Text-Based Searching

Text-Based Searching

The Foundation Of
Resume Search Theory
The foundation of resume search theory
is built upon the understanding and
appreciation of the intrinsic limitations of
attempting to find candidates through
text-based searching of resumes.

Limitations of Text-Based Searches:

1. A person and everything about them is reduced to a text-based document
2. Most candidates ARE NOT proficient in creating resumes
3. Candidates still believe shorter and concise resumes are still better
- Thus, very experienced candidates are EXCLUDING valuable information OUT of their resumes
= Word based searches are conducted to retrieve human beings represented by paper
There are qualified candidates in every database that you search that are excellent matches for your positions…yet, the searches you run may not ever pull up their resume.

Don’t assume that if you did not find candidates that match your requirement in a given database, that the database does not contain well qualified candidates.

That’s as if you went fishing for a day in the ocean and didn’t catch any fish, and saying there were no fish in the ocean!
Challenges to finding candidates
• Candidates often don’t mention every technology, skill and experience they have
• All candidates don’t express the same type of experience in the same words
• Employers often don’t use the same job titles for the same job functions
• Candidates don’t create their resumes thinking how you will search it
Always Remember:
Just because you haven’t found the qualified candidates you need in a database, it does not mean there are no qualified candidates in the database - You just didn’t find them.

This should bother you – and drive you to refine and alter your searches to dig them up.

• All searches return results, so in theory, all searches “work” - but not all searches are created equal
• Who is to judge what a “good” search is?
• No single search will return all qualified candidates in the database
• Some of the best candidates actually have the worst, or at the very least, uninspiring resumes that may not appear to be obvious or strong matches to your requirement
• Realize that candidates that are easy for you to find are easy for other recruiters to find.
• This causes difficulty for you to create interest in your opportunity and closing down the candidate
• Try to find the candidates your competitors can, as well as the ones they can’t
• There are diamonds in the rough
• “Call first and ask questions later!”
• Appreciate that every change made to a search alters the search results somehow
• Goal #1: To be better than the competition at manipulating resume databases
• Goal #2: To feel confident that after you’ve searched a database for a particular requirement, that there is literally no candidate you didn’t find, and that your client and/or competitors could not find someone that you did not.

Boolean Searching

Recruiting Effectively

The primary method to find information in a database is to conduct a "search" through text-based searching.

The most advanced and configurable form is Boolean searching.

Boolean searching is named after a British mathematician, George BooleFormulated precise queries using true/false connectors and "operators" between conceptsThis has become the conventional way searches are conducted on computerized systems

Primary operators or "Boolean Operators":

And
Or
And
Not
Near
*
And
=

narrows search and retrieves records containing all of the words it separates %uF0E0 e.g. unix and oracleOr = broadens search and retrieves records containing any of the words it separates %uF0E0 e.g. unix or oracleNot = narrows search and retrieves records that do not contain the term following it %uF0E0 e.g. unix and not oracleNear = finds words within 10 -15 words (depending on the database) of each other %uF0E0 e.g., unix near oracle (retrieves records that contain unix and oracle in any order and within a 10 - 15 word radius of one other.)* = Wildcard Truncation. This expands a search term to include all forms of the root word%uF0E0 e.g., admin* retrieves administer, administrator, administration, administering, etc." " = indicates an exact phrase;%uF0E0 e.g. "project manager"( ) - groups words or phrases when combining Boolean phrases;%uF0E0 e.g., (oracle or "sql server") and (solaris or linux)