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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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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:

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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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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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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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There is a great blog attached to the site as well, Go2Web2.blogspot, which talks about the latest companies in this space and gives recruiters and sourcers many avenues to explore.

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I’ve found a few different websites that list technical interview questions for different skill sets, but one stuck out to me because it seemed very easy to understand and navigate through.‚ The website DevBistro is a site that serves several different functions: a place for recruiters and employers to post jobs for a fee, search resumes, a place to read tech articles and learn about technology, and a place where technical interview questions and answers have been complied.‚ 

These questions have been taken from multiple sources such as a website called TechInterviews (which I find is difficult to navigate through and some of the links don’t seem to work), and some have even been submitted by candidates who have been asked these questions by specific employers.

On this particular site, they have a number of different tech categories listed, and each one includes multiple questions and answers about the technology.‚ A lot of the questions and answers are written in a way that a recruiter would understand if the candidate is answering the question wrong or not.‚ For the questions that don’t have answers with them, those questions could be asked by the recruiter and then the answers could be reviewed by someone who you feel is an expert with that technology who could properly grade the answers given.

Recruiters can also learn from looking at the interview questions and answers.‚ We aren’t going to understand everything, but it could always be helpful in becoming more confident when a candidate is talking technical with you.

Blogs - The blogs on this site relate to every IT topic that you can imagine.‚ You can search blogs by topic, and you can also sort them by factors like most recent and most popular.‚ If you feel like you have something to share with the ITtoolbox community, you too can start your own blog on the site.‚ 

Groups - The groups section is a place where members can go to ask questions and receive advice from other members. The groups are also sorted by topic.‚ If you join one of these groups, you can interact with the other members of it to discuss things related to a particular technical specialty.‚ I would say that this area has the same idea as Yahoo!‚ Groups and Google Groups.

Wiki - Due to the popularity of Wikipedia, almost everyone is now familiar with the term Wiki.‚ ITtoolbox has its own Wiki for their members to contribute to.‚ It works the same way as Wikipedia, where users of the site can write and edit entries for specific topics if they have knowledge of the topic (and hopefully it’s accurate information!).‚ In this area, you can find answers to many of your simple and complex questions related to the IT industry and technology.

Peers - Since you just built your ITtoolbox profile, you are now able to connect with your peers on the site.‚ The search functions are similar to those on LinkedIn: you can search by someone’s name, employer, expertise/skills, or display name.‚ After you have a profile on the site, you can also do a search for people who have a similar background as yours. You can make connections with your peers on the site, too.‚ 

Navigating this website is a bit confusing for a first time user because there are so many links and different areas to look at, but it seems like it gets much easier to click through once you get the hang of it.‚ Recruiters can use this site to learn more about the technologies that their consultants and employees work with, and it is a good alternative to LinkedIn to connect to those in the IT industry.

The site certainly is a comprehensive resource for job career news and information, but it also provides recruitment professionals with an impressive array of tools to target opportunities in the life sciences segment. Clicking the site’s Career Fairs tab at the top of the page provides upcoming events truly geared toward‚ the life sciences industry to include‚ pharmaceutical and biotechnology. Likewise, the site provides highly organized and widespread company profiles that include available jobs, related news items and contact information. These profiles can also be searched via industry, location, services and more.

And here’s a helpful piece of functionality that the site offers to further target its content: clicking on the main navigational tabs at the top of the page provides segmented versions of the site’s content for the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry (BioSpace); medical device and diagnostics interests (DeviceSpace); and a clinical research channel (ClinicaSpace). See the screenshot and note the arrow:

Each tab provides some similar site content, but with a number of key differences so that site visitors can appropriately segment their search for news, events and job search opportunities.‚ There is an “Employers” section to each site, where there are options for job posting and resume search packages. With extensive access to newsletters, featured stories, blogs and more, all three of these interconnected resource websites provide a wealth of content for job seekers and recruiters alike.

Vault offers a general job board for employers to post open positions for a fee, a free HR newsletter and‚ employee surveys. Employers can post internships for free to the site. A community section of the site offers a forum where topics are listed and members of the site can interact with others‚ by reading and posting‚ messages. In addition Vault offers a “Buyers Guide”, which offers a comparison of‚ recruiting and HR related products and services.

Vault offers job seekers the full capability to search nationwide job listings and apply online, provided they have registered and have uploaded a resume. Similarly, researching salaries is only available to logged-in members, and many other levels of information can only be accessed with a paid membership.‚ Vault attracts heavy student traffic to it’s site‚ offering a‚ campus marketing program that delivers an online “career library”‚ with guidebooks,‚ company profiles and articles all aimed‚ at helping students launch their careers.

Vault memberships are both fee and free depending on what you want.‚ Vault membership provides “insider” access to employee and salary surveys that are searchable by location, company name, industry type and more. Paid members can also find out interviewing tips, company quality of life rankings, tools to review and evaluate resumes and cover letters and quite a bit more. Without the membership, job seekers can still get a snapshot of company profiles, and can also access a wealth of information, career tips, white papers, etc., but paid membership, however, is the only way to truly open up the Vault.

At first glance, it would appear that Workforce Management is primarily a resource for news and little else. And while there is an abundance of news on the site - latest news, top articles, recent blog posts, lead story, more stories, etc. - one doesn’t have to look very far to find more interactive online resources such as job listings, upcoming conferences and webinars, e-newsletters and downloadables and pretty much everything in between.

Take a look, for example, at this portion of the Workforce Management homepage, where “Topic Channels” break archived articles down into quickly-referenced topics on the top left. Or, on the bottom‚ right of this screenshot, notice the “Featured Jobs” box in which dozens of clickable, nationwide HR positions scroll endlessly by, complete with company name and locations. This area clicks through to WorkforceHRJobs - a site exclusively dedicated to HR related jobs. Employers can post HR jobs and request resumes there.

There’s a lot to find and a lot to do on Workforce Management, and recruiters can discover a great deal of information specifically geared toward their interests, often via links labeled “for recruiters” and the like. Site visitors can also subscribe to the printed version of Workforce Management and register for “full access” to the site. It’s a crowded, busy site where a great many links demand attention - but as packed as it is, Workforce Management still doesn’t feel confusing or overwhelming. It’s organized intuitively and leads you to make certain navigational decisions as you delve deeper into the site.

Just make sure you’ve blocked out enough time to do it.

Each‚ profile includes information like geographic location, hourly rate, and the freelancer’s skill set.‚ These gurus are also rated on the projects that they have completed for employers who have found them through Guru.com.‚ The employer can write a review on the person’s work, and some freelancers include some work samples in their profile so you can get an idea of their previous projects. One other thing that you’re able to see in the profiles while performing a search is how much money the freelancer has made from these projects.‚ You may want to choose someone who has had several projects this year instead of someone who hasn’t yet worked on any projects.‚ If you’re interested in learning more about any of these gurus, you can easily request a free quote or ask them a question.‚ See the example profile shot below:

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The interface of this site is really easy to use and there are tons of freelance consultants of all backgrounds for you to choose from.‚ This site‚ represents a good alternative‚ for companies to find talent for very short term projects, or perhaps to open the door to a long-term relationship with many different consultants for use outside of the site. On a‚ final note, the site does have “vendors” that represent themselves on the site as well. Using Guru.com as a middleman to work with vendors now represents another option at your disposal.

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Slashdot has a job board, where users can post open positions and get them cross-posted to Linux.com, Freshmeat, IT Managers Journal and Newsforge, which are sites similar in set-up to Slashdot. The site claims to have a reach of over 9 million developers and IT professionals.

Slashdot users can join for free and submit articles to place on the site for readers to see.‚ For Internet Sourcers, this site is filled with articles‚ for techno-enthusiasts, and represents another‚ way to find leads or potential matches for open technical positions. Like most news sites, there is some digging involved.‚ The articles themselves can give good leads to other technical communities, groups and popular trends among the readers. Users can‚ look into the profiles of those who submit articles on the site and take part in the forum by adding comments. If you want to find out who submitted an article, there are not too many with contact information attached to them. Here is one for an example:

There seems to be alot of potential with the site for the recruiting industry, and a good resource to potentially use for crafting interviews via phone or in person‚ for candidates. Once the site gets some more content and a larger user base, there could be alot to learn from here. ‚ 

The site lets you filter questions and search the site by tags, job titles or an “asked at” field. The bulk of the questions so far appear to be technical. Here is a screen shot:

Here is a look at the site in action. Say I want to find groups focused on Information Technology local to Pittsburgh, PA.

I note one group titled DotNext-Pittsburgh and click on it.

I see that this meetup group is for people who like to learn new skills in the technology arena. This group has 4 ways listed where a member attending the meeting could get involved. For example: you could introduce‚ your company’s product or service (making it relevant to the group) and make an impression on why your company would be a great place to work.

I continue further, and click through on the organizer of the group and note that there are a few ways to reach out to him without attending the meetup. Say for instance the group really frowns on recruiter attending. So I may send the organizer my contact information and see if I can share my company and openings with him and the group at the next meeting. It sure doesn’t hurt.

The site is set-up with the ability to search a particular topic and communicate with the user of‚ a page or “lensmaster” as the site calls them. This makes the site especially useful for recruiters and sourcers as they can either search the Squidoo site for people with expertise in a particular skill set and reach out to them, or set-up their own lens on their company or a particular topic and drive traffic to their open positions or website. I found many lenses on the site to give links directly to open positions they are currently recruiting for. This ultimately will lead to more candidates and more leads for open positions. In addition, The site acts as a medium for recruiters to really get the word out about their company and their expertise. The site currently has 117,641 members each with their own lens.

Here is an example lens set-up for job openings:

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A great lens to start out with is the guide to creating a successful Squidoo. This will give you ideas on how to effectively use the site moving forward.

For Job Seekers, WorkGiant offers the usual capabilities to create an online profile, post a resume, and find jobs based on searchable criteria. WorkGiant offers a unique incentive in its referral program. Job Seekers who have recommended WorkGiant to their friends can pick up anywhere from $50 to $200 on every referral hired by a WorkGiant employer - and the program costs job seekers nothing to join.

WorkGiant offers “Performance Based Recruiting” to employers who join the service. What this means is that, rather than charging an up-front fee for listing open positions and searching resumes, WorkGiant allows employers to list all of their available employment positions for free, with no expiration dates, and the site only charges a fee when an employer’s position has been filled (the fee works out to 1 percent of that position’s annual salary).

WorkGiant also provides:

• The ability for Job Seekers to control their private information
• Complete job listings to job seekers instead of just a select few
• The “Recycled Candidate Program” where employers and recruiters can recycle surplus candidates
• Precision Match Technology to ensure accurate database searches to match job openings.

WorkGiant is a decent site and even features a live support interface, but the site’s usability could stand some updating. Some page load times are a bit on the long side, and navigating through the site’s pages can be a bit confusing. When you’ve reached the “Learn More” page for employers or job seekers, a video Flash presentation plays automatically with no ability to pause, turn the sound off, or avoid loading the show each time you visit the page. Another site worth checking out in this space is BountyJobs, which I covered in a post earlier this month.

This site gives recruiters the ability to post open contract software positions and search for contractors numerous ways - by keyword, location, preferred working location, name, et cetera.‚ Another way to search is by using the “Search by Skill Set” function, which breaks down almost every technical skill set that you could ever think of.‚ This website is especially helpful when you are searching for hard-to-find skill sets that aren’t as prevalent on major job boards.‚ 

The screen shot below shows an example of the results that come up while doing a skill set search on SAP FI/CO contractors.‚ Next to each contractor name, the site shows you whether or not the contractor is currently available (if they regularly update their profile), and where they are willing to work.‚ This site is free for employers and recruiters, and the contractors post their contact information in their profile so they can be contacted directly.‚ 

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