Steven Covey published The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People and it was a great book.

When Dr. Covey came out with a new book, The 8th Habit, I was skeptical.  Why didn’t he think up the 8th habit right from the start?

Now I understand it.  Ideas evolve.  We are the sum total of your experiences at any point in time. You create a set of rules that you believe are universal.  In my case, I am the author of The Seven Laws of Internet Search.

The Original Laws …
1. Permutation
2. Completeness
3. Iteration
4. Frequency
5.  Process
6. Taxonomy
7. Measurable Results

It has been about a year and a half and now, guess what?  I came up with another Law of Internet Search.  The 8th law could not have been created by me…unless I was able to observe people learning and implementing the first seven laws in their Internet search activity.

Here is what I observed:  The Internet is “non-homogeneous”.  The idea of homogeneity  also resonated with me as I wrote the original seven laws.  I played with the idea of a Law of Non-homogeneity.  This means that the Internet exists in many different formats and there is no way to query everything, with a single method or game plan.

“Non-Homogeneous” sounds ugly.  To define something with “non” in front of it…it would be like cheating.  Each of the seven laws of Internet Search is meant to be a simple axiom of advice.    I failed to get my concept of Homogeneity into the laws.

Why did I fail?  It is simple.  Each of the seven laws is a solution.  Whereas “non-homogeneous” or “non-homogeneity” was talking about a problem.

What was I trying to get at?  It is also simple.  The Internet is not homogeneous, therefore, many different methods are needed to search it.  It is those very search mechanisms that the 8th Law takes into account.  The 8th law is  The Law of Environment.

In fact, the 8th Law is so important, I have moved it the top spot in The Laws of Internet Search.  It is now The 1st Law of Internet Search.

To understand the Law of Environment.  Get your mind around the concept of the Internet having many modalities. Many sites, each with it’s own set of rules or search environment.

Next.  There are some simple questions to ask.   What is the access method?  What are the sites restrictions?  Etc

In addition to the simple questions about the environment, the more advanced Internet search may want to dive into further understand the full capabilities of the search environment.

Once the simple questions about the environment are answered, the Internet search can proceed with quantifiable expectations on what to expect from their chosen search medium.

For example, it is important to understand that Google will only give you a maximum of 1000 results from any search.  Even if Google reports that their are 2450 results, you only have access to the first 1000.  Understanding this is understanding the limitation of the environment.

Here are the The Laws of Internet Search, Reloaded

1.  Environment
2. Permutation
3. Completeness
4. Iteration
5. Frequency
6. Process
7. Taxonomy
8. Measurable Results

Dr. Steven Covey, now I understand. Looking forward to the ninth law.

Shorter domain names are better.  One syllable words are simple, short, and memorable. This weekend I was looking for a domain name for a new project I was working on.  Everything I initially tried was taken.  What I did know was that I wanted to add a one syllable word to the end of my “anchor word”.  It had nothing to do with recruiting, but for this example,  I will use the anchor word  RECRUIT.

I needed to create a repeatable, semi automated process to conquer this task.   Here is what I did:

1. Create a list of one-syllable words.  One of Broadlook’s software engineers, Kevin,  had developed an algorithm to do this.  It is a great thing when you have a team with 7 years of software code to pull off the shelf.

2. Pass this list of one-syllable words past a good set of text to get a frequency count.  Kevin suggested to run it past the Brown Corpus.   It was a good idea.  Once I had a frequency count, I could remove words of very low frequency from the list.  The end result was about 6100 one-syllable words

3.  Build a simple Excel spreadsheet.  The spreadsheet allows me to type in a single word and it will create about 6100 lines of potential domain names.    You can get this spreadsheet here at a site I set up.

4.  In batches of 500, paste them into GoDaddy’s bulk registration system.   All the domains that are already registered will be culled out of the results.

If you are looking for a domain name in the recruiting space, you can try RecruitWho.com, RecruitGo.com or RecruitGun.com.  All of these domains were available as of this writing.  Below is the full list of 5700 available domain names starting with the word RECRUIT.   Within this list are some good domains, and many very bad ones.  They are listed in the order of occurrence of the word in the  English language, starting with “the” being the most used.  While this may seem daunting, check your premises. Try manually thinking up a domain name, checking if it is available, and trying again, again and again  vs.  looking through this list.  This way is much faster.   If someone picks one from this list, let me know, I’d love to hear that I saved you time.  Go get em!

RECRUIT  THE.COM
RECRUIT  OF.COM
RECRUIT  AND.COM
RECRUIT  TO.COM
RECRUIT  THAT.COM
RECRUIT  IS.COM
RECRUIT  WAS.COM
RECRUIT  HE.COM
RECRUIT  FOR.COM
RECRUIT  HIS.COM
RECRUIT  BE.COM
RECRUIT  AT.COM
RECRUIT  BY.COM
RECRUIT  HAD.COM
RECRUIT  NOT.COM
RECRUIT  ARE.COM
RECRUIT  BUT.COM
RECRUIT  FROM.COM
RECRUIT  HAVE.COM
RECRUIT  THEY.COM
RECRUIT  AN.COM
RECRUIT  WHICH.COM
RECRUIT  WERE.COM
RECRUIT  SHE.COM
RECRUIT  WE.COM
RECRUIT  THERE.COM
RECRUIT  WOULD.COM
RECRUIT  THEIR.COM
RECRUIT  BEEN.COM
RECRUIT  HAS.COM
RECRUIT  WHEN.COM

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What is a good vertical market to recruit in?   I get asked this question every week.    

However, most often the question is more a question of what I “feel” would be a good market to start a new desk specialty in.  

“Donato, what do you feel a good new desk specialty would be?” 

I say. “I feel like a great market would be placing sales reps in recruiting software companies that do real time data mining of contact information.”  

They respond, “but Donato, Broadlook is the only company I know that does this kind of thing.”

“That’s right”, I say.  “..and I don’t pay fees”   <grin>

About this time they realize I am having fun at their expense and I chime in. “You asked me what I feel, not what I think.”

Most recruiters don’t think it through thoroughly when starting a new desk.   Lets face it, thinking is hard.  A day of designing software wipes me out more than a triathlon (ok I’ve only done one). It’s not their fault.  This is how they were taught.  Or I should say, this is how they learned.  They watch someone who was a big biller and tried to do what they heard.

When discussing the creation of a new desk, I hear a good deal about reading everything from an industry, articles, journals, etc.  Wake up, this type of activity is about learning about the industry, not if the niche will support a desk.  If I am going to trust my livelihood to one vertical or another,  forget the gut, give me data.

“Hey Donato, are you telling me to ignore my gut instinct?”  

NO

The role of the “gut instinct” in this whole process should precede the data gathering.  The gut should lead you to the top several candidates and then you then expose to the scientific method.  The gut gets excited while reading and learning.  Don’t let it get carried away.

The gut is the emotion, the wind.  Let the data be the rudder and the sail.

To start a new desk, I would prefer solid facts about a potential specialty, such as:

How many open jobs, by state and nationally?   (size of universe)
How many recruiters specialize in the niche?     (competition)
What are the average fees paid to recruiters?    (compensation)
What resources can I use to build a candidate pool?  (sourcing)
What resources can I use to win business?  (marketing)
Will I enjoy working this desk specialty? (mental health)
Can I own the space, can I brand this space as mine?  (branding)

Once you do decide on a new desk specialty, based on the data, the first thing to do is think about branding yourself.  I’ll focus on the other questions in my next few blogs.  A great example of branding is Harry Joiner and his site MarketingHeadhunter.com

How easy is it to brand yourself?   Two areas that I know are hot are Physical Therapists and Nanotechnology.  Very different, but both very hot.  So I went out to GoDaddy.com and checked the following web sites:

PHYSICALTHERAPISTRECRUITER.COM   (FREE)
NANOTECHNOLOGYRECRUITER.COM      (FREE)
BIOFUELRECRUITER.COM                            (FREE)
FUELCELLRECRUITER.COM                          (TAKEN)
GREENENERGYRECRUITER.COM                 (FREE)

Most of them were free and only one was taken. Again, all hot, hot, hot.

Heads up.  Don’t try to go register, PHYSICALTHERAPISTRECRUITER.COM or NANOTECHNOLOGYRECRUITER.COM because I just registered them.  The others are free as of this writing.  I may not fetch the 99K that Jason Davis is asking for CEOjobs.com, but they will sell for a hefty profit.

The first Physical Therapist Recruiter to purchase the Broadlook Suite, you can have that site for free.  (I have no passion for that desk).  New clients only.

Don’t ask for nanotechnologyrecruiter.com.  Nanotech excites me.  It’s mine.