As a follow-up to my video‚ tutorial on using LinkedIn to find passive candidates, I wanted to create a second LinkedIn tutorial specifically covering how to build your network. In this very detailed video lasting 30 minutes, I cover ways to tweak your profile, give insight into networks where you can increase your‚ LinkedIn “visibility”‚ and‚ demonstrate several solid tips to use moving forward. One specific tip will increase your network by‚ the thousands‚ guaranteed! Enjoy and let me know if you have any questions, need help or want links to mentioned sources in the video.
*If you would like full screen, hit the square box in the bottom right hand corner of the video player.
Digg is, per their website, a place to discover and share content from anywhere on the web. Digg allows users of the site to submit stories (links/articles, videos), customize their‚ site experience, join in on conversations around stories, and communicate with other Digg users by sharing favorite links. The site is broken up into News, Videos, Images and Podcasts divided into categories such as Technology, World & Business, Science and more.
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
An Instant Message (IM) service called‚ meebo really opens the door to new possibilities in recruiting and sourcing candidates. Instant Message services have been around for years enabling friends, family and co-workers to stay in touch while online. Meebo differentiates itself by pulling all IM services into one place, such as AIM, Yahoo and MSN, in‚ addition to adding a community, blog and chat rooms (called meebo rooms)‚ and products.
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
JobServe.com is a UK-based website that delivers its content through three separate, regionally-based portals: JobServe.com, JobServe.us and JobServe.com.au. Within each of these sites, job seekers can search listings, post their resumes and search through a host of targeted career segments.
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.
Sponsored by SmashFly Technologies, Provider of WildFire, The First Job Marketing Platform
There is another website joining the ranks of LinkedIn and Plaxo and it is called Naymz.‚ Naymz is very similar to the other business networking websites but has some other special features.‚ ‚
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.‚
Sponsored by SmashFly Technologies, Provider of WildFire, The First Job Marketing Platform
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For technology programmers, developers and enterprise managers, JavaWorld.com is the primary go-to destination for resources, forums, podcasts, newsletters and a whole lot more. And while the site’s career center boasts a great many online tools to assist Java-savvy IT professionals, there are also quite a few high-quality resources there for recruiters and internet sourcers interested in targeting the world of Java-based technology.
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.
Sponsored by SmashFly Technologies, Provider of WildFire, The First Job Marketing Platform
Let’s face it: a site called CollegeGrad.com is pretty much going to be aimed specifically at - you can probably guess this one - college grads, or soon-to-be college grads. In fact, this is exactly the case, and CollegeGrad.com does an excellent job of targeting its content to people who are only just entering the job market and seeking those precious first opportunities to get in on the ground level at the corporation of their dreams.
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.
Sponsored by SmashFly Technologies, Provider of WildFire, The First Job Marketing Platform
Plaxo, per their site,‚ keeps people connected by solving the common and frustrating problem of out-of-date contact information. Plaxo is a site much like LinkedIn, in that it is a community with free and fee services for networking with business associates, and keeping in touch with family and friends. Plaxo can be thought of as an online rolodex for all of your contacts, with users having the option to show physical addresses, emails, phone numbers and fully detailed profiles.
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.
Sponsored by SmashFly Technologies, Provider of WildFire, The First Job Marketing Platform
JobVent is an interesting website that invites people to write about their current or past employer, and both positive and negative reviews are encouraged.‚ This is a great place to come as a job seeker to find out what employees really think of the companies that you are applying to.‚ It can also be used as a great resource for recruiters, although you probably wouldn’t think of using it that way at first.
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.
Sponsored by SmashFly Technologies, Provider of WildFire, The First Job Marketing Platform
The website Jobs4HR serves a number of useful purposes for a recruiter:
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.
Sponsored by SmashFly Technologies, Provider of WildFire, The First Job Marketing Platform
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