Candidate Pipeline Development™

Follow up to Building a Linkedin Network.

2008-04-21T11:42:00.000-07:00

I was asked a few questions so here is the follow up.
1) When is it big enough? Dunno haven't found out yet, I certainly do not see any downside from have a huge network. We find tons of candidates off Linked in every day. As HTC is a research firm it has become extremely valuable to us. I can't/won't day exactly how many candidates per week we are getting from Linkedin but I can tell you it is significantly more than it was a year ago. We have completely revamped our search processes internally in the past 6 months. We have found it to be much more cost effective to first locate a canddiate or two (Manager let's say) on Linkedin and the pull the group via phone or check a candidates profile before phone screening for a specific client. I can't say it's replaced any of my other techniques but I can say it's augmented them and made them much more efficient. But Linkedin isn't perfect either. There is a lot of "bad" and "old" information on there. Linkedin may make a better financial model for a research firm as opposed to a recruiting firm or staffing department. Also ,we just don't sell the names we find off Linkedin, we actually use it as a starting point, an easier way to get additional names out of the target.

2) It take about 5 hours a week to manage. I don't actually search for candidates as I have a team of people doing that. I did not pay for Linkedin until I needed another way to add connections. In March I purchased the 1 year subscription so I can add people using inmail and referrals etc. up until then I did it all for free so the ROI was infinite. Even with the paid subscription at $400 a year it paid for itself in the first hour after I bought the subscription.

3) I joined Linkedin about 4-5 years ago and did nothing until Sept 2007. Up to that point I think I had about 100 first level contacts, so a majority of my network has been added since the beginning of the new year. At the end of Dec 2007 I had about 2000 first levels and today I have 4300. Everyone's network will be different but at 1000 I had 2.5 million total, at 2000 I had 6 million, at 3000 approx 8.5 million, and at 4300 as of this am I have about 10,390,000.

I think the rest of your post really revolves around whether you should spend the time to build it or not. Will Linkedin implode? Will you loose value in connecting your candidates to your clients to your vendors? I worried about the same thing at first and then realized it was a moot argument at this point. One can not predict what will happen in the future but I know my company has benefited tremendously from having access to the information on Linkedin and next we're going to conquer Facebook and Myspace and on and on. Should you build your network? Overwhelmingly my answer would be Yes. Why cause the risk of not building and being left behind is too great, because my network also grows and we're connected on our first levels:-) and because it's a great resource of previously unavailable information that grow exponentially every month. By not building your network do you think that will stop your clients and candidates from connecting to others the only thing you'll do is loose contact with them. I could go on and on with examples but suffice it to say in my opinion as far as social networking goes, if you're not riding the wave now you'll be sucking on foam later on down the road:-) And if you only add 25-50 new connections a week that's still a HUGE network after 1 year!

Jeff Weidner
HTC Research Corp

How to build up your Linkedin network

2008-04-18T11:43:00.000-07:00

OK I've been getting a ton of people asking me how I built my network on Linkedin up to 4200+. I thought I would share some of my secrets on how I'm getting so many (which is relative) invites (about 100-150 per week). Though I didn't realize they were secrets.

So here's my basic routine.

FIRST
I started a group on Linkedin called CPD-Candidate Pipeline Development (TM) http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/44169/3ED8F804D9C7
This is linked to the HTC Research Blog located here http://htcresearch.blogspot.com which doesn't have that many readers as I'm not a prolific blogger but this get's me approx 30 requests per day M-F and about 10 per day on Sat and Sunday. Every request I send an email to thanking them for joining the group and recommending that they connect by sending me an invite. Of the 170 requests per week I'm getting about a 70%-80% positive response rate and those that don't send me an invite it's usually because they are out of invites so they ask me to send one to them, which I do.

I recommend either starting a blog on a free blogging site or a web site on Ning.com and adding some content focused around the group you want to start. You can't/shouldn't just start a group for the sake of starting a group to get more connections. My opinion is you have to add value, so keep that in mind.

NEXT
I joined other groups. This suggestion came from Steve Burda who I think has over 10K first level connections.
I'm joined up to a lot of groups (about 300+)and I try to add something to each group I've joined. I may not read or post every month to every group but I do make an effort. I estimate I get about 10 invites a day (tough to track) from group member invites. I'm basing this on what people say in their invite requests such as "Hey Jeff saw you just joined the ____group and I'de like to connect"

THEN
I utilize the Q&A section appropriately.
Ask relevant questions not transparent ones!

A relevant question is a serious question that you really need the answer to. For example we are putting together a training DVD and I needed some legal advice so I would know the right questions to ask an attorney before spending the $250 per hour or whatever so I asked a specific question to the Legal group and of course I mentioned I was an open networker and here's my email address. Or I had a specific question about content delivery and what format people would prefer, web, dvd, cd etc or we're looking at moving our blog site from blogspot to a different service so I wanted some advice on that. All legit reasons and questions I actually needed the answers to and the people who answered were really quite helpful.

A transparent question is one that was specifically posted to promote you or your company. It's one where it is so blatantly obvious that the only reason you posted it was to advertise something. Personally, I've chosen to just ignore those types of questions and they range from; "What is the meaning of life?" or "What's your favorite season and Why?" to "Are strawberries the only fruit with seeds on the outside?" I used to hit my head against the wall every time I saw a question like this but I was getting too many lumps.:-)

NEXT
Answer questions.
I find it easier to ask relavent questions rather than answering them and I've found that I get more invites when asking rather than answering.
A) you can ask a question on just about any topic and make it legit and relavent.
b) very tough to answer a question where you don't know squat and make it legit and self promoting.

Asking and answering questions also helps me build my blog site. It gets my creative writing juices going and if I find a question particulary interesting I sometimes choose to write a response to myself to see what my actual thoughts are. Sometimes I post to my bog site, sometimes I just hit delete. What the heck, it's only digital ink and paper it's not like I killed a tree or something.

NEXT
I highly recommend joing the following three immediately (and sending me an invite)
Toplinked.com
Mylink500
LION
Invite Me Network
RecruitingBlogs.com

NEXT talk with other Top networkers and ask them what they did. I'm all about ease and automation, I'm not about to slog through hundreds, thousand of names on Linkedin to find the ones that are open networkers, have a valid email address in their profile and are not already on my first level. Nothing, in my mind could be more tedious! I've got better things to do as I'm trying to run a Research firm in my spare time while not building a Linkedin network ;-) Seriously though I spend about 5 hours a week on Linkedin and the benefits have been enormous. So thanks Linkedin!

I have 4-5 more things I do but this post is getting long and I've got stuff to do so I'll post more later.

Jeff Weidner
HTC Research

Data Extraction Tools; High Tech Theft or Sourcing Automation ?

2008-04-01T09:33:00.000-07:00

An internet sourcer friend of mine and were talking and he was telling me that his employer, a large recruiting and RPO company, routinely uses a data extraction tool on some of the biggest resume job boards to pull down 10's of thousands of resumes every night. Now, I have no way of confirming this so I'll keep Company names out of the conversation but where is the line in the sand for these data extraction tools?

For those of you that aren't familiar with DE tools, imagine if you could program a piece of software to do the following;
1) Log into your favorite job board
2) perform specific searches for candidate resumes
3) Follow the link to each individual's resume
4) compare that resume/name/address/phone against other resumes you already have in your ATS
5) if it's not a duplicate then create a new candidate file and save the file

It's a way of automating the whole process.

Now imagine if you had 20 subscriptions and could pull 10,000 resumes per subscription per night. As you can imagine it wouldn't take long for you to have the entire job board database.

Now I'm certainly not advocating the use of DE Tools in this manner. It is blatantly wrong, IMO, to strip a company of it's most valued asset; that being the data it creates/supplies.

But putting that scenario aside. What if you used it on a more limited basis say on Linkedin. As anyone with a Linkedin account knows it's damn near impossible to extract Name, Address, Company name and a profile address out of Linked in. Try copying the info into MS Word and you get all the graphics, MSExcel- ugh nothing is formatted, notepad and forget about it completed unformatted mess. But the DE tool could can the search results of every page and extract only the information you needed/wanted and put it into an Excel Spreadsheet format making it easier to verify the information and manipulate the information by sorting the columns, do a global replace of a title or company name, etc.

So where is that "Line in the Sand" for Data Extraction Tools?
Are we as Internet Researchers solely responsible for their use/mis-use or are the Internet sites solely responsible for protecting their data?
How it is different from Google spidering a web site and cataloging the web pages a site, so they can sort for relevancy claiming it adds more value to their service and then sell advertising (a lot of advertising).
And you can't say "Well as long as you use it in a limited fashion." Define Limited. What you define as limited as a single research working from a Home Office may not meet a Corp Staffing Mgr's definition of Limited that has to keep 50 recruiters flush with names to call every day.

Jeff Weidner

Title HTC Research Corp

Watch out Hoover's Linkedin is nipping at your

2008-03-25T08:19:00.000-07:00

So last night I was just running through my typical end of day routine; a stroll around the office to say good night to everyone, check the coffee pot to make sure it's turned off, one last look at the next day's calendar and a quick check on my various email accounts. I noticed an email from Linkedin Customer Support concerning that request for more invites I sent in 2 weeks ago. Wow, they gave me another 500 invites! So I popped onto Linkedin and started going through the 1300+ contacts I have uploaded but haven't sent an invite to and used up most of my 500 new invites in about 40 seconds. Ahh one can never have too many Linkedin contacts:-). While I was toiling away at my contacts I noticed a new "beta" feature on Linkedin "the Company Profile".

Now when you do a search on LI, specifically for contacts from a particular company, on the results page will be a link to the Company Profile. "Check out the XYZ Company Profile". From first glance LI did a very good job organizing the page. They crammed a lot of information in a one page profile which includes the following:

Left column
1)A company Summary
2)Company employees in your network
3)New Hires in your network
4)Recent promotions and changes
5) Popular profiles

Right Column
1) Related companies
2) Key Statistics on top locations
a)Basic profile info such as Company Gross Revenues, # employees, Web site etc
b)Most common job titles, top schools employees attended, median age, gender
3)Job listings for the Company

The profile data is being supplied in partnership with Business Week and the statistical information is Estimated based on LinkedIn Data.

Linkedin just took step closer to being a one stop shop for corporate information. And best of all it's real time and most of the data is updated by the users. User updated content has it's drawbacks but if monitored can be incredibly valuable, especially to a savvy candidate researcher or recruiter.

Jeff Weidner
HTC Research Corp
925 313 9005 X 200

Is it possible to get only the Junior Sales Reps when sourcing names from a target company?

2008-01-24T09:15:00.000-08:00

OK, read this with a grain of salt tucked under a pillow. Or whatever the saying is.

Is it possible to get only the Junior Sales Reps? Yes, though much more difficult for an inexperienced phone sourcer. And without a doubt you have to use the correct ruse.

There are a lot of variables with developing an effective ruse, such as how large is the company you're calling into, is it the HQ or a small field office, what kind of sales rep (inside or outside) and on and on...

So I can give you a fish or give you a rod and some line and teach you to fish or I can teach you how to build a fishing rod and where to get some line and you can figure out the rest.

Here's where I teach you how to build the rod; you see most sourcers approach the problem of how to penetrate the company from their own personal point of view. You need to change your point of view and think about “what would the target company need to provide to the target job title (employee)”. You see, companies are support systems for their employees and visa versa. Find out what each side needs and develop a ruse to provide it to them. Put another way you have to think strategically not tactically.

Most people think;
How can I get the names of these sales people?
Where are these sales reps located?
What are their titles?
How do I get the junior sales people and not the senior sales people?

What you should be thinking is;
What do junior sales reps need that senior sales reps don’t?
What does a company provide to its junior sales people that it doesn’t to their senior sales people?
How are junior sales reps different than senior reps?
If I were a junior sales rep just starting out a new company I wish I had FITB (fill in the blank)?

Then develop a list.
Sales tools such as software (CRM) access
Training
Mentoring
Introductions to established accounts
Phone skills seminars
Etc

Then develop a short script for each item on the list and see how it fits. Does it sound credible? If you were on the other end of the phone would it make sense?

Of course the other option is to just pull the entire list of sales people and profile everyone on the list. Usually, if you have a list of 10 targets it'll be about 50/50 as to which tactic/strategy we use here at HTC.

I hope this helps and good luck,

Jeff Weidner
HTC Research
Copyright 2008

FIVE RULES of SUCCESS with HTC RESEARCH

2007-12-05T10:08:00.000-08:00

FIVE RULES of SUCCESS
Our objective is for the Client to make a hire off each and every project that they initiate with us. For a Client to use our research successfully we have laid down some rules to follow. We have found that if these rules are followed our Clients have a much higher success rate, as high as 90%. If a Client does not follow these rules then failure is more likely.
RULE #1- The 72 Hour Rule Clients (the Hiring Manager or Recruiter) have 72 hours to contact a Qualified Interested Candidate. After 72 hours a greater percentage of Candidates will drop out of the running. For one reason or another they lose interest.
RULE #2- Sell the Opportunity, Company, Product or Service FIRST. When a Hiring Manager or Recruiter calls the Candidate for the first time, the first 15 -25 minutes of the conversation should be selling the opportunity, Company, product or service. After the "pitch" is completed and all the Candidate’s questions have been answered there is nothing wrong with continuing with the phone interview and qualifying the candidate for experience and background. This portion of the process will allow you to determine if a face-to-face interview is warranted.
RULE #3- Passive-VS-Active. HTC Research Corp. specializes in both Active and Passive candidate research. A Passive Candidate that is someone that is not necessarily looking for a new job but if the right opportunity were presented to him/her at the right time they would be willing to pursue it. An Active Candidate is someone who is actively seeking new employment. Since a Resume is what an Active Candidate uses to market themselves, they usually have a current one readily available. However, since the Passive Candidate is not actively looking they usually will NOT have an up to date Resume. This does not mean they are any less qualified than the Active Candidate. This is why we provide a Profile of the candidate. A typical Profile will include most of the pertinent information needed to conduct a phone interview with a candidate regardless of their status.
RULE #4 - The Follow Up Rule - Our Clients must provide us with follow-up on all candidates we send to them in a timely manner. Follow-up in the form of a phone call or e-mail to the sales representative is acceptable. Feedback on every candidate is crucial to the success of the research project. Researching the passive candidate market is an imperfect science. If our research staff is off target for any reason the feedback we get from you will help us get them back on track quickly. The longer it takes to get us back on track the more costly it is to do the research. Be assured that as a Client you will never pay for a candidate that is not Qualified and Interested in new opportunities as per the job specifications which were outlined in the original job order.
RULE # 5 - HTC Research is a research/sourcing company, not a recruiting firm. We provide passive candidates that are Qualified and Interested in new job opportunities. We do this very quickly and at a reasonable price. At this time, we do not perform background checks, drug screens, set up interviews or negotiate contracts with candidates.
Copyright HTC Research Corp 1995 thru 2008

What changes would I like to see in the Contract Recruiting and Strategic Sourcing arena?

2007-12-04T09:13:00.000-08:00

Question was originally posted by Josh LeTouneau on Linked in
my reply is below.
Contract Recruiters and Sourcers: What Changes In The Current Model Would You Like To See?

Good afternoon, Contract Recruiters and Strategic Sourcers! I wanted to briefly reach out to ask what kind of changes you'd like to see in the contract recruiting and strategic sourcing market (particularly the U.S.). Would changes be compensation related, process related, recruiting architecture related, etc.?

Joshua Letourneau
Managing Director
LG & Associates Search / Talent Strategy
jletourneau (at) lgexec.com
www.lgexec.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/jletourneau
My Reply

What changes would I like to see contract recruiting and strategic sourcing market?
1) Staffing needs to be removed from HR. Most High Tech companies have done this, especially those on the west coast but other industries need to catch up. Staffing is not an HR function any more.
2) Pricing models for strategic sourcing will be completely revamped. (The market will do theis naturally) This is because the skills needed to be an internet researcher are easily duplicated across organizations and there has been a plethora of companies, individuals creating training seminars on the subject. There will be a huge influx of internet researching talent which will flood the market as the market goes through it's next phase of growth, (baby boomer replacements etc) this influx will drive going market rates for internet researchers down. Additional pressure from offshore companies from India and other locations will also force US providers to become more efficient and reduce pricing models for the same services. Pricing could fall below $1000 per month for a researcher as competition heats up as there are few other market deliniations and variations in the range of services offered.
3) Pricing models for Phone Based Candidate Sourcing will remain at current levels as the talent pool for doing this type of work as not increased as more and more researchers have taken to internet based research. Additionally, when internet researchers are not successful in finding enough prospects Employers/Clients have few alternatives.
4) Hiring Managers need to be more in tune with the current and future staffing market. As the staffing model becomes more and more of a "low touch" model. In an effort to reduce costs the marching orders for staffing has been to get the candidates as far along in the recruiting process as possible before someone has to speak to them. In some cases the first person to have a real relationship building conversation with the candidate is the hiring manager. Unfortunately, few hiring managers are prepared for this especially in the high tech arena and don't know how to build rapport, yet alone close a candidate on the position.
5) Much of the disconnect starts with the writing of the requisition. Left to their own devices many Hiring Managers either make the requirements so restrictive that the potential pool of candidates is a water droplet and others are so nebulous that there is little direction other than I want the best that I can find that does this___.
6)The current battles between Internet and Phone based researchers need to be resolved. When internet researchers started coming on the scene a rift began to open between them and the war of words on ERExchange etc started to come to a head. What researchers on both sides of the coin need to realize is that the client doesn't care one way or another where/how the candiadte was sourced. The client just wants the end result, a hire. The process should always be, find low hanging fruit first then move up the tree. And low hanging doesn't mean more or less qualified or more or less interested. Low hanging means it was either cheaper, easier or faster to locate, identify, pre-screen that candidate the method or tactics don't matter. All methods should be implemented by a good researcher/research firm. Process matters very little to the hiring manager and it doesn't come in to play when making a decision on whether or not to make an offer to a candidate.
7) The Semantic Web, adding context to internet search results will dramtically change how companies locate and identify top talent. Right now Internet search engines are missing the mark on quality.
8) There need to be some rules/boundaries on candidate online privacy especially for people that will be entering the workforce in the next few years and that were early adopters of social networks. I think we've all heard of a candidate or two that hasn't been hired because of what was on a personal MySpace or FaceBook account. It would be a shame if a few indescretions that a "young" person made on-line were to be immortalized in digital cyber space forever.
9) Companies need to better define the staffing and recruiting models within their own organizations. Staffing strategies take time to implement, strategies are not faucets you can turn on and turn off. I see company after company, create a strategy, implement it only to abandon it 2 to 3 months later and create and implement a new strategy which lasts for 2 or 3 months. This is not only poor planning on the part of the executive staff but also of a colosal waste of time and resources.
10) I agree with Rob McIntosh's # 7 about "More effective use of competitive and business intelligence (both internally and external) to better map the size of the realistic talent pools" but feel that this process should start before a requisition is even opened/approved and that aqualified recruiter or recruiting manager should work with the Hiring Manager to identify those talent pools. If it's decided that the talent pool is too small that would give better direction to writing a better job description rather than having a req that's going to remain open for upwards of 6 to 9 months.

Thanks
Jeff Weidner
925 313 9005 X 200
HTC Research Corp
HTC Research Blog
Top 10 resources to build target company lists
LinkedIn Jeff Weidner

OK from time to time

2007-11-30T07:14:00.001-08:00

I get a bite from the satire bug and write articles like the one below on Hill Deer. Please don't call about making a donation to the HDAA, it's fictional, as are the deer. I posted this on erexchange.com early in the week and actually started receiving calls from people concerned about the plight of the Hill Deer and either wanting to make a donation or wanting to take in a few deer as they have a "huge piece of land with a great hill on it". I'm sure the deer would be very touched by their generosity, if they existed.

Thanks,

Jeff Weidner
925 313 9005 X 200
HTC Research Corp
HTC Research Blog
Top 10 resources to build target company lists
LinkedIn Jeff Weidner

The plight of the Hill Deer of California

2007-11-30T07:09:00.000-08:00

One a calm spring day just around sunset if you look out onto the hillsides of Northern California you will most likely see a familiar sight. The Hill Deer of California have captured the hearts of all those that come into contact with them. A close relative of the Whitetail Deer and the Mull Deer, the Hill Deer of California have developed special adaptations to allow them to walk in the hilly terrain more easily. One of the more predominant adaptations is that one set of legs is typically shorter than the other allowing them to walk around the hillsides in a circular fashion while grazing. Scientists have dubbed these deer either LSSL or RSSL Hill Deer. LSSL (Left Side-Short Leg) and RSSL (Right Side-Short Leg). Herds are usually self-segregating through out the Northern California deer population and very rarely do deer from RSSL herds intermingle with deer from LSSL herds. Scientists believe that this is a natural process rather than a chosen one because deer with the legs on the left side of their body tend to graze in a counter-clockwise pattern around hillsides while deer with shorter legs on the right of their bodies tend to graze in the opposite direction.

Complications in deer herds occur when a fawn is born of parents from opposite legged herds. If a RSSL male and a LSSL female have offspring there is a 50% chance that the fawn will have legs that are shorter on the opposite side of its mother. When this happens the fawn is usually lost or abandoned by its mother because it is walking in the opposite direction while grazing. Every spring, when the new fawns are due to arrive the volunteers from the Hill Deer Adoption Agency are out in full force trying to locate as many orphaned fawns as possible before a predator or starvation kills them. Last year over 230-orphaned Hill Deer were located and placed with foster families in the state. Because of an exceptionally mild summer, a very prolific rutting season and abundance in the deer’s food supply, this seasons’ number of orphaned Hill Deer fawns is expected to be nearly double.

Since 1968, the Hill Deer Adoption Agency has been placing fawns that have been separated from the mothers and the rest of the herd with foster mothers and family that have the same side of legs that are shorter than the other. In recent years however there has been an increasing number of deer that are left sided short-legged or LSSL and there aren’t enough adoptive mothers to place the fawns with. For now the Hill Deer Adoption Agency is asking for volunteers to hand raise these orphaned deer until a more permanent solution can be put into place. Interested parties can call the Hill Deer Adoption Agency at (888) HILL DEER or (888) 499 4482 X 200 All volunteers must have easy access to a hillside for the fawns to be raised on.

thanks,

Jeff Weidner
925 313 9005 X 200
HTC Research Corp
HTC Research Blog
Top 10 resources to build target company lists
LinkedIn Jeff Weidner

Client Backlash to Social Networking candidates (Linked In, Jigsaw, Doostang etc)

2007-11-21T10:08:00.000-08:00

discussion started 4/24/2007, 10:00 a.m. by Jeff Weidner

With the growing popularity of these Social Networking sites, just as with the job boards 10 or so years ago we are beginning to see a backlash from clients rejecting candidates that we identify thru other means that also happen to be on the Social Networking flavor of the month. This month it happens to be Linked In.

Do you feel, as sourcers, that clients should be prepared to pay for candidates that are identified through other means but also happen to be in client's network on Linked In?

I'm hoping to open it up to discussion but HTC has taken the following stance on the issue:

At this time I have told my clients that because these sites are so prevalent and are becoming more and more ubiquitous there is no way for me to screen candidates for these sites for the following reasons;

A) We don’t use some of the sites and I don’t know what site everyone of my contractors use as they are not under my control

B) Just because a person is on the site doesn’t mean that is how we obtained their name

C) We can’t be expected to verify every candidate we source on a weekly basis against every social site on the internet, as is the case for job boards as well.

D) On some sites such as Linked in they may not have been in “our Network” so we may not have known about them (it is connection dependent)

E) My Name Generators are instructed to only use true phone recruiting and networking techniques to find candidates but there is bound to be duplication.

F) There are so many new members and connections being made on a daily, weekly, monthly basis that it is impossible for us to monitor every site and still be effective at what we do.

G) There are too many variables. As with most things in recruiting entering search criteria is highly human intensive. Only a person can type in specific combinations of skill sets and key words and apply a Sr Warp Core Engineer to a Sr DBA for Oracle position. It depends on the experience of the person doing the searching on their ability to find qualified candidates. Our clients pay for that experience.

Now, as with the backlash with the job boards 10+ years ago I fully expect this backlash to be a temporary inconvenience and that the issue will die down as they become more widespread but I thought it would make good fodder for discussion on the group.

I originally posted ERE.net Electronic Recruiters Exchange
So go there for other members responses to my post.

Thanks,

Jeff Weidner
925 313 9005 X 200
HTC Research Corp

Top 10 Tools for developing target lists.

2007-11-20T14:03:00.000-08:00

So you and your crack staff of recruiters have decided to penetrate the passive candidate market to see if there are any qualified candidates out there that would rather be working for your company. Now what? The first step is to identify the list of target companies that you could potentially pull candidates from. But where do you start? What resources are out there to help you build a qualified target company list?

Here is a list of Top 10 resources that HTC uses to identify potential targets.

Hoover’s Online - Hoover's, Inc., delivers comprehensive company, industry, and market intelligence that drives business growth. Our database of 12 million companies, with in-depth coverage of 40,000 of the world's top business enterprises, is at the core of our business tools and services that customers find vital to their business operations. Hoover's editorial staff of some 80 editors and researchers bring vital business information and knowledge to their coverage, updating the site daily to bring our visitors and subscribers the most up-to-date business information in the industry. (From their web site www.hoovers.com)

CorpTech - CorpTech researches and publishes both high-quality private company profiles and public company profiles. This unique source of business directory information on the hi tech business segment allows you to perform in depth company research to generate competitive intelligence, business leads, mailing lists, and unique company profile data points for use in all your company research activities. (From their web site www.corptech.com)

Candidate Resumes – Review the resumes of candidates that interviewed but were not hired. Their current or past employers may provide another target or two to add to the list.

Hiring Managers – Most Hiring Managers can name at least a few candidates that are from direct competitors. They’ve worked with them in the past, met them at industry functions, heard them speak at conferences and read their articles in magazines. Tap into this resource because referrals are an excellent way to network your way into a company. Just ask, “Who do you know?”

The Marketing Department – This is an often forgotten resource. Not only does the Marketing Dept. keep track of who the company is trying to market to, but they also track who else is marketing similar products or services to your customers. They should have a list of direct and indirect competitors readily available.

Search Engines – Use the advanced search area of just about any search engine and type in your company’s name and the word ”competition OR competitors”. Unless you work for an obscure company you should at least be able to get one or two companies from reading the various articles. Then perform the same search with one of those company’s names.

Industry Sources – Symposiums, Conferences, Consortiums, Magazines, Trade Shows, Standards Associations, Testing Laboratories etc. We once were performing a search for a client that was entering into the PDA market. They wanted to target other PDA manufacturers but only the obvious top 5 companies came to mind. We added another 20 companies by doing a search on Google for “PDA Manufacturers and Conference” a sight came up which was a web site for a PDA Manufacturers Conference that had taken place a few months prior and it listed every PDA Manufacturer in the world and even sorted them alphabetically, by location, by price etc.

Online Retailers – This works great for companies that are in the consumer goods arena. Do a search on Amazon for makers of your same product.

Job Boards – Look through the job postings to see who else has posted similar jobs.

User Groups/News Groups - There are tens of thousands of news and user groups to cover every possible interest and topic. They tend to be a little slow in developing a viable list of targets but as a last resort they can be a valuable resource.

When all else fails, look for “Like/Kind” companies or indirect competitors to pull candidates out of. These are companies that are making or selling like/kind products or services. If you can’t get that Wireless Engineer away from that hot cell phone manufacturer maybe you could find them at a PDA company that uses wireless technologies or a pager company. Or maybe you could look at a completely different industry that uses the same or similar technology.

There are at least another 1000 resources available to recruiters but these are the ones we have found to be the most useful. Not every resource is effective 100% of the time so hopefully you'll be able to add one or two to your bag of tricks and be able to impress that hiring manager the next time he asks "Where else can we find qualified candidates?".

Thanks,

Jeff Weidner
925 313 9005 X 200
HTC Research Corp
Top 10 resources to build target company lists
LinkedIn Jeff Weidner

Copyright © 2004, HTC Research Corp., Inc All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Top 10 Reasons to Use Passive Candidate Research

2007-11-20T13:55:00.000-08:00

If you’re a recruiting firm

Need to spend more time doing sales and less time talking to the wrong candidates
Unfamiliar with specific geographic region, target company or industry
Need to reduce internal cost of finding qualified candidates
Need qualified candidates quickly. (24-48 hours)
Placing ads on job boards was unsuccessful.
Client has agreed to pay for research costs.
No time to do the sourcing internally.
No resources to do the sourcing internally.
Want to build a database of “hot” candidates for future needs.
You’re a little rusty on the phone skills needed to find candidates effectively.

If you’re a Staffing Dept in a Corporation

Budget does not allow for use of contingency or retained search firm.
Receiving too many resumes from job boards and newspaper ads that aren’t qualified.
Need to target specific geographic region, target company or industry for candidates.
The position has been open for 30 days or more.
The quality of candidates from other sources are not meeting your needs.
Need to reduce your overall cost per hire (CPH) to less than $5000 per hire
Want to reduce your overall time to fill (TTF) to less than 45 days.
Want to build a database of “hot” candidates for future needs.
Hiring Manager has a vague idea of what they want.
Need to hire more than one candidate with similar skill sets.

Thanks,

Jeff Weidner
925 313 9005 X 200
HTC Research Corp
LinkedIn Jeff Weidner

Copyright © 2002-2007, HTC Research Corp., Inc All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without prior written authorization.

The Value of the Passive Candidate

2007-11-20T13:47:00.000-08:00

by Jack Young
You’ve set up your website, posted job openings on expensive subscription Internet job boards, and then you wait for the right candidate to respond. Meanwhile, you are being inundated with, and let’s not forget paying for, resumes of candidates whose work histories don’t resemble the ideal person you had in mind. The trouble is, the most persistent responders to job ads and Internet postings are “active candidates” – often these candidates are either unemployed or disgruntled job seekers who are desperate for ANY job with ANY company.
Most recruiters are not even aware that there is another pool of candidates to pull from. They are so intent on pushing paper that they never even realize there might be better way to consistently find and place highly qualified candidates. The fact is that the largest talent pool available is a group commonly known as “passive candidates”. Passive candidates are defined as candidates that are currently employed and not actively seeking new job opportunities. These are the “hidden” gems whose names will not be found on online databases or resume banks at Internet job sites. They are the qualified candidates that you want to speak with. Why? Because passive candidates, are often, the most successful in their chosen fields. Just because these talented people may not be ACTIVELY looking for a job does not mean they are not PASSIVELY interested in hearing about your opportunity. The truly exceptional employee is most often too busy performing an outstanding job for his/her employer, not actively looking for another job.
Unfortunately, the best candidates are called passive for a reason. They are content in their jobs and not looking, otherwise they’d be knocking at your door. The problem is that most staffing professionals lack the time and knowledge necessary to mine the gems found in the passive candidate market. However, once found the passive candidate can be motivated by a larger goal, whether that goal be an increased professional challenge, a higher compensation package, a shorter commute or a more conducive lifestyle. This is the hook that will land them at your client.
When effectively approached, the passive candidate will admit that while he is not “actively looking”, he is keeping his ears open to enticing opportunities. Many passive candidates understand that they have nothing to lose by investing a few minutes to listen. The most savvy of these passive job seekers know that, at the very least, they may have the opportunity to make a solid contact for future professional networking purposes. These savvy ones know the value of always listening, even if they don’t act on all opportunities presented to them. Because the passive candidate is under no pressure to find a new job, he is frequently more candid and forthright and less inclined to waste his time or yours. In addition, a subtle benefit from speaking with a passive candidate is that they can be an excellent source of referrals, especially if a good rapport is built. Obviously, an active job seeker would be less inclined to offer a referral of someone who might then become a competitor for the same job.
The simple fact that a candidate is labeled a passive candidate does not automatically make them a better candidate than the average active candidate. That’s where true headhunting and candidate research methods need to be effectively employed to make sure that the correct candidates are identified at the onset of the search. A good passive candidate research associate or firm should be able to identify 20 potentially qualified candidates within a few days, depending on the complexity of the search criteria and the availability of target companies within the given geographic region. All that remains to do after these candidates are identified is to make sure that they meet the minimum skill set requirements of the client.
The benefit of using passive candidate research is that it can yield very specific candidates with specific skill sets from very specific target companies. Doing a little research up front affords you the opportunity to talk to candidates that are better qualified for the position you are recruiting for, not to mention their referrals. No form of advertising, whether it is done on job boards, the Internet, or in the newspaper classifieds can produced these candidates. Common sense dictates that if a recruiter spends more time talking to qualified candidates and less time searching through resumes of candidates that may or may not qualified, odds are they’d make more hires every month. Recruiting is a numbers game; why not stack the odds in your favor?
Now that you have been introduced to the passive candidate, stop plowing through countless resumes from active candidates that hopefully meet your search criteria and start calling on the passive candidate market. Through out your career as a top recruiter, placing the best candidates in the market will always pay the best dividends.
Copyright HTC Research Corp 1995 thru 2008

Jeff Weidner
925 313 9005 X 200
HTC Research Corp