Volume 2, Issue 5
May 14, 2001

by Bret Hollander
NETRECRUITER

SOURCERER'S APPRENTICE
Cutting Edge Tools for the Internet Recruiter

Circulation: a big number between 100 and 1,000,000
_______________________________________________

HELLO FROM YOUR EDITMASTER

When putting together this newsletter every month, I always wonder
what subscribers take away from the information presented. Is it
eye-opening, does it generate more candidates or more hires, or is it
just another pasttime to while away the hours at work.

This issue represents the 27th since its first debut in April 1999.
During that time, a lot has changed in how we recruit and a lot has
remained unchanged in how we identify candidates.

So here is my challenge to all you subscribers who apply what is
learned here and elsewhere. If you correctly answer all ten questions
and submit your answers no later than Friday, May 17, 2001, then you
will either win one of ten free conference passes to the upcoming
Computerworld's 10th Annual Technical Recruiting & Retention
Conference in Palm Desert California from June 3-6, and/or receive a
bio and writeup of your efforts in the June issue.

Point your browsers to this hyperlink that showcases my Challenge Cup.
http://netrecruiter.net/sa/2001/05/satest.html


Bret Hollander
NETRECRUITER


REVIEWS

Get Weird - 101 Ways to Make Your Company a Great Place to Work
It's not often I get the time to sit down and read a book, let alone
a chapter or two. However, this was not the case in John Putzier's
first book on creative techniques to making work fun. The book is
divided into six major parts, each addressing a function of human
resources.

I focused on Part 2 entitled "Weird Ideas to Win Today's Talent."
Therein lies 22 innovative recruiting ideas. Idea 16 caught my eye
because it asked if your employment application uses a consent clause
to allow additional investigations on the candidate's background. If
so, then while conducting background reference checks on the
candidate, you could "in a rather casual, off-the-cuff way, say "Oh,
by the way, do you know anyone else who might know this person.""
This way, you can talk to people the candidate didn't expect you to
talk to.
http://www.firstepinc.com/Books/index.html


SITES


Boolean Search Tutorial for Technical Recruiters
Free tutorial on Boolean search strategies to enable technical
recruiters to more effectively mine resume databases, whether they be
Monster, Headhunter, or AltaVista.
http://www.geocities.com/jcrecruits/boolean_tutorial.html

Know Your Lingo
Over 20,000 technical IT terms for a non-geeky recruiter. My selected
term was VSAT. Here's the definition: (Very Small Aperture satellite
Terminal) A small earth station for satellite transmission that
handles up to 56 Kbits/sec of digital transmission. VSATs that handle
the T1 data rate (up to 1.544 Mbits/sec) are called "TSATs."
http://www.techweb.com/encyclopedia/


SOFTWARE / TECHNIQUE OF THE MONTH


May's technique uses two applications that seem perfectly suited for
this example, and are priced at a fraction of what it costs to do
this on other soup-to-nuts applicant acquisition systems. The two
applications are Mail Harvester (reviewed in the April 2001 issue)
and Copernic (reviewed in the May 2000 issue). I used the fee-based
version of Copernic to conduct this example. Copernic 2000 Pro allows
you to collect 300 results from each search engine, up to 3000
possible results (the free version allows allows up to 1000 possible
results).

I conducted a Web search on Copernic, using the following keywords:

url:res title:resume programmer c++ unix

The parameter set was: Search for all words

The results of that search can be found at:
http://netrecruiter.net/sa/2001/05/copsrch.html

With the results displayed in the browser, choose the Edit function
and Select or block the entire results page and then Copy to your
Clipboard. Bring up your word processing software and then Paste the
entire results page. Next. Sort the results by Paragraph and strip
out all the information that is not a hyperlink (anything not
starting
with http://).

An example of the refined results page with all the other information
stripped out.
http://netrecruiter.net/sa/2001/05/httpfile.txt

Next, launch Mail Harvester. Open a New Session and give it a name.
Put in the following parameters for these subheadings:

Settings/Productivity Controls/Max URL subdirectories: 1
Save Files:
Check the box for Save URL Documents.
Set the Document Storage Location to: c:\temp
Set Size in Bytes to: 3072
Check the box for File Contains an Email Address
Search List:
Copy and Paste contents of the file: httpfile.txt

Next, choose Search the List. Mail Harvester will now process and
save each of the hyperlinks as files to your c:\temp subdirectory (if
this subdirectory doesn't exist on your computer, you will have to
create it first before harvesting these resumes). The additional
parameters of the session file say that each resume must be at least
3k in size and have an email address present.


ARTICLES


7 Easy Ways to Improve Your Recruiting Skills
http://www.stevefinkel.com/improve_recruiting_skills.htm

Retaining Key Staff: What High-Tech Employees *Say* versus What They
*Do*" http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20010304.html

Resume Database Search Techniques for Best Results
http://www.Headhunter.net/JobPoster/Hireadigm/Inside.htm

Maintaining Focus in a Strong Recruiting Market
http://www.stevefinkel.com/maintain_focus.htm

Separating Military Members May Provide a Solution to Health Care
Worker Shortage
http://netrecruiter.net/sa/2001/05/caitlin.rtf

On Counteroffers
http://www.stevefinkel.com/counter_offers.htm

Staffing Strategies - Seven creative tips on how to effectively
rethink core staffing strategies, still get your work done, and stay
ahead during a sluggish economy.
http://www.internetworld.com/050101/05.01.01feature1.jsp

Intra - Office Referrals: A Radical Proposal for Recruiting Firms
http://www.stevefinkel.com/intra_office.htm


ODDS & ENDS


Guerrilla Advertising
IPO dollars are running low, ad rates are sky-high and even
billboards on California highways go for $100,000 a month. Struggling
dotcoms will do anything for mindshare as long as it's intrusive,
creative and cheap. Look out for:

· Candy-colored logo-wrapped taxis
· "Bag-vertising" on take-out sacks
· Billboard barges on San Francisco Bay
· Wrapped employee cars
· Wrapped airport luggage carousels
· Branded coffee sleeves, water bottles, sunscreen tubes,
dry-cleaning bags
· Employees leaving company pens and pint glasses everywhere
they go
· Mobbing the sidewalk outside the Today show (hint: baseball
caps show up better than T-shirts)
· Handing out placards to sports fans to wave -- team name on
one side, company logo on the other
· Fruit stickers (156 million from Ask Jeeves alone)
· Branded parking spaces
· Branded hitchhikers
· Branded chauffeurs
· Christmas carolers singing 'altered' songs
· Branded town: Halfway, Oregon agreed to change its name to
Half.com in exchange for 22 new computers and $5,000 for the local
fair

Adflip's Archive of Print Ads
An enormous archive of print ads from 1940 to the present. Search by
keyword and date, browse by decade and category, or go straight to
the "famous" ads.
http://www.adflip.com/

9 MUST HAVES on any Resume
1. I demand a salary commiserate with my experience.
2. Personal interests: donating blood. Fourteen gallons so far.
3. Instrumental in ruining entire operation for a Midwest chain store.
4. Received a plague for Salesperson of the Year.
5. I am loyal to my employer at all costs.... Please feel free to
respond to my resume on my office voice mail.
6. It's best for employers that I not work with people.
7. The company made me a scapegoat, just like my three previous
employers.
8. You will want me to be Head Honcho in no time.
9. As indicted, I have over five years of analyzing investments.

Are You Playing Musical Chairs With Your Banners?
Here is a free JavaScript that you can embed into your HTML page to
automatically rotate an unlimited amount of banners. Banners can be
used in a variety of ways - even as a running billboard of upcoming
events.
http://netrecruiter.net/sa/2001/05/java.rtf


BOOKMARKS


Gary's Mega-recruiter list v1.0 - over 1200 Colorado recruiters with
e-mails, fax and website information
http://www.users.qwest.net/~garycarr/services.html

3rd Party Recruitment Firms
http://www.jobtoaster.com/Recruiter/recruiterlist.asp
http://www.empty.net/recruiter/
http://www.adminexchange.com/directory.html
http://www.jobmag.com/em2963.htm
http://directory.google.com/Top/Business/Industries/Information_Techno
logy/Employment/Recruiters/

The Army Career and Alumni Program (ACAP) - provides comprehensive
personnel transition assistance and processing through field
operations worldwide and centrally plans, develops and manages the
Army's job assistance program
http://www.acap.army.mil/acap/home.shtml


FREEBIES

Free job posting and resume searching.
http://www.militaryhire.com/

Free job posting and resume searching.
http://accounts.jobnext.com/cgi-bin/employer/signup.cgi?ac=regfrm

Free Oracle job postings.
http://www.oraclefans.com/oraclefans/forum/jobs/

Free resumes of F1/H1-b IT candidates.
http://usawork.com/resumes.html

Free unlimited job postings.
http://www.jobsonline.com/Employers.asp

90 days of CareerSite.com Recruiter without cost or obligation.
http://www.careersite.com/perl/vrui/EmpRegister/top/

Free 30-day trial to search resumes and post jobs.
http://USTechJobs.com/ecreg.asp

Free Identity Theft Self-Protection Kit - includes step-by-step
instructions on how to avoid being targeted by identity thieves. It
also discusses the actions you must take to prevent the ruination of
your credit standing if you do become victimized, and even includes
sample letters to be used in communicating with banks, check clearing
services, credit bureaus, and merchants.
http://www.backgroundcheckgateway.com/identity-theft.html


EVENTS


Computerworld's 10th Annual Technical Recruiting & Retention
Conference
Marriott's Desert Springs Resort & Spa, Palm Desert, California, June
3-6, 2001
Join me at this highly celebrated annual conference on workforce
recruitment and retention. With over 700 corporate HR professionals
from Fortune 1000 companies, and hot topics such as "Cutting Edge
Tools for the Internet Recruiter", "The Cross Cultural Implications
of Recruiting Globally on the Internet" and "Recruiting for Rapid
Growth," this is a high profile, can't-miss event! Catch up on the
latest tools and techniques for hiring IT talent, from Web-based
recruiting and automated screening, to optimizing college relations
and managing hiring managers. To celebrate their 10th Anniversary
they are offering a special 25% discount off the $850 conference
($637.50) per person that includes all networking events, meals,
receptions and conference materials.
Conference Website: http://www.itcareersrecruiting.com/conf/ctrrc/
Attendee Brochure (Adobe PDF format):
http://netrecruiter.net/sa/2001/03/ctrrc.pdf
Testimonials: http://netrecruiter.net/sa/2001/03/kudos.doc

Internet Recruiting Strategies Workshop
Monthly on the 4th Thursday throughout 2001, 8:30am-5:00pm,
University of Virginia, Northern VA Center, Falls Church
The Workshop is a hands-on, full-day training program for only $199!
By attending this Attendees will receive a comprehensive training
manual, a powerful and working bookmark file for Internet recruiting,
and unlimited, ongoing support. Workshops are conveniently held at
the University of Virginia in Falls Church, just a few minutes away
from Tysons Corner mall and across the street from the West Falls
Church metro station in the Washington DC area. Students will each
have their own state-of-the-art computer workstation in a very modern
training facility, accessing the Internet at a lightning fast speed
of T-1 (30 times faster than a 56K modem).
http://netrecruiter.net/calendar.html


ADVERTISERS


These are all the firms that have asked me to showcase their services
or post an announcement. This is for your information only. I do not
support or represent any of these firms.

Considering the cost of posting jobs to single job boards is going
up, in many cases to over several hundred dollars per single posting,
we think that JobZapper gives HR Depts and Recruiters a cost
effective way to reach 10s of millions of jobseekers all for one low
price.
http://www.jobzapper.com

ZillionResumes, the world's foremost internet resume aggregator, uses
advanced robot technology to search the Internet 24 hours a day.
We've gathered resumes from over 62,000 different locations.
http://www.zillionresumes.com

FormSite.com is the most flexible and easy-to-use HTML Form Builder
available on the Internet. FormSite.com enjoys top 10 placement in
almost all major search engines and is continuing to grow rapidly
based almost solely on word of mouth. Companies using FormSite.com
range from small start-ups creating secure order/registration forms
to major corporations such as Lucent, UPS, Xerox, Lockheed Martin,
IBM, Motorola, and GE Capital using FormSite.com for customer surveys.
http://www.formsite.com/

_______________________________________________
Letters to Editor ----> sourcerers_apprentice@...
Back Issues ---------> http://netrecruiter.net/resource.html
Home Page --------->
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SourcerersApprentice
_______________________________________________
SOURCERER'S APPRENTICE (c) 1999-2001 NETRECRUITER, All rights
reserved.
SOURCERER'S APPRENTICE is a trademark of NETRECRUITER
_______________________________________________