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.
For the sake of privacy, I will call the company target in question “LocalCorp”
Using Google, LocalCorp turned up 210 hits. Diver plowed through the links in about 45 seconds, returning a total of 3 usable names, once duplicates were excluded.
Upon further examination, the 3 contacts were not what we were looking for.
The next reaction was the most painful event that I have to witness over and over.
The client stated “there must not be any benefits administrators listed on the Internet from this company”. In some cases this would be true, but this was a major local company. It was an error in thinking and of process. That is why Broadlook puts such an emphasis on training.
Here is the mistake that happened: They were treating a Google search like a database. The Internet should be treated as a research tool, not a database. When you do a database query, you are dealing in the exact. Boolean. True or False. The Internet is a vast, uncontrolled, unregulated medium. You conquer it with persistence and creativity.
Here is what we did next in the training.
I asked. “Is Benefits Administator the only, exact title that would match who you are looking for?”
This is the only thing I needed to ask. Within 10 minutes my client, my trainer and I collaborated and came up with a list of 28 titles that both match exactly the type of person we were looking for as well as people that would be around that target person.
Think about it. If you are telephone sourcing, you would call in and ask who takes care of the administration of benefits. You’d have a title (or get hung up on). When you are Internet sourcing, you don’t have the benefit of a frame of reference or a feedback cycle from the Q&A of a phone call. With this in mind, if you use search engines for Internet Sourcing, you need to plan and define your search.
You need to understand permutations. In the context of search, it is saying the same thing in many diffent ways.
After doing searches using the 28 different permutation, 56 individuals were identified. The 56 people were a combination of people doing the job and people around the people doing the job. This is the start of the direct recruitment process. The client was very happy. They took the leap from the job board/database mind to the Internet/research mind. Helping people make that mindleap is the most exciting part of my job.
Here is a spreadsheet showing the different combinations of the titles used in different searches.
|
Search Engine Hits for various search combinations |
|||||
| Title |
Title + “Local Corp” |
Title + Site: “Local Corp” |
Title only |
Title + “Microsoft” |
Title + Site: Microsoft .com |
| Director of Benefits |
101 |
0 |
47700 |
30700 |
1 |
| Benefits Administrator |
210 |
1 |
326000 |
28900 |
583 |
| Benefits Advisor |
25 |
0 |
111000 |
1480 |
16 |
| Benefits Director |
60 |
0 |
51300 |
1550 |
37 |
| Benefits Manager |
351 |
1 |
432000 |
32800 |
247 |
| Benefits Specialist |
223 |
3 |
227000 |
21400 |
150 |
| Benefits and Compensation |
224 |
1 |
423000 |
59800 |
188 |
| Benefits and Programs |
72 |
1 |
78500 |
1240 |
25 |
| Benefits Administration |
759 |
3 |
10800 |
1940000 |
11400 |
| Compensation Consultant |
586 |
0 |
317000 |
18300 |
177 |
| Compensation and Benefits |
266 |
10 |
1150000 |
300000 |
644 |
| Employee Benefits |
132 |
33 |
1660000 |
988000 |
38600 |
| Group Compensation |
361 |
0 |
61100 |
671 |
33 |
| Payroll Administrator |
106 |
0 |
378000 |
31900 |
838 |
| Payroll Advisor |
1 |
0 |
938 |
476 |
2 |
| Payroll Director |
23 |
0 |
13900 |
742 |
6 |
| Payroll Manager |
289 |
0 |
303000 |
34700 |
419 |
| Payroll Specialist |
193 |
1 |
329000 |
31900 |
192 |
| Payroll and Benefits |
265 |
1 |
405000 |
39900 |
223 |
| Pension and Benefits |
119 |
0 |
214000 |
851 |
100 |
| Programs and Benefits |
111 |
1 |
135000 |
9090 |
75 |
| International Compensation |
54 |
0 |
72300 |
501 |
46 |
| Benefits and Payroll |
146 |
0 |
206000 |
16100 |
116 |
| Pension Investments |
136 |
0 |
84900 |
545 |
29 |
| Senior Benefits |
55 |
0 |
79300 |
658 |
36 |
| Pension Manager |
129 |
0 |
23000 |
1280 |
5 |
| Totals |
4997 |
56 |
|||