Twitter is changing the world in my opinion. It could be the most important invention of the century as well, next to the computer. It is a microblog, a business network, an always “switched-on” social hub, a mobile mesh, a broadcasting tool and search engine, all rolled into one. What other invention can you say the same about? The telephone? Sure we all use it, but it is limited. TV? I have all but ignored it (save LOST and a few others I Tivo). Radio? Please! Never listen to it. Am I missing anything? We could argue lots of different inventions here. The point being, I can get the highlights or lowlights from my Twitter stream on TV, movies, sports, technology, politics, or anything else I want. Twitter is what the Internet was born to do.

You see, Twitter is “in the eye of the beholder” meaning it can be whatever you want or need it to be, which is what makes it so unique. Let me explain. Here are the top reasons why I think that Twitter is a real game changer not only for me, but for you as well:

1. Twitter acts as a digital swiss-army knife. Some people use it to connect with close friends and colleagues. Others use it to spread the word about their blog or business. Some come to learn about the latest trends in their industry. Others use it as a watercooler. I use it for all of the above.

2. Twitter is a constantly evolving and morphing community. If you pay attention, you will find new trends and uses for Twitter almost daily. Check out hashtags for example. Watch how others use it. Discover new apps that plug into Twitter on EverythingTwitter and other sites.

3. Twitter is a growing community. 1,382% spike in unique visitors to Twitter from February ‘08 to February ‘09. I predict at some point, just about everyone will have an account. It’s inevitable. It could end up being a one-stop shop to connect with anybody and everybody. Think LinkedIn, Facebook or MySpace, but bigger. It actually could have a greater impact than Google down the line, and trust me, Google is paying attention.

4. Twitter gives you access to any of its members (by using @ replies and DM direct messages). You can ping anyone out on Twitter from @RealHughJackman to @barrackobama with a message and they can see it. Just don’t get your hopes up that everyone will respond back. Some will. There are celebrities, politicians, CEO’s of Fortune 500 companies and many others using Twitter. This is great because these are people you had zero access to before. Think of Twitter filling in the blanks on email addresses, instant message id’s, or phone numbers you never had.

5. Twitter is a place to learn. I follow people in my industry (recruiting and human resources) as well as in social media, marketing, technology, entrepreneurship and other areas. I learn from others. I use a “wisdom of crowds” approach to my daily life. You can too. Follow some people that interest you. Sit back and digest.

6. Twitter has major searchability. This is the part where Google is starting to get jealous. There are many ways to search Twitter, and by searching Twitter, you are actually peering into conversations. Conversations on the web are what I call “The Social Web.” This is the real good stuff. Now you can find out what the CEO of Oracle really thinks, or what Betty from Marketing on the 5th floor really does in your company, and much more. It is also the ultimate reference check on anybody. No need to interview someone for a position if you listen to their Twitter stream…if you follow me. You’ll know if you want to hire them before you even reach out to them. So, check out the search feature inside your Twitter home page, see Twitter Search, and also a personal favorite, Twazzup. This is just scratching the surface on search.

7. Twitter is being embraced by developers. There are hundreds of apps, desktop clients, tools and sites out there currently that tie-into Twitter, making your world a hell of a lot easier. I love TweetDeck (w/Seesmic Desktop a close second) because they act as a dashboard for the 800+ tweeps I follow, and for the 2,100+ people who follow me. Check out the Twitter Fan Wiki for a good starting point on more, and also see the impressive Twitter list on Mashable.

8. Twitter is mobile, making it the “everywhere” social and business network. Have a smartphone (iPhone, BlackBerry, etc.)? Then you’ve got a powerful network in your pocket my friend. Take Twitter to work, in your car, on vacation, to the grocery store. Wherever you want. Tweetie or TwitterBerry give you a clean, easy to use version of Twitter. Get recommendations, do business, anything you want with Twitter on the go.

9. Twitter can put you on the map. I’m not talking about 15 minutes of fame here. I’m talking about branding yourself or your company. Take the concept of LinkedIn, where you look to connect with other people in your field, or network for a new career opportunity, and expand much further. With Twitter, you can get into real conversations with other people you want to meet. It can also showcase your skills and talents. Members can also place themselves in Twitter directories such as WeFollow, Twitr or geofollow so others can find and follow them.

10. Twitter can help you AND your company perform better. If your company is not on Twitter, get them there, or start looking for your next job. It is not a trend, and will not go away. I only see it getting bigger and better (although don’t get me started on the recent “hiccup” policy changes). Conversation is where everything online points to now. MySpace and Facebook got millions on top of millions of people there, but Twitter offers a much better platform to get to the next level. Companies (and people) can recruit, market, brand, sell and much more utilizing Twitter if done right.

There are easily another 10 or so ways that make Twitter a game-changer, but I want to save some of those for a “Freemium” Twitter workshop I am putting together and hope to roll out in the next month or so. Stay tuned to me @geoffpeterson or right here on StaffBytes for more details.

What are your thoughts? I’d love to hear from you. More posts are on the way…

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Today, there is a “War for Talent” being waged amongst recruiters and sourcers to find and attract the best candidates. In this loaded webinar, you will discover 400+ leads to pursue in addition to easy-to-implement tips, ideas and strategies for uncovering passive candidates.

BONUS!! For Attending the webinar, you get:

FREE copy of The War for Talent: Starter Guide, which details 400+ sites, networks, communities and tools detailed in the webinar; 14-day trial of Broadlook Diver; and PowerPoint deck of 400+ slides to reference at a later date.

In this fast-paced interactive webinar, Geoff will tackle the following:

-Scores of newly emerging places online to find talent, such as Scribd, Koders, Backtype and Squidoo
-Example sites include Facebook, Technorati, Google, LinkedIn, Jigsaw and Twitter
-More examples include Digg, Ning, Indeed and many other sites, networks and communities
-Sourcing tools & tips referenced, including Joopz, Xobni, Broadlook, eGrabber and Google Alerts
-Live examples of dozens of sites including The Blogosphere & Social/Business Networks
-Demonstrations of Name Search Sites, Search Engines, Groups, Listserves and more
-Detailed searches conducted for IT/IS, Finance, Healthcare, Medical, Sales and more
-Live “mashup” examples: How to leverage one site with another (Google, Jigsaw and more)
-Advanced boolean search string examples for finding passive candidates online
-Overview of how to build a passive candidate talent pool on your own beyond the Webinar
-Live interactive Q&A conducted with examples on the spot

*Sign-up for the Webinar today at http://thewarfortalent.eventbrite.com/. Pay for one line and have your whole team join.

Recruiters and Sourcers will instantly see the benefit of using Backtype to not only identify active and passive talent, but the site also represents a goldmine of solid leads to pursue, such as other networks, communities and places to discover talent to fill open positions. In the example below, you can see that Backtype offers advanced searching across their network of comments:

I found a few hundred comments tracked by Backtype that had the key phrase “my resume.” These are a few potential leads to check into:

You can also search across people as well. I ran a quick search for “John” and hundreds of “John’s” pulled up with searchable profiles, where you can view all of there comments. Great way to determine if this person may or may not be a potential fit for any open positions (i.e. mentions key words and skills, talks about his/her company, talks about what they do, etc.). In another example of people on Backtype, I used the key word “java”. The search pulled up a few hundred people using Java in the online ID. Here were my results:

Finally, Backtype is a place where your comments can “find a home to be discovered by others” For example, a recruiter can leave comments on blogs, news sites, journals and other places online, and leave his/her signature along with comments and links to their company (helping to brand the company) and open positions (helping to attract more potential candidates).

In this presentation, I will fully demonstrate Twitter by walking through its search capabilities and will show you and your team how to build a “following” which benefits recruiters as they promote open positions and search for active and passive job seekers. I will also demonstrate backdoor tips and tricks of using other sites including Friendfeed and Pownce and review how recruiters and sourcers can use them to begin building relationships within online communities.

• Learn how to utilize microblogs to recruit and source candidates
• Discover fast-growing social networking communities online
• Find active and passive candidates who “live” online
• Watch a live demonstration of how to recruit on Twitter, an online network of more than 7 million people
• Learn how to grow your microblog networks in seconds
• Uncover hundreds of “leads” through sites such as Twitter, Pownce, Friendfeed and more

If you are interested in learning more or would like to sign up, click here.

First thing I do on SlideShare is run a search on “recruiting.” The search pulls up over 1,600 slide presentations with recruiting in the subject or description. See below:

This opens up the possibility for any recruiter or sourcer to peer into presentations being shared by others in the recruiting community. Some of the PowerPoints listed out on the site were given from past conferences such as ERE (Electronic Recruiters Exchange) when they held one of their annual ERE Expos. This is a solid way for a recruiter or sourcer to learn and stay up to speed on the latest discussions, technologies and trends in the recruiting landscape. The site offers a “Most Viewed” slideshows area to show what is popular on the site. There is a diverse amount of presentations out here including many business and technical related.

Believe it or not, you can get some recruiting and sourcing done out on SlideShare too. There is a section called “My Slidespace” where users can put up a profile with key words (tags), upload presentations, connect with other members of the SlideShare community and send messages right inside the site. If you are sourcing for say technical people, simply run a search across the tags. I ran a search on “Java” tags. See below:

The search pulls up hundreds of presentations with Java tagged. From there, you can see who has posted these presentations out on the site. If they are doing full-fledged PowerPoints on Java technologies, wouldn’t these people be worthy of reaching out to? I would guess they are highly coveted in their field regardless of location.

Finally, SlideShare represents a great community for floating presentations and information about your company to build buzz, whether it be a small PowerPoint outlining positions and benefits, or a presentation interviewing internal managers on why a candidate should be excited to work for you, or even a promotion of a new product or service to drive traffic to your site. SlideShare syncs audio to presentations as well allowing for more possibilities.

Vumber opens up new possibilities for recruiting and sourcing tactics. For example, say you are trying desperately to reach a candidate, but this particular candidate is hard to reach and you have already tried calling he or she several times. Candidates can simply screen your call if they are unsure who you are or worse if they know who you are and don’t want to pick up. As recruiters, we are simply trying to do our jobs and find out if there is interest in our company and our positions, and are always looking to find out answers from our candidates. Using Vumber, a recruiter or sourcer can simply set-up a new virtual number to call out to certain candidates, and use your real number for other candidates. It essentially allows you to get multiple lines from one phone and allows you to disguise yourself when calling. On the other side, a second example is if a recruiter is in a tough position where they don’t want to give out there work number to a sales person trying to sell a product or service. A recruiter can simply hand out there Vumber, and screen out calls from there. Finally, a good third example for using Vumber is if you are calling a candidate out-of-state, and you want to appear as though you are a local caller. My experience has shown me that having a local number will attract more people to pick up on the first call. Vumber allows you to choose the area code for your virtual phone number.

Summize offers advanced search options as well as search operators to help you set-up quality searches. With these in mind, this search engine opens up the possibility to tap into the reportedly 12M+ people who have adopted Twitter and use it daily. Recruiters and Sourcers can now search by key terms such as titles: “Software Engineer”, company names: “Microsoft” and phrases such as: “new job”.

Let me show you Summize in action. Recruiters and Sourcers are always looking for active and available talent currently in the marketplace. Using Summize, I run a search on the key phrase “my resume” and tons of results come up:

From there, you can join in on a discussion or directly send a message to that user. Using Twitter, there are several ways to reach out to people. Check out my Twitter video for a further rundown on Twitter and it’s benefits to Recruiters and Sourcers.

Glassdoor provides detailed company reviews so outsiders can get the good/bad and pros/cons about working for and working with each company listed, employee ratings so outsiders can get a pulse on what the morale is like inside each company, not to mention the benefits, perks and other inside information, and finally real-time salary and compensation details for employees at each company to include salary, bonuses and more.

This site can benefit employers, recruiters, sourcers and more in many ways. Sign-up for an account and put your take in their system. Recruiters and Sourcers can use information they put into Glassdoor as a huge selling piece for why a hot candidate should join your company over the next. Glassdoor can really make a solid employer and company stand out and help to attract top talent in the marketplace.

Secondbrain opens up all sorts of avenues for recruiting, human resources and sourcing professionals. For starters, the site let’s users import content they find online from a wide variety of popular services such as Google, YouTube, Digg and Delicious to name a few. Users of Secondbrain can then search upon all of this content, share sites, pictures, videos and more with other users, in addition to finding users on Secondbrain and connecting with them. In a nutshell, recruiters and sourcers will discover new sites and new leads to pursue for finding available talent online, as well as connecting with new resources and people right in the Secondbrain community.

Here is an example of a user’s page on Secondbrain. Take notice of the red arrows. One arrow shows that each user gets to set-up his or her own profile, and another arrow shows that Secondbrain has search capabilities to search content (articles, sites, videos, pictures) as well as user profiles.

Grouply currently only supports Yahoo Groups, but states they are moving to support Google Groups and other groups shortly. After signing up, I found that the site is a real time saver in that you can manage all of your groups from one site and see an overview of the activity of all your groups on one page, much like a dashboard. When you subscribe to hundreds of different Yahoo Groups this can really be a huge time saver, not to mention a very efficient way to recruit.

As for networking, Grouply has thousands of users who manage their groups from the site, so naturally, Grouply let’s you connect and network with all the users in the community. Add Grouply to your list of social and business networking sites you use for recruiting and sourcing. It is worth a look when you are trying to reach out to new people for positions or simply to market your job openings.

In this one hour webinar, I plan to cover:

• How to use news site online to find experts that lead to high value candidates
• How to build your own social network and the benefits of doing so (highlighting Ning and other emerging sites)
• Examples of automated sourcing and search tools that save you valuable time
• Live demonstrations of numerous internet sites designed for research and sourcing
• Emerging trends in recruiting media including text messaging, wikis, portals, podcasting, bookmarklets and microblogging

*I will have a valuable and very detailed HANDOUT for all attendees at the conclusion of the webinar that will detail all the sites covered in addition to more tips and techniques to put to good use.

Additional information on this webinar can be found here.

To register for the webinar, click here.

I put together a short video recently on using Twitter and posted out on RecruitingBlogs. I wanted to extend this video to StaffBytes as well after receiving very positive feedback. Take time to check it out. There is lots of good Twitter coverage here. I think you will also “get” it after watching. In addition, check out Koka Sexton’s blog. I found a fantastic article there which runs through the in’s and out’s of Twitter and shows some very advanced techniques not covered in my video.

I remember last year Amybeth Hale put together a great post on “Skype Searching” and how to run searches out on Skype. Please check out her blog post for more. I think her article hits all the key points and shows step-by-step how recruiting can be done with Skype, and all for free.

To start, you can create a profile to tell the community about yourself and what you do:

Next, you can connect with other recruiters and sourcers on the site and swap info, tips and positions you have with them:

You can post open recruiting related positions you have for the community and visitors of the site to see:

Also, resumes of recruiters and sourcers can be found laying around out here if you look under the “replies” to posted positions:

Other ways to use the site include blogging directly on the site, uploading videos, contributing to and reading the “forum”, and advertising or staying up to date on recruiting industry events. The one thing that really makes this site stand apart though is the participation of it’s members. An example of this is “Tutorial Tuesday” which is one of the weekly features out on RecruitingBlogs that it’s members can be apart of. It represents a nice way to share expertise, learn new techniques‚ and find new people in the field. Below is an example (you have to go to the site to watch the video). Check it out!

If you are already subscribed to his blog by email, Jim is looking to reach a goal of 5,000 total subscribers before giving away the book for free.‚ Once he reaches this goal he will email the book to you directly. If you aren’t already subscribed, trust me, do it right away. It’s simple and not only do you get a great book (which you will no doubt learn from) but you will discover a true expert in the recruiting field, and gain solid insight into recruiting and sourcing in general. Honestly, you could read his blog for days and continue to pick new things up. The guy simply gets it!

Here’s an example of what you will find on his site:

First I click “Technology” in the top toolbar.

Next, I click on “Computers” half way down the page on the left hand side.

I then click the first video titled “Computer Basics” under Hardware SOS.

Once the video starts, I note two things. First, I see the name, title and company are listed for the “expert” who has developed the video. Second, there is a “Meet the Expert” link at the top.

When clicking on “Meet the Expert”, I discover more information about this potential passive candidate, including details about his job duties, technical skills and work location. His current company is listed as well. All of this information gives me plenty of leads to go on to determine if he may be a fit for one of my open positions, and how to track him down if needed.

Another avenue to pursue on VideoJug‚ is to utilize the search feature at the top of the site. This‚ will allow you to locate videos based on key words and important skills sets.‚ 

One final way to take advantage of VideoJug is to ask a question in the Discussion Forum‚ and open dialog with experts and potential job seekers.

With all the attention on networking sites, Ning is one site that stands apart, in that it not only let’s you join various networks but also let’s users build their own social network as well.

Per Ning, “the site offers a wide range‚ and diversity of social networks being used by everyone from students to artists to bloggers to alumni and more.” A quick search on the key word “software” pulled up dozens of networks. Here is a snapshot:

I clicked through to the Software Testing Club to show an example of a social network inside of Ning. Each network has different abilities, but most allow it’s members to create a profile and interact with that particular network whether it be by contributing to the forum, adding resources to share with others, or adding a blog post to the network. Other features include uploading videos, posting photos and conducting events. This is the general layout of most of the networks:

As a Recruiter or Sourcer, you can imagine the possibilities Ning presents. The first is to search Ning and join networks that seem to be inline with areas you are currently recruiting for and begin to network with others and post open opportunities in your company. The second would be to develop a social network that your company would approve (using their name, logo and brand) or start a hot topic of interest and welcome each job seeker and candidate you come in contact with to join it. As time goes by, you will be developing a warehouse of both active and passive job seekers who you can market job openings to. Best yet…it’s free. As far as getting the network set-up, it can be easy and hard depending on what you want on your network and what capabilities you want there. Visit the site and determine for yourself.

Jobs in Pods is a great site that is geared toward this fast emerging‚ trend of using podcasts in recruiting.

Jobs in Pods‚ allows employers to record audio descriptions of their current job openings,‚ interviews with managers or employees, and provide overviews of their companys.‚ In addition, employers get to display a blog post out on the site with relevant links to the job and their company. The site offers ways for employers to categorize their jobs and provides RSS feeds for job seekers and interested parties. Podcasts are distributed to Podcast sites, RSS feeds, the Blogosphere and the website of your company.

A few directories to check out on Podcasting include‚ Podcast.com, Podcastalley, Podcast.net, Podseek and Podcastdirectory. Microsoft is a great example of a Fortune 100 company implementing podcasting into their recruiting efforts. Check out their‚ JobsBlog for more details.

Recruiters have the ability to search for active and passive candidates in Emurse. Candidates create profiles‚ that are either free for recruiters to‚ view or require a fee. Fees are based on popularity and‚ availability for each candidate. Recruiters log into an “Employers” section where they are brought to a basic search screen.‚ The database seems to be fairly diverse, offering candidates from a wide range of areas from Information Technology, Sales, Finance and Government.‚ To show an example, I did a search on‚ profiles in Emurse with the key words “oracle” and “sql” from any location. The search pulled back 493 results.

Recruiters are‚ only‚ given the first name‚ and first initial of the last name for each candidate. Small details are provided for each profile. Recruiters will be able to see past positions, top keywords and job preferences for each candidate. Some are free but most require setting‚ up a pay account and purchasing‚ the contact. This is the screen shot of what appears when you want to move forward with a candidate and how it works:

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For Job Seekers, Emurse offers a “resume builder” where candidates‚ are walked through a step-by-step approach to developing a professional resume, along with expert tips and advice,‚ several design layouts, and options for marketing and distributing their resume outside of Emurse.‚ Here is an example resume (screen shot below):

Emurse also offers the ability for Job Seekers to organize detailed profiles and search for jobs,‚ as‚ the site‚ ties into Indeed, which is a search engine specifically for jobs. Click on the link for further information on Indeed.

My overall take is that it adds another good option for recruiters to use when sourcing for candidates, and a solid option for job seekers, especially with the guidance in forming a high quality resume.

Mobile Storm is a digital marketing company that provides services to both small and medium businesses as well as offering enterprise solutions. Specifically they provide robust options for companies including email, sms/texting, voice and fax campaigns for your company.‚ These‚ offerings‚ allow you to do large campaigns to targeted audiences (i.e. candidates in‚ your database regarding open positions in your company),‚ free up your time‚ from pointing, clicking and choosing among each individual resume in your database (not to mention the time to reach out to‚ each one‚ individually),‚ help spread the word about your openings and your company (creating a viral marketing effect), and turn-up‚ active and passive job seekers from your ATS.‚ Fairly cost-effective too.

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Emma is an “email marketing and communications service” that essentially let’s users create custom email newsletters and campaigns. Emma offers self-service options for companies of all sizes. Essentially you can create templates or get help in creating custom email templates to run very polished and unique looking emails. Emma is set-up for companies to run large campaigns to specific audiences - and gives recruiters and sourcers a way to reach out to candidates with more of a personal touch not found in standard text emails. This service has full campaign management, tracking every email out the door with response rates. The pricing seems affordable as well.

Here is an example template of how United Way is promoting their message through Emma…

Other options in the “campaign” marketplace include: Constant Contact,‚ Campaign Monitor, PopularMedia, StrongMail, EmailLabs, iContact, eCampaign and a slew of many more.‚ If you run a search online, you will honestly get‚ a headache with all the options. I think that the above selections have the right options and price points for most size organizations. Let me know your thoughts…

An especially valuable aspect to Plaxo is that each‚ member has a “Pulse Stream” on their home page. It‚ basically lets you know what your Plaxo network is up to.‚ The Plaxo Pulse Stream represents a great way for recruiters and sourcers to‚ spread the word about job openings and a unique way to attract top talent, find job seekers and to network with others. For example,‚ Plaxo “hooks up‚ feeds” to sites that you use, such as Blogs (WordPress/Twitter), Social Networks (Facebook/LinkedIn) and a lot more. When you post or use these sites, your activity is displayed out on the Plaxo Pulse Stream. So, if you wanted to get the word out about job openings in your company, this represents a nice option for you.

If you join specific groups within Plaxo, each group has it’s own “Pulse Stream” which helps recruiters and sourcers to target a specific audience and‚ also allows for another outlet‚ to gain potential job‚ seekers for your open‚ positions. Here are a few examples:

Here, you can see a job seeker reaching out to the group I joined called “Networking for Global Entrepreneurs”:

Here, you can see a manager or recruiter displaying a message about a job opportunity in the same group:

If‚ you currently use‚ Plaxo,‚ you may already‚ be seeing the benefits. For those who‚ have not joined yet, I‚ recommend it, and believe it to be‚ a nice compliment to your LinkedIn networks and a solid‚ place to gain some‚ extra traction for your recruiting and sourcing efforts.

I joined a group called Web 2.0 (Entrepreneurs) inside of Facebook which currently‚ has 34K members.‚ I see two places‚ in the “Discussion Board” and “The Wall” where those members are posting up messages with full‚ details and links to job openings.‚ 

Here are a few examples of job postings that I found:

and…

Facebook has‚ numerous‚ groups to join, and lots that are very niche and specific to a certain subject, topic or theme. Take a look for yourself if you are a member of Facebook.‚ I suggest joining groups where you think that you may be able to attract talent that best fits your job requirements, and also groups that welcome and allow posts for job openings.

*If you would like full screen, hit the square box in the bottom right hand corner of the video player.

Sponsored by SmashFly Technologies, Provider of WildFire, The First Job Marketing Platform

Digg opens the door for recruiters and internet sourcers in many ways. Let me show you:

Let’s say you want to search for stories that were put on Digg about “ASP.NET”. You can see that several stories and links appear below. What is most valuable to recruiters and sourcers is the fact that each article gives the link source and the user that submitted the article. This creates two leads per story - one being the link source provided is a new avenue for recruiters and sourcers to pursue for approaching and discovering ASP.NET talent, and the second being the user listed with the story, in that this person may be a great potential candidate in the making! If not, he/she may be a great resource to reach out to for knowledge on the .NET community. In the example below you have the sources gutfire.com, ajaxprojects.com, ajaxlines.com and aspnetcafe.com along with users tak111 and a few others:

Another feature of Digg is that you can search for, track and stay in touch with other Digg users. In this example, I did a search for other users in Pittsburgh, PA. Think of Digg also in terms of “social networking” but with much less details and information on users of the site. Relationship building should be thought of in a long-term approach. Getting help and asking others for expertise based upon the stories they submit, i.e. if someone keeps submitting programming, development and technology specific articles, this may be someone to keep tabs on (if you are a Technical Recruiter for instance).

Finally, Digg gives users the options for RSS feeds (Really Simple Syndication) which streams certain content to a Google Reader for instance. If you understand RSS feeds, this opens the possibilities for recruiters and sourcers to only get stories delivered to them from Digg that they are looking for, and nothing else. Let’s say you want only “programming” stories to be sent to you. This will help you to build up a stable of great sources around the web for finding technical talent.

Sponsored by SmashFly Technologies, Provider of WildFire, The First Job Marketing Platform

One product in particular, called meebo me, is “designed for anyone with a home on the web. If you’ve got a web page where you’d like to communicate with your visitors, meebo me allows you to see the people who are visiting your web page and chat with them.”‚ Examples include Wordpress or Blogger (blogs), social networks like MySpace and Friendster, Salesforce.com, and any other web page you can control.

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Think of the possibilities for recruiters and sourcers‚ here. You post open positions on sites where you have a profile, and add-in meebo me, which gives visitors to your page more ways to reach out to you. Instant Message is‚ a fairly “non-threatening” way for someone to reach out, and not have to get into a full discussion at the same time. Instant Message gives potential candidates an easy way to reach out for a first step and test the waters while hunting for a new job, not to mention handy while someone is at work! Once a Meebo account is created, you can also advertise your Meebo account in other areas like your email signature (Outlook for example), and other places like LinkedIn.

Now about those other features…a quick search in meebo rooms for “programming” pulls up several seperate chat rooms to choose from. Most were empty when I checked, but offer a way to leave your questions‚ for others to answer as well as leaving links, such as‚ a job opening.

Also, meebo has a community forum to communicate and search for other meebo users. Some users in their “directory” list their occupation and several ways to contact them outside of meebo. See below:

Sponsored by SmashFly Technologies, Provider of WildFire, The First Job Marketing Platform

Recruiters can register and advertise their jobs on JobServe.com, and the site will email their listings to candidates, provide RSS feeds to job seekers, provide recruiters with candidate databases and more.

If all of this sounds a bit familiar, that’s because it is. While it’s true that JobServe provides up-to-date technology for its site visitors, and streamlines its job search capabilities through the use of a handy tool that remembers your last search, or a global map that shows what regions you’re searching, with the ability to choose larger or smaller regions - it’s hard to feel as though any of these gadgets are truly innovative anymore.

There’s a double-edged sword to being the Internet’s “first” of anything. That’s because, while it may be impressive to create an innovative online tool to search jobs, many others have done so since, and have created more and better user-friendly capabilities to do this exact same thing. It’s an unfortunate fact of traditional marketing that age and experience are not necessarily advantages on the Internet where the thing that’s getting the most traffic and serving the most people at any given time could very well be only 16 minutes old.

None of this is to say that JobServe.com isn’t a valuable site, because it certainly performs well and seems to deliver on its claims. The fact that the site segments its content across three different global regions and delivers job seeker information for millions of opportunities is a pretty significant feat and worthy of notice, especially for those recruiters and job seekers who are not limited by the traditional 50-States-and-no-more approach that restricts the capabilities of many other websites of this kind.

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Here is how it works: After you sign up for free, you can start to build your Naymz profile.‚ Basic membership for the site is free, but there are two upgrade packages that you can purchase.‚ The idea behind Naymz is that you can use this site to build up your professional reputation.‚ You invite others to connect to you on the site as references to vouch for your professional experience.‚ You get points for sending out invitations, adding information to your profile, and the points are also relative to the points of the other users on the site.‚ These points count toward your “RepScore”, and the higher your RepScore is, the more “reputable” you are considered.

You can easily add connections on the site by importing your connections from LinkedIn and various email sites such as Yahoo!, Gmail, Hotmail, AOL, and Mac.‚ You are also able to search jobs that are posted on the web (the search is run by Indeed).‚ In addition to being as a site to connect to your business contacts, Naymz also serves as a way to get your profile near the top of Google searches on your name.‚ The website discusses their Search Engine Optimization techniques and how they want to help their members get the most positive information about themselves out on the web.

Naymz also gives you access to several different types of reports:‚ you can view detailed activity of any visitors that view your profile under the Network Activity section; you can track your reputation on the Reputation Monitor, which shows you a list of all of the web results on your name; and you can monitor any updates of profiles of others in your network and web activity of your contacts in the Network Profile Activity section and the Network Web Activity section.

Adding your profile to Naymz can only help you increase your exposure to your network of contacts and potentially help you get your name out there with positive feedback from others.‚ 

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Clicking on the “Careers” link in the main site’s left navigational column sends you to the landing page of the JavaWorld.com Career Center. All of the usual functionality can be found here for job seekers including Quick Job Search, Featured Jobs and Companies, Post Your Resume and many other job seeker tools. Recruiters and sourcers have the option of job postings and resume database access. A quick search in their database on “Java” netted 96,000 resumes total‚ (see below):

The site also peels back resume “web results”‚ as well. “Java” netted 60,000 resumes here:

But I think that the hidden gem in the JavaWorld.com site are the capabilities that it provides for recruitment professionals to learn more about the Java developer mindset and the inherent advantage of understanding more about this valuable segment of the IT population.

In the JavaWorld.com Career Center, you can see at a glance what the top U.S. cities for IT jobs are, and then search those cities to learn what kinds of technology professionals are in demand regionally. Two other online tools that I found helpful were:

• The site’s capability to perform job-related searches using IT keywords, which is an excellent way to learn the basics of available technology job assignments if one isn’t immediately familiar with the terminology, and
• IT Job Descriptions, in which the site provides basic job descriptions - many of which include video support - for a number of career assignments. This struck me as a very valuable resource for recruiters seeking quickly-accessed, specific information about filling slots in the technology sector.

JavaWorld.com is a cleanly-designed, excellently-organized site - not surprising, considering its target audience - that really does include a great many decent resources for recruiters and job seekers alike.

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But does the site offer anything at all for recruiters or internet sourcers?

Fortunately, it does to some degree - but its resources are all more or less on the informational side, as opposed to content that can be easily leveraged to create leads right away. You can see what I mean by accessing the “Career Centers” link in the site’s left navigational column. Clicking this link will send you to a page where you can find:

• Occupational Outlook Handbook - this could be an excellent resource for recruiters, with research and information on 350 different careers, provided by the U.S. Department of Labor - and this section of the site is all keyword- and category-searchable.
• Employer and Candidate Interview Questions - a fairly basic resource, but handy to have for recruiters to coach interview-bound clients.
• Ask the Hiring Manager - an online career Q&A forum with Brian Krueger, author of the book College Grad Job Hunter. This section of the CollegeGrad.com website is a robust and interesting resource for advice about careers, interviewing, job searching and more.

Of course, CollegeGrad.com offers job posting and resume database search capabilities for employers, along with virtual job fairs.‚ The site also provides a great many of the standard tools for job seekers - posting resumes, searching jobs, interview preparation, salary negotiation tips - and organizes its content very well, clearly and directly. This is a good, deep site with plenty to recommend; its targeted content prevents it from being a top-tier destination for recruitment professionals, but it’s still worthy to note as an excellent resource for entry-level job seekers.

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Plaxo has well over 15M users currently and has created a ton of buzz recently with the addition of their social networking feature, Plaxo Pulse, which creates a stream of information on what other users are doing that you are directly connected to. See the screen shot below as an example:

Plaxo has a real “LinkedIn” feel with the ability to peer into other people’s connections to see who is in their network, and with the ability to send messages and invitations to “connect” with others. Below you can see that Adam Boone (a connection of mine) has several people in his “connections” that I don’t know and gives me the‚ option to reach out to them through‚ the Plaxo network. Sound‚ familiar?‚ 

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Plaxo let’s you “hook up” with other sites and tools that you use and syncs directly with them, such as Outlook and LinkedIn for example - that way anyone who is in your other address books will come over to Plaxo. From there you can notify these people you are on Plaxo. Plaxo also has search features to find other Plaxo users, which comes in handy for recruiters, internet sourcers, researchers and others. In addition, Plaxo has groups, where users network on specific topics (another great opening for fellow recruiters and sourcers). A final note - like LinkedIn - the larger your network is (the more people you are connected to), the more people you can see in Plaxo.

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It’s always interesting to find out what people REALLY think of their employer, and I do admit that reading some of these “vents” is entertaining.‚ The website does not allow profanity to be used in the postings; however, some of them are pretty harsh.‚ All postings on the site are anonymous, so you can’t directly recruit candidates from this site.‚ What I realized is that reading the reviews of the companies in the “I Hate My Job” category can give me a great list of companies to recruit candidates from!‚ I already know that at least some of the employees there are unhappy or else they wouldn’t have come to this site.‚ Chances are that there will be quite a few people still working there who would jump at the chance to find a job elsewhere.‚ I will then take this knowledge and target recruit from these companies any way possible.‚ 

One other way to use this website is to see if any of your clients are listed as the most “loved” companies and use that information as you present job opportunities to your candidates.‚ Getting extra ammunition from reading the posts on the site enables you to‚ tell a candidate that your client has a great management team and stellar benefits can hopefully help you in making the deal.

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• You can find Recruiting or Human Resources candidates searching for new jobs
• You yourself can search for new Recruiting or HR jobs and post your resume
• You can read up on a variety of HR subjects including resumes, job searching, salary info, and continuing education

Recruiters sometimes do have to recruit other recruiters, so where better to find qualified candidates than a site such as this one?‚ Jobs4HR caters to HR professionals who are searching for new careers in their field.‚ Rather than searching on job boards that have all types of candidates, this site will give you a large amount and a wide variety of professionals in the HR related fields all in one place.‚ ‚ 

For employers, this site offers job posting services for 60 days, the ability to search posted resumes, and also a service where you have access to all of the other sites affiliated with Jobs4HR.‚ These other sites that are part of the “LocalCareers.com Network” include job boards for each state and a handful of other website that have “Jobs4″ in the title, such as Jobs4Sales, Jobs4Diversity, and Jobs4Engineering.‚ Once you sign up, your login and password works for every single website listed in this network.

For job seekers, you can search a large amount of jobs by keyword, category, or location. You can also post your resume so employers on the site can find you.‚ A few other things that I noticed while browsing: some of the jobs that are posted are linked from TheLadders.com (see previous blog post about this site), which are only jobs over $100k.‚ These jobs were listed as manager and director level positions, and Jobs4HR links you to TheLadders to apply for them.‚ Also, there is a link on the main page titled “Broadcast Resume”, which takes you to a sister website called ResumePoster.‚ Job seekers‚ can blast your resume to “thousands of recruiters” who are targeting job seekers in the industry you choose. Recruiters can sign-up for free to receive resumes.

The other info that is included on this website is helpful information and resources for job seekers, including tips on writing a great resume, articles about relocating and salary figures, and links to other career sites.‚ One neat feature that I found on this site is a Panic Button - if you’re browsing the site at work (looking for jobs for yourself instead of candidates!) and your boss is near, you can click on the Panic Button picture in the top left corner of most pages and you are taken to an article about effective time management.‚ Clever.

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I highly recommend bookmarking this site as your “go to” resource for answers to any of your questions about technology.‚  The site is set up in a way that is very easy to navigate to find the info you need quickly and efficiently.‚ On the main page is a large list of technical categories.‚ You can also do a keyword search for the technology that is in question or you can browse topics alphabetically.‚ When I am trying to find a particular topic, I prefer searching alphabetically, because sometimes you might not have the correct name or spelling and you won’t find what you’re looking for.‚ 

The definitions that you get from WhatIs are pulled from a variety of different sites, but they are all part of the TechTarget family of sites, which happens to be who runs WhatIs also.‚ Say you want to learn what JavaScript actually is.‚  Below is the result of my search on JavaScript, you can get an idea of what the definitions look like.

I find the definitions on WhatIs to be pretty easy to understand for a non-technical person, and they make sure to add links to other technologies referenced in the definition in case you want to research further.‚ WhatIs might not be the best place to search for some obscure technologies; I couldn’t even find a definition for Java Server Faces (JSF) on the site.‚  However, if you do a keyword search on a technology that doesn’t have a definition, you are still presented with web results that could help answer your questions.

One interesting feature that I just found while writing this blog is a “How do you pronounce IT?” section which lists a bunch of odd names of technologies or acronyms that are sometimes confusing for people who don’t deal with these names on an everyday basis.‚ Now we can really sound like we know what we’re talking about when we’re talking to techies!

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*If you would like full screen, please hit the small box on the lower right hand corner of the media player.

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Recruiters and Internet Sourcers can use this site as another outlet for finding potential job seekers and candidates. Here are a few ways to do this:

1) Use Facebook “Friend Finder”. This‚ feature automatically scans your email and address books. This will show you what friends, colleagues and other people you know who are already out on Facebook and will give the option to send invitations to connect. From there you can see what mutual friends you have‚ and also look into their other friends as well. You can see the names and minimal information for friends that are “not‚ mutual”, but you‚ do have ways to reach out to them and connect directly. In most cases, you can use Facebooks option to “poke” them, write on their “wall” in their profile, or see if they posted contact information on their page - such as a phone or email address.‚ 

2) Use‚ Search Options. Facebook offers Basic Search (by keywords), Advanced Search (tons of options such as location, company, title and education), the ability to search for classmates by schools, and the ability to search for colleagues by current and past workplaces. The one drawback on Facebook is that it will only let you search your network (I’m from Pittsburgh, so my network is limited to Pittsburgh connections and anyone else I connected with). One way around this is to connect with others outside of your network, but are only limited to see those contacts‚ in the other networks. Another option is‚ to change what network you want to be designated on Facebook.

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3) Post Positions to the Marketplace. Postings are free on the site and go out to your network. Most job categories are represented.‚ 

4) Join Groups. This is the area where you are most likely going to find people and connect. I highly recommend. One group I joined is Web 2.0 Entrepreneurs, which has over 29,ooo members. There is a discussion board where you can interact with other members. This is where you will get a good bang for your buck so to speak on Facebook. An example of a discussion is below.

There are plently of other ways to use Facebook, such as asking questions to your network, participating in or sponsoring events and uploading tailored videos for others to see. You can customize your‚ profile and advertise your interests in connecting and job openings that way as well. I will do a video tutorial on Facebook in the next few days. Keep an eye out for it.

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Let’s say you are sourcing in a new area geographically, and are unsure of the surrounding cities and towns. You find a perfect candidate while sourcing, and you want to determine if this candidate is within a commutable range of the client site. In this example screen shot below, I am trying to find out if Stamford, CT. (where‚ a perfect candidate lives) is closeby to Hartford, CT. (where‚ the client is).‚ You can see it shows that it is 1hr. 30 min. away, most likely too far for the candidate. By using Google Maps, I can also see what‚ surrounding areas‚ ARE within a reasonable commutable distance, and I will take note in future searches.

Another example is say you are searching for businesses to source from a city you have not worked in before. Google Maps will do a search and show you where businesses are located nearby, along with contact information and links to their websites. In this example below, I searched for financial companies located near Hartford, CT.

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In my‚ opinion, not enough emphasis and strategy is placed on‚ subject lines in emails - so I wanted to‚ pull together‚ knowledge from‚ others‚ in‚ the recruiting industry and find out what‚ has‚ been used and‚ what has worked.‚ Here are some of the suggested subject lines:

• Hoping to network with you
• A confidential career appraisal and access upper quartile job opportunities in your industry
• Salary survey for (a specific industry)
• Job Title + ‘Please Respond’
• Challenging career opportunities with xyz ltd.
• Interesting career opportunities with xyz ltd.
• Message from “firm name”
• Geoff, your old resume‚ 
• Geoff, Recruiter calling
• Name followed by the name-of-someone-they-know suggested we connect
• Can we setup a time to talk?
• Would you be available for a phone interview?
• Career Opportunities at ______________
• Would you be interested in opportunities at __________?
• Your Resume Online - ________ Opportunities
• Hi _______ - Interest in _____________
• Hi _______ - _____________ is hiring
• Excellent Opportunity at XXX (Direct to a personal account)
• You’re professional expertise is requested (professional organization)‚ 
• Introductions or Phone discussion requested (work account)‚ 
• Help a friend find a new position and earn a referral bonus (any account)
• Recruiter seeking numerical astrophysics Ph.D. for XXXXX
• You are the answer to my client’s prayers

Someone also‚ presented‚ four great articles on the topic of “email subject lines” to check out as well:

1. http://www.web-source.net/web_development/email_marketing.htm‚ 
2. http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/6909.asp
3. http://www.mindtools.com/CommSkll/EmailCommunication.htm
4. http://www.gettingattention.org/my_weblog/2007/10/email-subject-l.html

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“¢‚¬¦a rigorous and disciplined methodology that uses data and statistical analysis to measure and improve a company’s operational performance by identifying and eliminating “defects” in manufacturing and service-related processes.”

If you’re already familiar with the Six Sigma methodology, the i Six Sigma website has a wealth of content for you, whether you’re a recruiter or job seeker. If you’re not a tenant of, or curious about, the Six Sigma process, there’s not much for you there, but it’s also not a website you’d likely stumble across if you weren’t interested, anyway.

i Six Sigma provides comprehensive resources to businesses at every level of the Six Sigma maturity. The site offers searchable job listings, a resume database with over 19,000 professionals, blog posts, newsletters (where job postings are promoted to over 38,000 subscribers), events and conferences, forums and more, all designed to assist readers in learning new skills, advancing their careers and contribute to the success of their companies through the use of Six Sigma.

Job recruiters focused on finding prospective clients or researching companies that subscribe to Six Sigma would certainly find a lot to do at i Six Sigma. Among the best resources on the site are the discussion forums, where hundreds of career- and company-related chat threads can be searched and surfed to find Six Sigma-related topics. One possible use for the forums would be to research specific companies that use the methodology, or to learn common concerns and themes in Six Sigma-prescribed employees who are seeking ways to advance their careers.

The site also has a fairly involved blogosphere area with multiple authors and plenty of topics and opinions on all things Six Sigma. While the i Six Sigma site can be a bit tricky in terms of navigation - due at least in part to its copious advertising banners that flash, blink and otherwise grapple for your attention - it must be said that anyone researching Six Sigma and its attendant capabilities would do well to make i Six Sigma their first stop.

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