Post: Sourcing Resumes Via Google: The Big Lie?

[Irina Shamaeva]

Hi All,

Please check this out and let's add our comments:
Sourcing Resumes Via Google: The Big Lie?

[gary cozin]

Irina - I get "the address is not valid" when I click it-

[Irina Shamaeva]

Sorry; fixed

gary cozin said:

Irina - I get "the address is not valid" when I click it-

[gary cozin]

Yes - I had seen Glen's original post. I am a believer in using (mining or scrubbing) the resume databases in addition to sourcing on Google - the more tools to find the most qualified the better! Pluse, with many good qualified folks possibily unemployed, they usually post a resume on Monster in addition to LinkedIN and others.

[Kameron Swinton]

It seems like an argument like this comes up about once a month. My opinion is that regardless of the type of sourcing you prefer, (telephone names sourcing, internet, referral recruiting, social media, etc.) that the increase in information available online will put more emphasis on your ability to exploit databases using boolean search logic, not less. Furthermore data mining is not just limited to your ability to find information online, but to scrub every corner of the information sources available to you, your ATS, resume databases, nice job sites, etc. Learning the syntax of the different search engines is not just useful for identifying resumes, but rather for filtering and finding information of all types. The # of resumes available in Google may be lower than Monster, but what if you compared the number of LinkedIn/social network profiles, blogs, user groups, forum postings... These are all pieces of information that can be used to build an accurate candidate profile, or simply a source of referrals. Learning boolean logic (AND/OR/NOT) is the easy part, understanding how to leverage it along with knowledge of database theory and semantic search is where the true skill lies.

-kameron

gary cozin said:

Yes - I had seen Glen's original post. I am a believer in using (mining or scrubbing) the resume databases in addition to sourcing on Google - the more tools to find the most qualified the better! Pluse, with many good qualified folks possibily unemployed, they usually post a resume on Monster in addition to LinkedIN and others.

[Glen Cathey]

"The Big Lie" - well said! :-)

Yes, the Internet can be used to find more than just resumes, but resumes afford sourcers and recruiters more information to match on, and that matters. Give me any resume database and put me up against someone who is not allowed to search for/find resumes and I will be at a ridiculous competitive advantage.

If I have access to 4M resumes in an internal database, 20+M profiles on LinkedIn (many of which are resume-level in depth of info), and perhaps 1 major job board resume database at 10-20M resumes - why would I ever need to try and search the Internet for non-resume info to find candidates? Just because you CAN do it, doesn't mean it's the most effective method of finding the right people quickly.

I am happy to see this brought up because there are many people who will make grandiose claims as to how many resumes are on the Internet - and I had fun being the "mythbuster."

However, I will say that while many people will jump to a major resume database, there may be fewer people actually sourcing resumes on the Internet - and there are plenty of "needles" in the haystack out there - just try searching for TS cleared Java developers in the DC metro area using Google. Yep - a surprising number of resumes.

Thanks for digging this topic up and for everyone's comments!