Web searches can snare plethora of job candidates

The Internet has extensive resources to locate active and passive job seekers. Eight major strategies are now hot.

?Search engines utilize software robots to probe the Internet, retrieve documents and assemble the information into categorized databases. Keyword search-ing is the most common technique for uncovering resum?s.

At the search engine Web site, enter the keywords that should be in your ideal candidates' resum?s. Your data is examined against the material in the search engine database and the closest matches are listed as hits. Click on the hits you want to investigate further and land on their Web sites.

The top five search engines that use keyword searching are

HotBot.com, AltaVista.com, Infoseek.com, NorthernLight.com and Snap.com.

?The second searching method is concept. These search engines also use keyword searching, but they try to assess what you mean, not just what you say. This approach was developed because keyword searches have a hard time differentiating between words that are spelled the same but possess different meanings. Excite is best for this.

?Meta search tools take your search phrase, submit it to several search engines, and provide the final results in one place. Some popular ones are

All4one.com, Cyber411.com, Dogpile.com, Mamma.com and SuperSearch.com.

?Professional associations are creating Web sites daily to secure a presence on the Internet. Seeking candidates through their affiliations follows a fundamental rule in aggressive recruiting: determine where your candidates are and pursue them.

Gateway to Associations Online, at

asanet.org,

classifies countless associations with links on the Internet. The Internet Public Library Associations on the Net at

ipl.org

lists 600 Web sites detailing professional organizations. Keyword searches to find organizations are available through Associations Database at

trainingforum.com

or the VCA Association Directory at

vcanet.org.

?Newsgroups began before the Internet started as a means for large groups of people to exchange information. All the newsgroups together are called Usenet. A newsgroup with resum?s you can review for free is

misc.jobs.resumes.

Newsgroups allowing job postings for free include

misc.jobs.offered and misc.jobs.offered.entry.

It is critical to read the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) for a newsgroup prior to posting jobs and e-mailing to candidates. If you make a mistake, you will hear about it immediately though flaming, a series of irate replies to your post, or spamming, a flooding of your e-mail inbox with so many messages it is impossible to download your mail.

?Resum? robots scan resum? databases and newsgroups to find resum?s. It is currently estimated that 1 million resum?s are on the Internet. That figure is expected to grow to more than 10 million in the next few years. The amount of time it takes to perform a do-it-yourself search is causing robots to gain in popularity.

A fee is required for either a monthly subscription or piece of software. All you do is input keywords you believe will be on your resum?s of choice. Options include

ITTA.com, resumedetective.com and skillbot.com.

?Communities are villages of people with home pages, which equates to resum?s for those seeking to fill job openings. Home pages are organized into "neighborhoods," each with a specific theme, such as computers, engineering or entertainment. Search by using skills, industry keywords or company names. Some sites are

Angelfire.com, Xoom.com and WBS.com.

?College and alumni sites typically list names of students, graduate students and alumni. Some even allow students and alumni to create home pages. Personal Pages of Universities at

utexas.com

offers a list of college home pages with links that allow you to point, click and arrive rapidly at a specific college home page. Alumni organizations are listed in Yahoo Alumni at

dir.yahoo.com.

?Free resum?s (no kidding) are available at a few Web sites using a keyword search. Try Bright and Professional Resum? at

brightrays.com and Headhunter.net.

(Lynne Haggerman is president/owner of Haggerman & Associates, an employment, management training, human resources consulting and outplacement firm.)