reach beyond read more…Twitter, to the number of users using LazyTweet. LazyTweet allows the user to ask any question to the community from the comfort of his Twitter account without any hassle of signing up and linking it. It’s as simple as sending a Tweet to LazyTweet.
ListiMonkey – Google Alerts meets Twitter Lists Receive hourly or daily a digest of the tweets from any given Twitter List.
LocaFollow – locate Twitter users by searching in their Bio and Location fields. – It is powered by the Google Search Engine, so read more…you don’t need to add yourself to the site, Google will find you, and LocaFollow going to consult your profile details using the Twitter API. – You can see all the user details including his last tweet, without need of more “info buttons”. – You can authenticate through the OAuth protocol at Twitter.com, so we won’t need your passwords. – You can follow all the users in you search results by a simple click of the “Bulk Follow” button. – The first time you enter, LocaFollow going to geo-localize your IP and will show you a lot of Twitter users in your city. – Since results comes from Google, the order will be the same at Google search result pages. That’s why will be very important that you SEO optimize your Twitter profile to appear as the first in the results for your location or by some keywords in your Bio. – You know that sometimes Twitter API get down, we won’t abandon you, LocaFollow will show you the information about the Twitter profiles that is stored at the Google databases. – All the work is done with javascript at the client side, that’s way you will have a nice user experience without need to reload the page.
Mippin – fastest and easiest way to get your favorite web content on your mobile phone. Whether you want to follow breaking news or read more…tech updates, from big publishers or tiny blogs, Mippin brings them all seamlessly together in the perfect format for your phone. You can quickly search and browse, see what others are reading and share your own discoveries. And Mippin is smart: it remembers exactly what you like and delivers automatic one-click updates. Just type mippin.com into your mobile browser and see just how quick and easy the web becomes.
MWD Mobile – Twitter client for mobile phones. Features: * Direct Messages -Send and Receive direct messages * Replies – Check replies read more…from others * Search – looking for something specific? * Followers, Following, Public TimeLine, Private Timeline
My Twitter Cloud – Search interesting Twitter people, brands or companies from all the world. Search your favorite topics, hobbies, business.
nsyght – monitor and search your twitter and facebook social graph in real time. nsyght supports threaded discussions, read more…embedding of popular videos and photos, easy tools to post and share items – even across networks, and powerful search and filtering of your social graph.
OneRiot – realtime search engine, helps users find the news, blogs and videos that people are buzzing about. By indexing fresh web content read more…as it emerges, then ordering it to reflect current social relevance, OneRiot results answer the question: what is happening right now?
Rally – finds tweets where your friends mention upcoming plans, and puts them on a single page so you can easily find out what’s going on.
Scoopler – real-time search engine. We aggregate and organize content being shared on the internet as it happens, like eye-witness read more…reports of breaking news, photos and videos from big events, and links to the hottest memes of the day. We do this by constantly indexing live updates from services including Twitter, Flickr, Digg, Delicious and more. When you search for a topic on Scoopler, we give you the most relevant results, updated in real-time.
Searchtastic – Twitter search engine that: Searches “historical” tweets from months ago. Exports search results to Excel. Expands read more…shortened URLs. Allows searches for a particular user and the people that user follows. Shows popular topics during the last 24 hours in a hash tag cloud.
Social Collider - reveals cross-connections between conversations on Twitter. One can search for usernames or topics, which are tracked read more…through time and visualized much like the way a particle collider draws pictures of subatomic matter.
SocialWhoIs – is to Twitter and FriendFeed what “Who Is” is to web sites and IP addresses. It reveals who you should follow and why – based on relevance read more…and not popularity. SocialWhoIs gives you a snapshot of any given user name with links to their assumed social network profiles, related keywords/topics, as well as a “home base” link. You can also search tags to identify individuals worth following and potentially engaging.
Sparsely – Sparse.ly is just like twitter search except it only indexes the tweets of the people you follow. You can see trends based on your friends read more…tweets, and search the history of their tweets. We also geocode their tweets so you can view them on a map.
Summizer – Twitter Search App for the iPhone. Summizer quickly and easily tracks Twitter and follows the trends you care about. Summizer read more…allows you to save your search terms for 1 touch access later. Use Summizer to watch what people are saying about a topic in real time, check user opinions about your new product feature, or see how people are reacting to a major event.
Tagalus – dictionary of hashtags. Users can contribute definitions, vote on definitions, and decide which best describes the given tag. read more…In addition, you can send a message to @tagalus along with the word “define” followed by a hashtag in order to receive a definition via @reply
TagWalk – Twitter-powered Reputation and Recommendation Engine. It wanders around Twitter and the web discovering noteworthy things and read more…maps the connections between them. Use it to research users, hashtags and discover new things.
twazzup – Search twitter. Get real insights on different hot topics
Tweefind – search Twitter and displays results ordered according to a rank assigned to users. This rank (Tweerank) depends on how read more…popular/relevant/active those users are on Twitter. The higher this rank is, the more authority a user has. The Tweerank is assigned by an algorithm / spider working 24/7 and changes dinamically depending on how much a Twitter user is engaging.
Tweepfind – search for interesting Twitter users based on keywords on their profile. It shows them ordered by Tweerank, a rank that read more…measures how “engaging” a user is on Twitter (same used in Tweefind.com)
TweepSearch – Search your Twitter friends and followers by their bio! Also search over 11m Twitter profiles. Another Twitter app (see http://tweetstats.com) by @dacort.
Tweetag – Browse the twittosphere with nested tagclouds and never miss any raising trend related to your favorite topics
TweetRiver – Filter out the noise, select the absolute best tweets, and embed them on your website.
Twendz - Twitter mining web application that utilizes the power of Twitter Search, highlighting conversation themes and sentiment of the read more…tweets that talk about topics you are interested in. As the conversation changes, so does twendz by evaluating up to 70 tweets at a time. When new tweets are posted, they are dynamically updated, minute by minute.
Twhois – twitter whois tool, able to give detailed information about a certain user. Using thwois it is possible to get both read more…professional data (Complete name, Job position and company) and social networks habits (same user profiles on Digg, StumbleUpon, Google, Flickr, Facebook and so on) of desired users. All data provided are gathered directly from public profiles around the web and are continuously updated. Moreover, logging in via twitter API, it is possible to edit your own profile, adding information or editing existing ones.
Twiangulate – Find new people to follow by seeing who three tweeps (your friends or enemies) follow in common.
TwitDir – Twitter directory, no more. You are looking for someone, something? Just type a few words in the search engine. Enjoy!
TwitterJobSearch – provides contextual search solutions that analyze, organize and extend the reach of job opportunities. TwitterJobSearch read more…looks at the content of every tweet in context to determine its intent and break out filterable data. Getting beyond the 140 character limit of Twitter by going beyond the tweet, the technology also looks at biography information and crawls destination URLs to find additional information and context.
Twtvite – simple event organizer. Create a tweeup. Invite your tweeple via a short url. Manage RSVPs. Search for tweetups in your city. No username/read more…password required. (By @twtapps)
YourVersion – real-time discovery engine that continuously discovers new and relevant web content tailored to your specific interests in read more…real-time. YourVersion also lets you easily share that content with your friends through email, Facebook and Twitter.

31. July 2010

FreeWare for Innovative Recruiters

Filed under: Tools — admin @ 11:29

Speak-A-Message – enables you to send voice emails, using your default email client. The program provides a simple recording interface and automatically attaches the WMA compressed recording to an outgoing message. The program also includes a Speech-to-text features that can automatically transcribe a voice message to text. If you are using Outlook, Speak-A-Message will integrate directly with your email toolbar.

OutWit - is a web collection engine that integrates with Firefox and allows you to browse through and easily grab information, collect media, contacts or files from the Internet. With or without programming or technical knowledge, you can create automatic agents to gather and format the information you seek. OutWit is composed of a kernel, containing the library of functions and of an API, which will allow advanced users to build and distribute their own original tools -called outfits- using the features of the kernel for specific applications. The first outfit, OutWit Hub, is a multi-purpose development tool, meant to showcase a large number of the kernel`s features, to cover a large spectrum of needs.

TwitterBackup – is a simple Java application that enables you to backup all the tweets in your Twitter account and save them as .XML file to your computer. You can supply the output file name and configure a proxy server if needed.

Flock – is a Mozilla based web browser that integrates sharing of photos, Favorites, news and blogging into the browser interface. It currently supports Flickr, Photobucket, del.icio.us, Twitter, Facebook, WordPress, Movable Type, Blogger, LiveJournal and other online services, as well as any RSS feed. You can easily subscribe to any website that offers RSS feeds and read/manage your feeds directly from within Flock. Other features include drag and drop photo sharing and a powerful web search toolbar that searches a variety of online resources simultaneously and returns a quick glance at the most relevant results.

Sylpheed – is a lightweight, yet feature packed, email program that offers all the standard functionality of an email client along with many additional features, such as integrated Bayesian spam filtering, email templates, PGP support, mail processing rules and filters, support for external commands, and more. The program supports POP3, IMAP4rev1 and SMTP, NNTP (NetNews),IPv6 and encrypted communication over SSL/TLSv1. Other features include import/export (eml and Unix mbox format), extensive internationalization and multilingualization support, email search, and more.

Thunderbird – is a full featured email program with built-in junk mail controls, message filters, address book, news groups and more. It offers a clean and easy to use (customizable) interface. Thunderbird also offers security features such as S/MIME, digital signing, message encryption, support for certificates and security devices. Other features include IMAP/POP compatibility, support for HTML mail, labels, quick search, return receipts, LDAP address completion, import tools and more.

Auto Web Browser – is a web search tool, that queries major search engines for the keywords you enter, and automatically downloads the resulting pages to your computer, and automatically surfs further, downloading other potentially interesting pages that were linked from the search engine results. The downloaded pages are organized in a tree view and by search engine, and you can quickly view them, since they are already pre-loaded. The program also allows you to load a list of URLs, and automatically pre-load all of them, so you can quickly browse through them.

26. July 2010

How to Design a Mobile Enabled Website

Filed under: Strategies,Techniques — admin @ 15:59

Is your website mobile? Can your customers find you when they need you the most?

 

It is estimated that mobile advertising growth will continue at a rate of 10% each year throughout the next decade. With statistics like this, no business can afford not to jump on board and stay on top of this highly effective marketing method in this stage of the game.

 

Look around your business and note the people using a smart phone. Are some of your clientele mobile warriors? You might be surprised but odds are if you are one yourself, you are already aware of the growing numbers of people of every demographic that are using their mobile devices for much more than making phone calls.

 

Here are few import points to consider when designing a mobile enabled website for your organization.

 

1. Less is better. Plan your information architecture based upon what users typically want first when they go to your web site. Make a list and prioritize each page or function.

 

2. Minimal use of graphics. The on-the-go mobile user is not going to be wowed by images, pictures and graphics. They are browsing because they are looking for specific information. You want them in and out of your site. You’ll wow them with simplicity.

 

3. Button and font size. Eliminate wasting your visitor’s time by make links and buttons a size that is finger-friendly. Tiny text and button will just bring the visitor closer to exiting your web site.

 

4. If you want to sell products or services via your mobile website, think about using PayPal or Google Checkout. This eliminates the visitor from having to type in all contact and credit card information.

 

5. Promote your site through geo-targeted sites like Google Maps, Bing Maps and Yelp.

 

Your website should be able to read easily on a web capable phone or mobile internet device. If you’re equipped and capable enough to make your own mobile theme, the more power to you, for those of you who don’t have a designer’s or coder’s bone in your body, you have several viable options:

 

WPtouch is a hybrid WordPress theme/plugin. It allows you to pick and choose what content you want to display to mobile browsers, and based on your formatting, plops your data into a beautiful, easy-to-read, mobile WordPress theme. WPtouch loads lightning fast and shows your content beautifully, without interfering with your regular site theme. WPtouch automatically transforms your WordPress blog into a web-application experience when viewed from an iPhoneTM, iPod touchTM, AndroidTM, or BlackBerry StormTM touch mobile device.

http://www.bravenewcode.com/products/wptouch/

 

Mobify is more of a manual tool, you kind of have to know what you’re doing, or at least have someone who does at your disposal. It has a web editor that allows you to style your mobile them yourself. Just using the default style it has after choosing your content won’t cut it. You have to work some CSS magic.

http://mobify.me

 

WordPress Mobile Edition will give your website an iPhone-like makeover. Not much room for customization here, but you can add more mobile user-agents via the settings page.

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpress-mobile-edition/

 

Encouraging communication between yourself and your readers is an endless task, so give them more reason to respond to you by reversing the order of comments, displaying the newest comments on top, right below your post. It’s just a simple setting change, go to your Discussion Settings in the administration area, and choose to display newer comments at the top of each page.

 

Remember, the internet is always changing, and so are the ways we communicate on it. Show your readers you are informed and have an opinion about current events in your niche, and they will be drawn to speak to you.

25. May 2010

Purples Squirrels Discovered at RecruitDC

Filed under: Strategies,Techniques — admin @ 19:52

A purple squirrel is more than just an oddly colored rodent. In the recruiting vernacular, a “purple squirrel” is a metaphor for that very rare, highly sought after, almost extinct species of candidate, because finding this candidate is about as easy as finding a purple squirrel.

How to Find Polygraph Candidates on Google

The strategy I use is filtering all the things I don’t want to see like job postings, etc. Keep your basic skill set search simple. If you get too many results, you can always add more filters to target a specific location or type of polygraph (“full-scope” OR “fullscope” OR “life style” OR lifestyle).

clearance AND polygraph AND resume -recruiter -job -jobs -submit -apply -”looking for” -recruiting -hiring -send -”email to” -”email resume” -opening -”to resume” -”resume database” -”sample resume” -applicant -examiner -chartrecorder

clearance AND polygraph AND “about me” OR bio OR vitae OR cv OR homepage OR profile OR resume OR resumebook -recruiter -job -jobs -submit -apply -”looking for” -recruiting -hiring -send -”email to” -”email resume” -opening -”to resume” -”resume database” -”sample resume” -applicant -examiner -chartrecorder

Place this hyperlink in your browser. It’s a search for any resume that has the word “polygraph”.  Add more filters or come up with your own key words.

http://www.egrabber.com/resumefinder/widget/keycG9seWdyYXBotypegoogleurlsearch_popup.html

30. April 2010

Top 10 Technique – Honing In On That Elusive Resume

Filed under: Strategies,Techniques — admin @ 15:05

How many different words can be used to find a resume or candidate profile, only a resume or profile, and not a job announcement? Crafting a search string that returns only useful information about your intended target is not that hard.

Let’s start with the different ways a resume or candidate profile can be found on the Internet. You want to find the following words in either the title of the web page or the within the URL or web address. Hence, the two commands to use will be “intitle:” and “inurl:”. These are generally universal commands among most of the major search and metasearch engines.

Here are some synonyms or alternative names for how resumes or candidate profiles can be found.

About Me
Bio(s)
Curriculum Vitae
CV(s)
Homepage
Profile(s)
Resume(s)
Resumebook
Vitae

You can further refine your search of that elusive resume or candidate profile by adding qualifiers that are generally found within the body of these pages.

Certification
Education
Experience
Objective
Overview
Qualifications
References
Summary of Qualifications
Work Experience
Work History

And finally, you will need to weed out all those JOBS with some choice words or phrases.

apply
benefits
email resume
email to
eoe
hiring
job
jobs
looking for
opening
recruiter
recruiting
requirements
send
submit
to resume

21. April 2010

Top 10 Tool – More Metasearch Engines

Filed under: Techniques,Tools — admin @ 13:17

PolyMeta is an advanced Web 2.0 meta-search (federated search) and clustering engine. It enables organizations and individuals to simultaneously search diverse information resources on the Web with a common interface. The search results are merged, ranked and presented in relevance order.
www.polymeta.com

Choose Select Sources and check all the search engines below.

Google
Yahoo
Ask
Exalead
AllTheWeb
GigaBlast
Cuil
Bing

Also, try out the AllPlus Meta Search and Discovery Engine which is based on PolyMeta.
www.allplus.com

With Zuula, it is quick and convenient to get results from all the top search engines. Search engines often return very different results for the same terms. Currently, it offers Web, Image, Video, News, Blog, and Job searches and provides the results from your favorite search engine unaltered, so you can check those first and then get results from other search engines simply by clicking on their tabs.
www.zuula.com

Choose Preferences to pick all the search engines. Set your results to 60 per page

Google
Yahoo
Bing
Gigablast
Exalead
Alexa
Entireweb
Mahalo
Mojeek

Try this sample search string: +”top secret/sci” +clearance resume OR “my resume” OR vitae -recruiter -job -jobs -submit -apply -”looking for” -recruiting -hiring -send -”email to” -”email resume” -opening -”to resume”

6. January 2010

Strategies – Unique Web Sites to Leverage Your Recruitment

Filed under: Strategies — admin @ 13:18

Criminal Searches provides the scary-but-useful data on how many criminals live in your neighborhood, what crimes they were convicted of, and, in some cases, their names and personal info. It’s all culled from public records, and is presented as a Google Maps mashup. You can restrict your search to sex offenders, search on a specific name to get a criminal history, or do a general search for criminals by city or zip code.


We have stared into the social-networking abyss and it is the information overload named FriendFeed. The service aggregates all your social content and activity from Facebook, Flickr, Digg, YouTube, Twitter, Last.fm, blogs, and so on. It aggregates your friends’ activity, too, giving you a meta-feed of your online social life. Depending on how active your friends are, it can be a pleasant stream of sociality, or like trying to drink from a firehose.


Without a doubt, Howcast has the best-looking how-to videos on the Web. All kinds of topics like “The Questions That a Good Recruiter Asks a Hiring Manager”, “How To Automate the Resume Sourcing Process” or “How To Recruit With YouTube”. Sign up to get a How-To Video of the Day via e-mail, as well as to be able to edit their how-to wikis, talk to experts in the community area, or upload your own videos. The user-generated stuff is okay, but the Howcast-produced vids are particularly great.


PicApp can make a world of difference on your blog or Web site. It’s a free stock-photo service that lets you quickly and easily grab photos of whatever subject you need for use on your blog. PicApp has quite a large image catalog, and photos range from run-of-the-mill stock photos to celebrity pics.


Visual representations of data are nothing new, but Tag Galaxy takes it to new heights in searching Flickr photos. Enter a single keyword (I used “frog”) and you’ll see a 3D representation of a solar system with the keyword as the sun, orbited by related word “planets” (e.g., “amphibian,” “green,” and “toad”). Click a planet to combine keywords, or just click the sun (your main keyword) to get a unique photo-sphere covered with up to 236 images pulled from Flickr. Spin it in any direction with the mouse, clicking shots for close-ups. It takes a while to surf them all this way, but makes for a fascinating time waster.

4. January 2010

Welcome to 2010

Filed under: Musings,Techniques — admin @ 17:57

Let’s usher in 2010 with more giving than asking. A recent search of “advanced sourcing tips” revealed that there are a ton of “self-professed” experts, who for a bit of bling will divulge all their secrets to you. Whatever happened to sharing what you’ve learned freely with others. I have found over the years that this method of exchange returns much higher returns that can’t be measured in just dollars and cents. If you have been reading this blog, you have found numerous examples of search string algorithms to better identify both passive and active candidates. Below are just a few more. I challenge you to devise some new and more radical strings and identify more sources and venues to find those ever elusive A-list candidates.

 

site:*.craigslist.org/*/res “software engineer” -”this posting has expired”

intitle:resume or inurl:resume (java or j2ee or weblogic) “software engineer”

intitle:resume or inurl:resume (admin or administrator or administration or administer or administered or maintenance or maintained) (server or servers) (mail or email or messaging) (mcse or “microsoft certified systems engineer”)

site:twellow.com “software engineer” and geeks

31. December 2009

Top 10 Tool – AutoSearch

Filed under: Tools — admin @ 19:48

A-list candidates are a recruiter’s market. Hence, the science for discovering these folks, their resume, profile, contact info, and anything else should be reclassified as performing market intelligence. To be an effective and productive analyst, it can take an enormous amount of time in a workday to collect all the necessary leads. So discovering tools that can greatly reduce the time to perform this market intelligence is a godsend to any recruiter. One such new tool on the market is AutoSearch. It does a variety of tasks in the public domain that makes sourcing fun and productive. It scours LinkedIn, ZoomInfo, Plaxo, Xing, Spoke, and Jobster business networking sites as well as the Twitter, Ning, Facebook, and MySpace social networking sites. This tool also employs other web-based research sites such as Mail Tester, 411.com, Google, Whitepages, and pipl.com to best leverage your time.

21. December 2009

Top 10 Technique – The Power of the Word “Resume”

Filed under: Techniques — admin @ 19:30

How many resumes can be found using Google? A bunch! The same is true for most any other search engine. My research revealed that when searching for nothing more than any one of the following versions of the word resume, over 3.6 billion were found. Now, of course, there was no additional filtering to remove jobs or other keywords that would return only true resumes, but the potential results far outstrip anything you could find using all the fee-based resume boards.

Variations on the word Resume

vitæ, resumé, rèsumé, rèsumè, resume, résumé, résumè, CV, vitae, vita

Going one step further, I further refined the search with this algorithm:

(~resumé|~rèsumé|~rèsumè|~résumé|~resume) -intitle:~job -intitle:~jobs -apply -submit -job -jobs -template -”resume writing” -”resume sample”

This produces over 170 million results. However, this is still much too large to work with. Your challenge is to introduce a variety of keywords to further refine your results. All the best.

18. December 2009

Strategies – Effective Recruiting Begins at Home

Filed under: Strategies — admin @ 18:16

If you’re not collecting email addresses on your homepage (and anywhere else you can), you are missing out on opportunities to turn first-time job seekers into your best employees. No matter how they found you – maybe you rented an opt-in list, placed a banner ad or two, distributed a flyer or sent a postcard – if you’re not providing a way for passive/active job seekers and visitors to express interest in hearing from you in the future, that opt-in list rental, that banner ad, flyer or postcard was nothing more than a one-shot deal.

Here are some hints and tips on building your own opt-in emailing list.

Begin by asking for email addresses at every point of customer contact:

- On your company website
- In a guest book
- On customer service or support calls
- On invoices, brochures, customer surveys, feedback forms
- At tradeshows or events
- Place your email list sign-up on your homepage above the fold

You may also want to place it on other pages, like “careers” or “contact us” but whatever you do, don’t hide it! Same goes for your guest book. Place it prominently. Ask your employees to make it a part of their routine to ask friends if they would like to receive your newsletter, to receive special promotions, or to be notified of private events.

I want confidentiality

Just get the email address to start. Your visitors’ and jobseekers’ trust must be earned and this only happens over time. To that end, also make your privacy policy clear up front. Make sure they understand how you will be using their email address, that it won’t be sold or traded and that they can decide to “opt-out” of further communications at any time.

Why should I sign up?

If the lure of private events or promotions isn’t enough, email list sign-up success can be achieved with sweepstakes, drawings or the like. Make sure your incentive is closely related to your product or service. That way, you’ll end up with an audience interested in you, not just the latest gadget.

No matter what you’re recruiting and no matter what your size, your goal should be to make the most of every visitor and every job seeker. Make your site traffic and/or foot traffic, work for you by building your own opt-in email list and communicating with your visitors and job seekers.

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