Different Internet Recruiting Techniques

Different Internet Techniques
Internet Technique that a recruiter must know:-

 X-Raying,
 Flipping,
 Peeling Back,
 Search Engine,
 Free Sites,
 Boolean Operators,
 Job Portals,
 Blog Directories
 Networking Site
X-RAYING:

A method of looking inside a specific web site to find what's there. Using this technique, recruiters can find
documents and web pages that aren't directly accessible via links on the main public home page. When you 'x-ray' a
website, you effectively get to examine every document that resides there so long as they are not behind firewalls or
password protected.
Example: To find any “software engineer” - could be a document/file or a word/phrase within a document that resides
within the website Oracle.com.
In Altavista search - host:oracle.com AND software engineer
In Google search - site:www.oracle.com AND software engineer
FLIPPING:

Flipping is an effective method used to find the relationships between web pages based on how they are hyperlinked
together. This search is especially useful for finding people who have links to the company or have worked for a
specific company.
Flip searching may pull up company directories, email lists, and other company related information. Flip Searching is
a powerful tool that can uncover many hidden resumes and candidates.

Example: To find any “software engineer” – could be a document/file or word/phrase that links back to Oracle.com.
In Altavista search - link:oracle.com AND software engineer
In Google search - link:www.oracle.com AND software engineer
PEELING BACK:

As the name suggest Peeling back is the process of “retracing the path” of the url especially when one gets an Error
404 (File not found). This process is engage so as to locate the information elsewhere on the site or locate the
specific “root” folder where one can find similar or additional data specific or related to the search.
Internet Recruiters tend to give as much weight to URLs as we do to page descriptions. When we see something
interesting in the path of a URL like "people" or "staff" or "meet the staff", etc., we "peel back" the URL to see that
page. If we are blocked from viewing the page, we x-ray the page to find the keyword in the URL that will lead us to
the page we are seeking.
Example: By peeling back or keying backspace starting from the point where the url ends we can then access the
people link from the ce.uta.edu homepage and find the names of all the faculty members.
url: http://www-ce.uta.edu/people/faculty/hoyos/research.html

OR

http://people.ee.ethz.ch/~oetiker/webtools/mrtg/
We "peel back the URL by highlighting and deleting the right portion of the URL. In this example, we are peeling
back to look at a homepage. These are easy to identify, as homepages almost always have a ~ or / in their
URL. Peel back till you get home page- http://people.ee.ethz.ch. You will find a link which shows all the names of
students and staff members
HARVESTING OR MINING:

Harvesting involves reviewing a document, such as a resume or home page, and finding key words, links, references
and locations that assist with subsequent searches.
SEARCH ENGINE

Some recommended search engines on the Web are:
http://www.Google.com, http://www.Atlavista.com, HotBot.com, InfoSeek.com, http://www.Yahoo.com,
http://www.Dogpile.com, msn
FREE POSTINGS

www.Todays-Classifieds.com,

www.Job-Ad-venture.com

www.GoFreeLance.com, , www.HireNet.net, www.TheJobBox.com,

www.TheJobSpider.com, www.CareerFile.com, www.JobAhoy.com,
www.JobAdsUsa.com, www.GetJob.us, www.JobKabob.com,
www.Work-At-Home-Jobs.us,
FREE RESUME BANKS/SITES

siliconindia.com, jobdhundo.com,

Telecommute-Jobs.com

Passive-Candidates.com (Foreign Countries), Resumezapper.com (Foreign
Countries),

ProgrammerBlaster.com,

findaresume.com,

scguild.com, Jobvertise.com, DevBistro.com, TheJobSpider.com
ResumeWahoo.com, jobfront.com, SiteExperts.com, contractengineering.com
Jobs.net, ifebp.org, javajobs.com, as400network.com, areajobs.com, naukri 2000.com

BOOLEAN OPERATORS
Boolean search operators can drill down and find the information we are looking for faster. These
operators are used to weed out irrelevant pages thereby narrowing our search results to find exactly
what we are looking for. Boolean keys should be in Capital letters.
But these Boolean operators are different for different search engines.
Boolean Key
AND - The AND operator delivers results with the terms you requested. For example, searching resume
and oracle will return pages with both terms - resume and oracle.
OR - The OR operator delivers results with either of the terms you requested. For example, MCSE OR
M.C.S.E.
NOT - The NOT operator will not deliver certain words in your search results. For example, Java NOT
coffee will deliver closer results for JAVA Programmers and not Java Coffee.
NEAR - The NEAR operator locates words that are located in close proximity to other words. For
example, Java NEAR Programmer. Not every search engine supports this operator. It finds words within
10 words of each other. But, not every search engine supports this operator.
( ) Parentheses - The ( ) operator allows you to group terms and build longer search strings. For
example, NOT (submit AND employer) will avoid pages with both names.

Wild Card - The * operator is a wild card. Adding a wild card will find words contain the wild card. For
example program* will help so you do not have to run separate searches for words similar like:
programmer, programming, program
URL Search - searches for pages that have specific word in the URL or web address. Example url:resume
Page Title - searches for pages that have specific words in page title. Example - title:resume

“

“- Exact phase.

Example of Complex Search String
resume AND (java or JavaScript) AND program* AND (New York or NY or 212) AND NOT (coffee or
submit)
* In some case we recommend to go to the advanced search option within the search engine.

Search Engine Quick Guide
.

AltaVista

AND

HotBot

InfoSeek

resume AND oracle

+resume
+oracle

resume AND
oracle
+resume
+oracle
OR

resume OR
oracle

Northern
Light

Snap
resume AND oracle

resume AND
oracle
+resume
+oracle

resume OR oracle

NOT
resume NOT
submit

resume AND NOT
submit

+resume –
submit

Select “Must not
contain”

Default is
resume OR
OR
oracle
automaticall
y
+resume
-submit

resume OR oracle

resume NOT
submit

resume AND NOT
submit

+resume
-submit

Select “Must not
contain”

NEAR

Not Supported
oracle NEAR
programming

Not
Supported

Not Supported Not Supported

(finds words
within 10 words
of each other)

""

“sales manager” Select “Exact Phrase” “Document
must
contain
exact
phrase”

“sales
manager”

Select “Exact Phrase”

()

resume AND
(sales OR
“sales
manager”)

resume AND (sales
OR “sales manager”)

Not
Supported

resume AND
(sales OR
“sales
manager”)

resume AND (sales
OR “sales manager”)

* (Wild
Card)

develop* (finds
develop or
developer or
any other word
starting with
develop)

Not Supported

Not
Supported

* replaces
multiple
characters, %
replaces one
character

Not Supported

.

.

.

.

“url must
contain”
website.co
m

“words in url”
website.com

domain:website.com

.
Field
Searche
s
X-Ray

host:website.co domain:website.com
m

Flip
Search

link:website.com “links to this url”
“hyperlink
http://www.website.co must
m
contain the
words”
website.co
m

link:anysite.co “links to this url”
m
http://www.website.co
m

Page
Title
Search

title:resume

“words in the page
title” resume

“title must
contain”
resume

“words in the
title” resume

“words in the page
title” resume

URL
Search

url:resume

Not Supported

“url must
contain the
words”
resume

“words in url”
resume

Not Supported

JOB PORTALS

Today many of the leading job sites offer their database at a cost. Some of the leading sites
are – monster.com, dice.com, naukri.com, jobstreet.com. If your company subscribed to these
sites, you must search their database.
BLOG DIRECTORIES
We all know talent is scarce and it definitely makes sense to think out of the box, especially when we are
talking about sourcing strategies. That is where blogs come into the picture.
Now what are blogs? They are nothing but personal or semi-personal online diaries where comments
are made about various issues.
It is popular mainly because blogs give an insight into the person and his personality. It gives
recruiters interesting facts about the blogger and his mental make-up besides some information about.
certain personal characteristics, level of intelligence, communication skills, sharpness in terms of
reactions, level of information inputs and sometimes even the degree of humanness in the blogger.
However remember, blogs alone by themselves cannot be used for recruitments. It should be used to
supplement other techniques and to arrive at more accurate assessment-TO RECRUIT OR NOT TO
RECRUIT.
Here are the lists of the top recruitment blogs in alphabetical order (from top 100 HR bloggers by
Laura Milligan).
1. Amitai Givertz’s Recruitomatic Blog: This recruiting professional reveals some of her best tools
for attracting talent.
2. AmyBeth Hale: Research Goddess!: This fun to read blog is a great resource for connecting you
with other HR sites and blogs across the Web.
3. A Recruiter Diary: Author Joe Neitham shares “the ups and downs, lessons learnt, success
stories,” and more in his recruiting blog.
4. Ask the Recruiter: Post your questions or just browse through other readers’ inquiries
to learn more about the recruiting industry.
5. Cheezhead: Cheezhead is an attractive, popular blog about recruitment trends, with special
attention paid to issues unique to working on the Internet.
6. Cyber Sleuthing: Use this blog to learn the sneakiest tips for using the Web as your
main recruitment tool.

7. Director of Recruiting: Catch up on all the latest “news and views” you need to know
as a recruiter.
8. Expert Recruiter Resource: Don’t miss this blog. Use it to discover a wealth of advice and tips
that will help boost your career.
9. Hire Strategies: Learn about the power of e-recruitment, especially within the retail
industry.
10. IT Recruiting Diary: On this blog, you can read inspirational stories and valuable tips about
recruiting.
11. The Asia Pacific Headhunter: This blog discusses trends in recruiting, and is a great resource for
professionals and job searchers alike.
Blog Directories
Below is a list of blog directories to find blogs of interest.
blogsearchengine.com, blogwise.com, blogarama.com, bloogz.com , search4blogs.com
NETWORKING SITE
-

LinkedIn

-

Jibberjobber

-

konnects

-

Orkut

-

Face Book, Bigadda

-

Plaxo

-

Xing- most commonly used in China

STEPS:Step 1: Understand the requirement and identify the search keywords.
One of the key attributes a good recruiter must acquire and developed is the knack for

understanding what the client wants (give an apple if the client wants and apple and not guava
or pear). And if you can understand what the client requires then you can also easily identify the
search keywords from the requirement.
Step 2: Search Internal database
Most of the established companies have a sizeable database (infact we are also started building it)
and chances are that you might find someone with the skills that you are looking for in your own
database. Here 2 things are very important:1) How well you organized your internal database
2) How good you are in mining your database either manually or using external search applications.
One very efficient search application is call X1. If your organization decides to use X1, you then do not
have to spend too much time in organizing your email folders or your internal database. It acts like a
local Google.com for your hard-drive. You can also use Copernic Desktop Search OR Google
Desktop (GDS). But they have there own advantages and disadvantages like- GDS is fast but you’ll
miss the file preview feature as well as when you move your Outlook emails in another folder it
would never update its index. But u will not face these problems with X1 n Copernic.
X1 has a unique feature – that is if the desktop search software finds a PDF file containing your
search keyword, you need not open the PDF in bulky Adobe Reader, X1 will automatically show
the contents of the file highlighting words/phrases that match your search – a big time saver. The
software supports real time indexing – if a new email arrives in your inbox, if you download a new
resume or transfer it, it will show up almost immediately in X1 search results.
X1 comes as a 30-day trial software but it will work just perfect even after the trial, though the
network indexing features will be disabled. The only drawback X1 has is its inability to search for symbols
such as #/+ etc. Imagine how frustrating it can be if you were to search for VC++ or C# resumes.
But my personal favorite desktop search program is Copernic Desktop Search –In this search results
are arranged in categories (like Files, Music, email, etc), it suggests alternatives to misspelled words
(“did you mean?”). And if you are a lazy typist, Copernic will auto-complete your search queries –
just type the first few characters. You can save your frequently used or long search queries to “My
Searches” in Copernic Desktop Search.
Step 3: Broadcast the job

The first step must be to post the job on your company website and to the subscribed paid sites (Eg;
Monster, Jobsdb, Naukri, etc) and how you design and word your post will matter on the responses.
The second step will be to post it to the free sites like: -

todays-classifieds.com, Job-Ad-

venture.com, jobvertise, etc.
The third step will be mass mailing using bcc on your email application to those candidates whose
contacts are already in your databank.
The forth step involves posting the job in all the online groups that you have a membership and if not
get registered and start posting (Eg; yahoogroups – teamsite, ezlink, etc).
It helps build your networking channel, image of your company, building your databank, etc.

Step 4: Search Resume boards
Today many of the leading job sites offer their database at a cost. Some of the leading sites are –
monster.com, shine.com, naukri.com, jobstreet, dice.com. If your company subscribed to these sites,
you must search their database.
Step 5: Identify and locate competitors
The most likely place where we can find our target candidates will be with the competitors.
Therefore, one must identify who are the competitors and locate them. Eg: our client is Turbomach and
they require process or mechanical engineers who have experience of BOP and detail engineering in
combined cycle and cogeneration power plants. So, the most likely place where we can find such
candidates will be– Siemens Power Engineering, Alstom, Thermax, FICHTNER Consulting etc
Step 6: Search for candidates from Competitors
Now that we know who are the competitors and where they are located we can start the search for
candidates in these companies. The best approach is get hold to a junior person and then map from
them. Once you identify the candidate start calling, however if you fail to identify anyone with the
required skills/experience, it might be prudent to anyway call and ask for reference or leads. If you
cannot reach or they refuse to talk to you or give you any references, drop them a nice sounding mail
and thank them for their time and share with them on what you are looking for. Who knows they might
have a heart change and decide to forward the mail to their friends/contacts. The key here is not to give
up but be persistent and keep trying and keep ‘scratching your brain’ for innovative approach or
methods to source the right candidate.
Step 7: Search for resumes on the web

The web is one vast hunting ground for any recruiter. However you need to know certain techniques
to be master in internet search.
To increase the effectiveness of recruitment activities, we recommend everyone to use all
recruitment techniques.