Archive for May, 2007

May 28 2007

"Low-Man-On-The-Totem-Pole"

Published by Amybeth (@researchgoddess) under Research,Talent,Thoughts

My favorite quote this week comes from Brian Tome, one of the senior pastors at my church. He said this morning, “You will get a person’s best when you encourage and uplift them; you will not get their best when you criticize and belittle them.”

I have been mulling over in my mind for the past couple of days a project I would like to work on in my spare time. I wanted to compile the thoughts, opinions, and advice from a select few researchers and sourcers out there and write an article on how to become a great researcher. Excited about this idea, I decided the best way to reach these selected individuals would be to write a Question through LinkedIn and then send it only to them. Unfortunately in my excitement, my question was posted for ALL of my 700+ LinkedIn connections to see! I only knew this after receiving the following response to my question:

“I’m sorry I don’t mean any disrespect but I’m a little confused.

Searcher/sourcer is kind of the entry level in the staffing and recruiting industry. Your question seems a bit like asking, ‘how can I be the world’s greatest ‘low-man-on-the-totem-pole’?

My advice would be to aim a little higher and then ask for advice on how to get there.”

I am purposely withholding the name of this individual because I do not want him to be bombarded with scathing hate-mail. Well, part of me does, but seeing as how I’m just a lowly researcher, I don’t want to stoop one degree lower to do that!

My response to this individual is as follows:

***, thanks for your quick response. My intent was for this question to only reach a handful of people, and apparently I posted it to my whole network. I have taken this question down as I only desire feedback from a select few, so my apologies that you received this.

In response to your message however, with all due respect researchers should not be viewed as the low man on the totem pole, but unfortunately many recruiters like to place them there. I myself have made a 5-year career out of researching, and I have no desire whatsoever to “grow up” to be a recruiter. Ask folks like Maureen Sharib, Shally Steckerl, Jim Stroud, Rob McIntosh, Glenn Gutmacher, etc., all of whom have made very successful careers out of researching and sourcing, with Maureen and Shally being self-employed doing just that. There are entire training programs, such as AIRS, dedicated to training on research techniques. There is even a national conference that is being held in Atlanta later this summer entirely focused on sourcing and research. It is not simply the ‘entry-level’ position and the stepping stone that everyone takes to become a recruiter. Yes I will agree that many people who start off as researchers do move on to become recruiters. But there are a great number of people, myself included, who have found that our love is in research and are interested in learning what it takes to become really great.

I see that you have a long-standing history working in executive level positions in electronics. I would imagine that being such a senior level person, you encourage the people who work for you, no matter what level they are at in the organization, to strive for excellence in whatever they do. Regardless of whether a researcher is simply an entry-level employee or if that individual desires to make a career out of it, I would hope you would encourage that person to be the very best researcher they could be, even if in your eyes that is as “low-man-on-the-totem-pole”.

I appreciate your thoughts, and I hope that my viewpoint on this will help clarify this misconception of what researchers truly are.

…
Sorry guys, this probably isn’t ‘my best’ as my whole profession has just been belittled! But this is a perfect example of the misconception of researchers that I have been fighting for the past 3+ years. I hope that no one else out there looks at us in this light though I know there are probably plenty who do. Regardless, I will continue to fight this ignorance and promote the benefit and value that dedicated research brings to a recruiting organization.

(P.S. – if you’re REALLY hot over that response, send me an email and I might be coerced into providing the name of the individual who wrote it!!)


Experience.com provides information on entry level jobs.

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May 25 2007

Searching for University Resume Books

Published by Amybeth (@researchgoddess) under Research

A good resource that is available to us is the educational institution(s) listed on our candidates’ resumes. Lots of recruiters don’t know that many colleges and universities have online resume books, many of which are available at no cost! One of my recruiters asked me this morning how to go about finding these resume books, so I thought I would share a couple of ways that I like to use:

inurl:resume book filetype:pdf .edu (college university) – this search is pretty basic and you’ll have to sift through some “noise” but there are university resume books available. For those of you who are unfamiliar with these resume books, the majority of them come in .pdf format, which is why I have filetype:pdf in the search string

inurl:resume book filetype:pdf .edu (college university) (financial banking) MBA – this one gets a little more focused, based on some of the additional keywords

allinurl:resume book .edu – using the allinurl: operator includes the entire line in the URL search….this presents a more narrow, focused search
allinurl:resume book .edu MBA – this is the narrowest search, only returning 5 pages; all pages however are resume books of graduating MBA students from schools like UMD and UMich.

***append: I received some “tough love” from a more seasoned researcher who showed me some even better search strings here:
inurl:~CV book site:edu (*college *university)
inurl:~CV book site:edu filetype:pdf
inurl:~CV book site:edu filetype:pdf 2007

Obviously these are just samplings; I use lots of other mixtures of keywords and such but this is a good starting point for someone who is not familiar with how to find resume books. If anyone has any other search strings that will find these resources, please feel free to add a comment and contribute!

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May 23 2007

QuietAgent

Published by Amybeth (@researchgoddess) under Cool Tool Alert,Research,Talent,Technology

Kevin Wheeler wrote about QuietAgent way back in December 2006 on ERE. QuietAgent is an exciting new passive recruiting tool! Click here to view the video specifically for recruiting agencies. There is also access as a job seeker and as an employer (corporate).

Here’s the basic breakdown. You can:

  • Access anonymous employed people who may consider a better offer
  • Search for your own inventory or on behalf of your clients
  • Have the convenience of seeing the best matched & willing career seekers
  • Perform profiling and benchmarking
  • Get a year’s unlimited searching for the cost of about two job postings!

Costs:
Boutique License:

  • Up to 50 Users
  • Unlimited Searches
  • Unlimited Candidates
  • Monthly Credit Card Billing
  • $84 a month p/user

Enterprise License

  • Boutique License+
  • Unlimited Users
  • Multi-Office Licenses
  • Enterprise Licenses
  • Corporate Billing

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May 23 2007

8 Ways To Get Noticed As A Candidate – by Jim Durbin

Published by Amybeth (@researchgoddess) under Article Reviews,Social,Talent

Heidi Bolinger sent me an email with a GREAT post made today by Jim Durbin and I wanted to give him props by cross-pollinating! Check it out and click on the direct link below. You rock, Jim!

8 Ways To Get Noticed As A Candidate

  1. Start A Blog titled: Reasonsfor[employer]tohire[yourname]com
  2. Sign up for LinkedIn and contact employees at the company, asking for help getting to a hiring manager.
  3. Fill out a profile on Jobster.
  4. Get interviewed by a recruiting or staffing blog. Attach your resume to the post.
  5. Search for local blogs in your area on the industry you want to work for. Contact the blogger and ask for referrals.
  6. Leave intelligent comments at industry blogs, and leave your resume url as the hyperlink to your name in the comment section.
  7. Go to ZoomInfo and Jigsaw and edit your personal information to make sure it’s accurate.
  8. Update your LinkedIn Profile. Start putting it into your e-mail signature.

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May 22 2007

You Go, Girl!

Published by Amybeth (@researchgoddess) under Blogging,Social,Technology

“Women are a blogging powerhouse. According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, 68 percent of men are Internet users, compared with 66 percent of women, but since women make up more of the population, the total number of women online is now slightly larger than the number of men.
A survey by Perseus, a marketing research services company, indicates that 56 percent of all blogs are created by women and that women abandon fewer blogs than men do.”
- Boston Globe, July 2006
(updated statistics show that 71% of men and 69% of women are now Internet users)

“According to a recent survey, young women (between the ages of 18 and 34) dominate the world wide web and experts say that this trend will greatly influence the future of the Internet as we know it….Young women are now the most dominant group online, accounting for nearly a fifth of the internet population in the UK. NetRatings found that 18 per cent of active online Brits were females aged between 18 and 34 in a recent survey. Burmaster said that this shift indicated a significant change in the internet and would dictate the kind of content and advertising we would see online in the future. “There is little doubt we are entering a new era of the internet… the internet landscape is shifting; a shift which is sure to send shockwaves through the entire online industry.”
- TrendHunter, May 2007

“[According to] Sheila Greco Associates, an Amsterdam, N.Y.-based consulting firm… the company’s research indicates that the percent of female chief information offers–the top IT rank at most companies–increased to 9% in 2007, up from 7% in 2000.”
- Forbes.com, May 2007

I’m certainly not a feminist, but I think it’s cool that we women are making our presence known out here in the blogosphere as well as the IT world. There’s even a site dedicated solely to the promotion of female-authored blogs called www.blogher.org. Also check out the Blogger Pajama Party, an interview that was done with six of the most talked-about women bloggers back in February 2006.

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