I know it's been a bit and although it's not officially completed yet, I will be releasing a full blown White Paper on setting up a Google Co-op for recruiting. It will be available sometime in Mid-Late April. Once I have figured out all the details and have actually finalized it I will post details on how to get your own copy of it.

Just to give you an idea, it will include:

• Step by Step setup from making the account to using the co-op.
• Explanation of XML modification for your own purposes.
• Tips and Tricks for using the co-op to get the right results consistently.
• An in depth explanation of which sites to use when including and excluding.
• Explanation of other tools to use in tandem with the co-op.
• Valuable links and examples.
• Much Much More...

That's all for now, Happy Hunting.

Cheers^^

I know it's been a little while since I've posted anything, but I realized I was spending more time developing methods for search and less on recruiting so I've taken a brief step back. I have some new things in the works an I will get back to them shortly. In the meantime however, I wanted to let you know I just completed my first radio/interview appearance on the Amybeth Hale show this afternoon!

It should be up and available within the next week or so and once it is I'll be sure to point you all in the right direction! Thanks again to Amybeth and Chris for making it as painless and fun as possible =]

For all of you who don't know Amybeth, shame on you! She is after all the Research Goddess, so go pay your respect and visit her blog at http://www.amybethhale.com.

Cheers^^

To make things even easier on you all, I decided to post one of the personal modifications I made to my own co-op.  Let's say you have one refinement for 'Resumes' and three of four for 'Negations", and as opposed to typing in "more:resume more:negation1 more:negation2, ...." every time you wanted to run a search...  You can set the co-op to default to the refinements you want without having to specify them in the string.  This allows you one more keyword for each preprogrammed refinement you implement. 

How does one do this?  You simple download the XML file (see this post for a proper explanation).  When you scroll to the bottom and you find this line:

<Label name="_cse_exclude_**********" mode="ELIMINATE"/>

Right after that you add this line:

<Label name="******" mode="BOOST" weight="0.7"/>
 
Replacing the "******" with whatever the name of the refinement you want to presuppose is.   Add as many as you'd like in this fashion:

<Label name="resume" mode="BOOST" weight="0.7"/>
<Label name="negation1" mode="BOOST" weight="0.7"/>
<Label name="negation2" mode="BOOST" weight="0.7"/>
etc...

Simple as that, it auto-includes all the refinements you add.  Happy hunting.

Cheers^^

Today I'm going to write on something other than Google as I'm having some issues with the Co-Op right now. Today I'd like to discuss the use of instant messaging services and recruiting. For a lot of the old school recruiters, this is something that's going to take some time adjusting to I'd imagine, but trust me when I tell you, I've made some really phenomenal headway over the last few months using AIM (AOL Instant Messenger), YMSGR (Yahoo Messenger), and to a lesser degree ICQ and MSNMSGR.

In my experience, I've found that being more personable with your candidates really affects everything dramatically. Relationship building with your candidates is always a major factor, it's part of recruiting 101, but going that extra mile really amps things up a few notches.

Why and how do you ask? Well, let's start from the top and work our way through some of the key vital points that make this worth the effort.

1) When dealing with younger candidates, many of which are from "Generation Y", they rely on instant information exchange. Sure, it doesn't get any more instant than the phone, but if you've paid any attention to the world around I'm sure you've come to realize that EVERYONE in the 18-28 year old category is Text Messaging. Why? You can do it quietly, discretely, quickly, and you can make your point in one or two sentences and not feel locked into a conversation.

2) In line with the text messaging and probably even more common still is the use of online instant messaging services. They've been around for years, and anyone with access to a computer uses them to keep in touch with their contacts. Anyone with an AOL account has the ability to send a message and if you think back about 10 years when AOL really dominated the market, everyone had exposure. Than Yahoo! and MSN came along and boom, all sorts of different messaging services.

3) Emails are more effort than a message. Sounds silly, but they are. With messenger services you know when someone is there in most cases, or "back from away" and you don't have to wait for a reply. If they're there and then put up an away message, guess what? You're being ignored and you know it's time to move on. This isn't always the case, but most commonly it is. If you think about the work required putting an email together, it's 10fold to an instant or text message. Reading a long email, clicking reply, editing the subject, and writing back a long reply. Instant messaging is quick, to the point, and if it's going to go in detail it well, but the end user doesn't feel compelled to write a long response back.

4) MYSPACE.COM. Everyone and their brother has an account these days. I've seen dogs, cats, birds, and celebrities with accounts. Guess what, if your candidate is in the younger generation, they almost certainly have an account!!! Less like email, more like Instant Messaging, and you get to know your candidate a little better. This could be a double edge sword though, so be careful. Maybe you'll find some common ground between you and your candidate?

5) COMMON GROUND. Make friends with your candidate. They'll be more honest, help out with referrals, help out with job orders, and are easier to keep track of and help pinpoint the best opportunities for. With so much emphasis these days on corporate culture, your odds go way up by simply knowing what kind of a person they are. Are they a type A or type B personality? Do they enjoy traveling? How do they feel about a dress code? What kinds of things do they do for fun and are those things available in the area if the commute is a little bit lengthy? All these factors stack up and when they're all in place, you've handed them a dream opportunity, so naturally, they're going to put there VERY BEST foot forward.

6) If they happen to like you, the recruiter, as a person? Even better still, guess who's getting the company contact list? Guess who's getting the best referrals? Guess who is getting notified when a new position opens in their company? The recruiter the like the MOST. Now picture this scenario...

Your candidate (John) is sitting at work and he's having a conversation with his friends on AIM. John goes into a meeting and finds out about some new openings in his department. John than comes back to his desk and looks at his buddy list to see you're name online. He doesn't have to look for your email address, he doesn't even have to remember your real name, just double click the screen name, and send a 1 line message to you, who is sitting at your desk, about the new opening and who someone worth talking to about it. How simple was that?

Or how about this scenario...

Your candidate (Jane) is sitting at work having a conversation with her friend on Yahoo Msgr, when her best friend signs online and tells her some horrible news about how she got laid off because their company just got bought out. Jane thinks for a moment and says "hey, I know this great recruiter, send them a message letting them know about your situation and see if they can help you, here is their screen name..." Guess what, now you have a referral, but also the inside scoop on what's happening with that company. Not only do you have a potentially great candidate, but you also know it's time to call in and talk their co-workers who are also getting let go!

7) SPAM FILTERS. It's such a love/hate relationship... Sometimes when emailing potential candidates, they don't always get them read them, ignore them, etc... You never know, so short of resending, and scouring for phone numbers, you're screwed. With an instant message, you know you hit the nail on the head, you know they got it, and you know that if they don't respond, it's probably b/c they're not interested. Either way, you're guaranteed that no spam filter prevented it, or they deleted it thinking it's spam...

Those are just some of the many many reasons why I suggest the use of Instant Messaging services when recruiting. I'm sure you can think of a billion on your own, so I'm going to stop here. Happy hunting.

Cheers^^

ps: If google would fix their xml upload server I could share my "work-around" from the previous posting having tested it to make sure it's working... soon enough.

Ok, so I hate to admit being wrong and although the "work-around" I mentioned isn't complete yet... I did get the chance to figure out how the refinements work on a trial and error basis.  So... here we go.

The refinements are limited to 100 characters per refinement.
Spaces DON'T count as characters
Operators DON'T count as characters.

Does this mean you have to count letters per word?  Yes... if you go over 100, sometimes the last word gets cut, sometimes it doesn't, not quite sure why. 

On average, I'm getting 17 words per refinement and it's actually made my results 10x more accurate than they were as I was trying to use the un-organized 32 word query.  So...  Once I finish my xml work-around, I'll post that, hopefully a little later tonight, and then none of this will even matter...

Something else I'm working on as a temp fix is the concept of taking the refinements and placing an "OR" operator between them.  With less words available, I see this being useful, though with the searches I've made, certainly not necessary.  Anyway, time for the walk of shame and I hope to fill you in more later.  Happy Hunting

cheers^^

So today I came to an interesting conclusion pertaining to my previous posting.  I've made some pretty neat discoveries within the Google co-op due to the response I received to the posting. 

I'm going to be blunt and just suck it up on this one, but I promise to make it up as I've already found a work-around for it.  The refinements I spoke about in my last post don't actually support 32 words.  There, I said it, I feel better.  It actually only supports 100 characters.  I haven't had time today to really QA the whole thing and determine what constitutes as a character, be it spaces, operators, or just the words supplied themselves, but I will get that answer to you all before the day is over. 

The work-around I mentioned is also a work in progress, and once I've finalized that, I will be sure to fill you all in.

Regardless of this discovery, 100 characters could be a whole lot of it excludes spaces and operators and even still in stacking the key terms, you'll cover considerably more ground than the standard 32 words per normal google query, in fact you'll probably be able to cover still close to 300 words depending.  The work-around that I've come to actually allows for a essentially an infinite amount of search criteria, so I think in the end, this may have in fact benefited us. 

NOW, for my new positive discovery.  If you have already built your co-op and included a whole bunch of sites for searching, feel as though something is missing... you're 100% right, it is.  If you've set the co-op to search the entire web, with a focus on the sites you've entered, that's great, but the priority to those sites for some reason limits the web search capability.  So... If this isn't making sense so far, I'll sum it up in all bold caps for ya.  With this small modification you will:


Sounds pretty good to me, so here's how ya do it. 

1) Log into your co-op and hit the control panel.
2) Click on the 'Advanced' tab
3) Scroll down to the line that says: "Download the Context File for" and click the "Download" link.
4) Depending on your browser, it will either download, or open a bunch of funny looking code.  If it saves, skip the next step.
    4a) If you see the funny looking code:
          1) Click on 'File'
          2) Click on 'Save Page As'
          3) Save the file to your desktop
5) Go to your desktop and right click the file and chose 'Open With'
6) Select "Notepad"
7) Now you're going to see a whole bunch of code, which is what actually operates your co-op. 
8) Scroll to the bottom of the text and look for the line that says:
             <BackgroundLabels> <Label name="_cse_..." mode="BOOST" weight="1.0"/>
           *the "cse_..." will look like a bunch of funny letters, but different for everyone
9) Remove the entire section:
            <Label name="_cse_..." mode="BOOST" weight="1.0"/>
            *MAKE SURE NOT TO DELETE THE LINE:
                            <Label name="_cse_exclude_..." mode="ELIMINATE"/>
10) Click 'File' and Chose 'Save'
11) Now go back to the 'Advanced' tab of your search engine and scroll to the bottom.
12) Where it says: "Upload your content in XML format", click the 'Browse' button and select the newly saved file you edited.
13) Click 'Upload' and wallah!  Now you're ignoring all of your included sites, and running the search directly through the normal Google index. 

You'll see a HUGE difference in your results. 

Next posting will clarify the how to of the "work-around" but also the exact amount of characters and what constitutes as characters in your refinements.  If any of you figure this out before me, please do comment.  I will also touch on a few other variables I've noticed that yield all sorts of neat results.  Sorry for the confusion again, poor logic on my part.  Happy Hunting.

Cheers^^

This post is going to be super short and edited for more content later this evening. I wanted to go back to the subject of the Google Coop (Custom Search Engine).

Yesterday I learned something pretty interesting about it which makes it's application increase in value ten fold. Typical Google strings rely on a query system that limits you to 32 specific terms. 32 might sound like a lot, but when you've spent some serious time developing high quality strings for top results, you'll come to realize that 32 is barely enough to cover your bases.

Some of my strings run exactly 30 words with negations, locations, synonyms for the word "resume", leaving me with exactly 2 words left for the subject matter I'm searching. Talk about a pain in butt. Well, yesterday I came to the wonderful realization that that the coop actually allows for a grand total of 528 words.  How is this possible?  Well, Google coop allows for a total of 16 refinements, each with 32 possible words.  if you were to stack all them all together you'd have 512 total, but since you only used 16 refinements in the search bar, it allots for an additional 16 keywords on top for a total of 528. 

Now stacking them is tricky and I'll get more in depth about the syntax later on tonight, but for now I'll leave you with this.

Make a coop search using several refinements, each of those refinements should use a maximum of 32 words. Compile the search engine and search for some key words as per job description. Follow this up by applying one of your refinements. Now, here's the trick... Stack the refinements on top of each other. Let's say you were searching for "nurses" and you had a negation refinement containing 32 common words you wanted removed, but there were a few others you'd like to see go? Make a second negation refinement and name it something like "negation2".

After applying the initial refinement, it should look something like this (providing you named the first refinement "negation".

nurse more:negation

Add the 2nd one by adding:

nurse more:negation more:negation2

Guess what? You just ran a search query removing the first 32 negated words, plus however many you added in the second negation refinement, plus your keyword, which in this case is "nurse". Pretty neat huh? I'll write more about it in a few hours or so. Until than, Happy Hunting.

Cheers^^