Yeah, you heard me!  For anyone who is a fan of the show, this could be the best news any of us have gotten all year!  See this blog over at Animation News for more info!

Huzzahs are in order!

Cheers^^

So I don't know if using this has any legal grounds for discussion so I advise using this at your own risk I suppose.  Also I was advised by a colleague of mine not to share this information so I know I'm not the only one questioning it's use.  But here goes anyway...

Google's URL system uses a system based around hexadecimal values.  Hexadecimal or "Hex" values are a system of numbers that essentially acts as shorthand for the language your computer speaks(binary). 

Using the hex value system, one is able to convert text into hex which both humans and computers are able to read in essence.  For the every day user they're looking at something completely incomprehensible that looks like a bunch of nonsensical numbers, but to someone with a bit of IT experience, it's an entire story board. 

Now, as mentioned, Google uses hex values in their URL generation which lead me to conclude that if you fed them to the engine as hex values it would return those values.  Now lets think for a moment about possible uses for this in recruiting... Not too many at face value, but if you look a little deeper the value could be quite promising.

Seeing as how the subject of this blog is about emails I'll cut right to the point.  If you take the "at" or @ sign so common in emails and convert that into a hexadecimal value you arrive at the value 40  .  So because of the way Google functions you need to include a "percent" % sign before the value to specify that you're using a hex value.  So let's put it all together.

String:     +%40gmail     Results

Well would you look at that... tons of embedded gmail accounts.  Emails which were altered with hex and other conversion numerics for the purpose of masking and hiding and preventing much of the world from viewing... 

So what's the value to recruiting and sourcing?  Well let's take our new found email "operator" and apply it to a large company, re-paginate for all the results, then run an extraction tool of your choosing over it to pull out all of the email addresses, sort them, find/replace all with the @ sign, filter for duplicates and you have a list of previously embedded email addresses. 

With so many companies using a combination of first and last name in the address you can pick apart names to run searches against.  Worth the time and effort?  Yes, definitely, especially if you automate the whole process. 

Because this also unearths some other embedded and encrypted information I'm going to stop here and leave you all with the conceptualization behind it and come up with your own directions... 

Happy Searching^^

Ok, I've recently made some really cool discoveries in the world of search strings and Google so I figured I'd start out with one of my favorite tricks. 

I haven't tested this on the new IE yet, but it definitely works with Firefox.  So here's what you do.

1) Put together a string in your favorite search engine (going to use Google for my example). 

            ~resume java ("los angeles" | california) -job

2) Go to the website directly via your address bar, ie: http://www.google.com

3) Enter your string into the search box within the page and click search. 

4) Bookmark your results page.

5) Go to Bookmarks > Organize Bookmarks

6) Select the bookmark with your results, right click and select properties. 

7) You'll see something that looks like this in the URL box:
         http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl=en&q=%7Eresume+java+%28%22los+angeles%22+%7C+california%29+-job&btnG=Google+Search

8) Where the skill set is you want, in this case being java, you replace it with a "  %s  "  so it'll look like this now:

http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl=en&q=%7Eresume+%s+%28%22los+angeles%22+%7C+california%29+-job&btnG=Google+Search

9) Give the bookmark a name and a keyword.  Make the keyword something simple that you'll remember like "dev" or "developer"  than click 'ok'.

10) Go back to Firefox and in the address bar enter the keyword you added for that search string followed by a space and then the skill set you want to apply that string to.  It'll look something like this:

         dev perl

11) Hit enter and Wallah!  The skill set you entered will be automatically inserted into the string you bookmarked with the other criteria you specified and run within Google! 

Talk about a real time saver!  I personally made about 15 of these bookmarks and they all run slightly different results based on the select keywords I used for location, resume, alumni, etc.... 

Anywho, I'll post more on some of the other neat tricks I've put together real soon, I promise!

Happy Searching^^

Today I stumbled upon a new command which I think is absolutely brilliant when candidate searching on Yahoo!  When I went to do more research on the command itself I stumbled across a posting by Moises Lopez who runs the The Sourcing Corner where he already covered it, but I felt like rehashing anyway!

The new command I'm so fond of is the "feature:homepage" command.  What's so great about this command?  Well it basically tells yahoo to only return results of individuals home pages,  it's really that simple.  How does it do such a thing?  Well, when directory structure is being setup typically the tilde (~) is added after the directory and leading into the individuals index.  An example of what I mean is:

http://eden.ruters.edu/~name/

Most Universities use setups like these because the individuals accounts are usually hosted on separate and larger servers and it's a simple way of specifying a directory/path. 

So, let's give it a shot.  Lets try:      feature:homepage java "los angeles" resume


Well, would you look at all those personalized home pages with tons and tons of information about what they're up to, where they've been, and how to contact them! 

Ok, I'm done for now, I was just really excited at the initial discovery of the command!

Happy Searching^^

If you haven't heard or don't know, Suzy Tonini of Deloitte took the 2nd SourceCon challenge this past week by storm.  In the eyes of most the challenge was incredibly difficult, yet while most of us were stumbling over ourselves trying to find real direction for the answer, Suzy was the only person to see it through as to my knowledge. 

A big Congratulations to you Suzy, without a doubt you seriously earned it! 

Now if I could only get over the nervous vibes I get from knowing your my competition in the finals, all would be right with the world!  Can't wait to see you there!

Happy Searching^^

 

Just finished the AIRS course "Googling for Candidates" and although I didn't take much from it, I will say that for anyone on the ground level of all this internet sourcing business it was a great collection of information on Google.  If you've taken the SearchLab it's a great follow-up and if you haven't it's a great place to start.  Big thanks to Lisa Brusack for teaching the course, excellent presentation! 

Happy Searching^^

I've gotten one or two emails now about the passwords not working.  If you're having a problem with them, please contact me immediately and I'll check the status.  In all of the demo runs I've tested myself they appeared to work fine, but I figured I'd put that out there.

For specific inquires relating to the Paper please email me at:  coop@feedthebeagle.com. 

Thanks to everyone who's purchased and my apologies for any glitches.

Happy Searching^^

If you're an internet sourcing junkie like myself than I'm sure you've come to realize that even getting as many as 100 results at a time just isn't enough...  Curse all those search engines that don't allow for more! 

Well...  this just isn't a problem anymore for all you FireFox users outer there anymore!  Lets say you want 500 results out of Google... how about 1,000 results or 10 pages worth of 100 results a piece?  What about 4,000 results?  Oh yes, it can be done!  Sounds like fun huh?  Here's the trick..........


Re-what?  Basically Re-pagination opens up your results pages on top of each other.  In short you'll have one browser displaying however many results page you chose one after another.  So scrolling to the bottom of your screen you'll see the bottom of your first 100 results then scroll a bit further and you see the next 100 results starting, and so on and so on...  Where/how do I do this with Firefox you ask? 

You do it very simply with this marvelous extension https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2099  !  Just download, install and right click on the next results page number after performing a search and wallah! 

Now... what use does this truly hold aside from looking at long lists and saving yourself from changing pages?  Well, for one thing, Google's results tend to change randomly.  Based on the time, day, traffic, stars, and tide, your results may be different on page 3 the following day...  so although it's not really a productive use of time, you could leave a tab open with 1000 results and compare the next day! 

Ok... something productive.  Now this kind of violates Google's TOS so I don't advise this in any capacity, but you could open a page with 1,000 results and run a spider over them.  You could extract documents, emails, resumes, etc...    Now you could always do this with the 100 result cap, and it might take a bit of time, but not that long where you'd set it up over night.  Now amplifying your results 10x you can literally get a nice 8 hours and your spider will work diligently through the night for you extrapolating everything and everything you want. 

**Not all search engines have TOS regulations against the use of an automated search.

Well, that's all I've got for right now, I was trying to come up with a real solid rational for why someone would need this many results but it's kind of... well, I'm sure the reasons exist, I'm just very tired.  Please comment with suggestions...  In sum, I think Re-Pagination is swell.

Happy Searching^^

Ok, so you've all been waiting for my wonderful CSE white paper and it's finally available for purchase...  
That's right, for $19.99 you get:

• 30 pages of highly detailed step by step instruction from setup to finish
• All of the keywords I use within the refinements of my CSE including Resume keywords and Negations (Over 90)
• You get any updates I make to the White Paper
• Personal 1on1 time with me to ask questions and pick my brain for help
• Sneak peaks of some of my latest search technology!

Happy Searching^^

Ok, so this is my third post in a row and yes, I could have done them all in one single posting, but I figured they were each deserving of their own. 

A long time ago I purchased the domain FeedTheBeagle.com.  The domain was purchased for the display of personal information and after 9 months I've decided that I don't have time to post much personal fun stuff so now it's for my experiments in sourcing.  I figured if for anything else I might as well keep continuity as my blog is also named as such. 

So here's what's happening.  I'm going to keep my blog here with the wonderful community that is Live.com and run lots of neat other things from my site.  When will all these neat things be operational you ask?  I honestly don't know but the basics of the site have been redone and just need to be filled in so hopefully sooner than later. 

I will be posting links to purchase my CSE White Paper there... FINALLY, this weekend so keep your eyes peeled.  The cost is going to be $19.99 and I'll share all the wonderful details of what it contains and what you get with it on the actual addition to the site.  Oh, and I'll probably link back to it from here too. 

Happy Searching^^

Well, if you hadn't heard from a little bird, you can now see winner of the first SourceCon challenge!  Yeah, I'm on a roll or something because I never win anything, but there are two spots left so go get em!  http://www.sourcecon1.com. 

Oh yeah, and having set my sights on this win in previous blog, I'm going to say right now that my next target is title of Grand Master of Sourcing!  To anyone else who competed or intends on competing, you better be good because you're in for a fight this September!

Happy Searching^^

I recently took the AIRS Certified Diversity Recruiter course and I would highly recommend it. As an "agency recruiter" I don't spend a whole lot of time asking diversity questions, but I think that's about to change. The value in the diversity is apparently a lot deeper than I ever thought and really got me thinking. I've decided to create a diversity CSE using Google Co-op and making it available for public so keep an eye out. Oh, and before I forget, I'd like to send a special thanks to Peggy DeLong who was my instructor for the course, Great Job yesterday!!

More on AIRS, I actually just completed my CIR certification also by completing their SearchLab 3.0 course.  Another course I would highly recommend for anyone looking to build a strong fundamental base on internet sourcing and recruiting.  For those with a bit more experience it might be a little simplistic though I did learn a few new things and I'll report more once I've completed their advanced course "Xtreme Lab".  This time I would like to send a special thanks out to Kelly Dobbins for teaching the course!  Awesome Job!

Happy Searching^^

I just got word back from the Co-Op Engineers at Google and the previous bug I reported about the excessive negation/background labels being a problem has been FIXED!!  Wahoo!!  All is right with Google.  Thanks to everyone at Google, you all rock! 

Happy Searching^^

Yeah, that's right, LinkedIn.com is in heavy discussion about it's IPO.  How exciting is this?  Perhaps Google will buy them out once they do?!  So much speculation.

The reason this has come to surface is due to the addition of Steve Sordello, the former CFO of Tivo, to the LinkedIn team.  LinkedIn is going into the next fiscal year projecting roughly $100 million in revenue. 

Kind of crazy when you think about the customer service and the budget they have?  I digress however as their CS department has gotten a LOT better and they seem to be much more proactive these days.  With all of the recent updates, who knows what the future holds...  I do know however that I will take shares in the IPO because I believe very strongly in the use of their service and also because I'm a paid member for almost a year now.  Anywho, I have a lot more to post about, but I wanted to say something quick and to the point. 

To all those reading this before you leave your desk for this holiday, have a wonderful 4th and check in if you get the chance for some new updates as soon as this evening! 

Happy Searching^^