Google is fast.  It fits pop culture.  Sit down, brainstorm on a topic. Type some keywords and get results.  You’ve all done it 100’s, and maybe 1000’s of times.

Here is a secret.  Slow down cowboy.  Plan your search.  Use a low tech solution…it’s called paper.  Plan, get your ideas down on paper, then search.

Occasionally, I drop into a client training session when a new client is getting their one on one training on Broadlook’s tools.   In this case, the client was looking to use our Diver software to find a Benefits Administrator from a local company.  They were not out trolling resume boards, they were targeting a specific company.

For those who have forgotten, it’s called direct recruitment. 

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At least 3-4 times per week, I get asked by recruiters for my recommendation of  a preferred Applicant tracking system.  In addition, another top question I am asked is for an example of how Broadlook’s software can be used in a real life recruiting, sales, or research process.   Broadlook partners with many ATS vendors, so we do not recommend any one vendor. We will, however, provide a short list of 4-5 vendors based on what we know about the clients needs.

I’ve seen several recruiting industry “lists” of ATS vendors by various publications.  The tone of the articles is typically one of inclusivity and completeness.  This is far from accurate.  Vendors get on the list by paying.  Some vendors with great technology don’t make those lists.  So I thought I would use Broadlook’s software tools to make my own list.  

About the list.  Total time to create this list: 4 hours.

Methodology used:

1. Broadlook’s Market Mapper to create the initial list of companies

2. Broadlook’s Profiler to scan the companies and pull out “descriptive paragraphs”

3. About 1 hour of manual editing

Any recruiter who is looking to build a list of companies in a niche industry goes through a laborious process of search engines queries, manual selection and cut & paste.  To put a list like this together manually would take about 2 weeks.  I was able to create this list in 4 hours…and during 2.5 of those hours the software was working alone.  So the net was 1.5 hours of my time to create a list that had not existed before.  Is it the definitive list? No.  There will always be some holes in 100% automated processing.  However, for those recruiters building lists of companies the old way in some niche, from scratch.  Game over.  I’ll beat you every time.  I’ll be on the phone talking to passive canidates on day 2.  In every phone call I’ll sound like I know every major player in their space.  I’ll pick up several more job orders along the way and I’ll be sending candidates to multiple companies in similar spaces.  Damn I wish I had this tool when I was recruiting.  Now I can only live vicariously via my clients that give us high fives at recuiting conferences.   For those of you who attended NAPS, thank you for stopping by the booth.

With the amazing success we’ve had with DIVER, I’ve been thinking about releasing a trial version of Market Mapper v3 when it is released (tool used to create the list).  Here is the challenge: it is a POWER users tool.  I’d welcome feedback from the community on the nature of getting a tool like this out.  One thought I had is to have a mandatory training webinar.  If you attend the webinar and learn how to use it, you get the trial.   Feedback please.  BTW.. Market Mapper version 3 rocks!  Those who are fans will love the latest version. Nuff said…here is the Applicant tracking vendor list

http://www.broadlook.com/research/applicant_tracking_vendor_list

Assuming NO limitations on the technology what would internet researchers vote for as their top features to add to search engines?

Some of mine:

1. Access to all results. When I do a search and see 3500 results, and can only get to a maximum of 1000…ahhhhh

2. Some control over the business logic in the ranking algorythm. - to much popularity means too much mob mentality.

3. The ability to perform 2 searches and create a concordance of results in a 3rd search - Example get a list of all terms that have to do with JAVA and then perform a resume search with the entire list as an input into one of those complex search strings that all you souring gurus are fond of.