We downloaded IE 4.0. Of course, it took several attempts over the course of a few hours to nab a site where the traffic was such that we could actually find our way in. Then, we started the download. With a 28.8K modem, it took more than 4 hours. And two tries.

See, first you download a 4 minute setup program. Then you run the set up. The set up then helps you find a site to download from (gee, rather difficult for us twits to do on our own, non?). Then the download begins.

Hours later, the screen screams "download completed. Disconnect from internet and IE will close all programs before installing." Okay. We did.

Churn, churn, grind, grind.

A new message appears. IE 4 is reconfiguring our system. What? What a minute. We'd configured it just fine, thanks. But, there's no interrupt button, no cancel button, no way out.

Then, a new screen says it's setting up our personal settings. Well, that's nice. It's nice to be recognized as an individual. But, there's a small problem. Nobody asked us what our preferences were. Microsoft in its infinite wisdom just went ahead and set everything.

And what it set was horrendous.

First, it installed itself on the our task bar. Then it stripped the wallpaper and repainted the desktop. Then, it sets itself up. We had a bot that always starts up when Windows is running, but Microsoft didn't care. It just ran right over it. We tried to exit from the bot, but Microsoft wouldn't let us.

Finally got the bot straightened out and lo and behold. Our desktop was cluttered with a bunch of new stuff that Microsoft must have personalized just for us. We can now have instant access to Disney Online. And Warner Bros. And AOL. All of this sits in a vertical column right on the desktop. How very, very annoying.

At this point, we were so turned off my the new IE that we clicked on Netscape to bring up the Navigator browser. Guess what? Microsoft had incapacitated it. That's right. We had to go into the files and manually re-capacitate it.

Jon DeKeles of ZD has a column on what to do before you download IE. To save your sanity (and your desktop), follow his suggestions. We wish we had.

HotBot Redux

It has extended its searching capabilities so you can now search more than the 100+ million documents on the Web and the Usenet groups. You can still search by date and media type. But now you can do it from the main page. Saves a bit of time. The new stuff though allows you to search continents, more than 1 million domain name, news sources updated 4 times a day, discussion groups, shareware lists, email addresses of 10 million names, 17 million businesses, and on and on.

There's also a handy-dandy advanced search page, graphically enhanced to allow even challenged searchers to easily limit their search. For instance, we typed in "resume" as the term to search for. Restricted it further to also include the phrase "work experience" and limited the search to look at pages added only in the last 7 days.

We got 1,085 pages of resumes.

Refining the search even further can help you pinpoint what types of experience you're looking for. Try it out.

In yesterday's article we mentioned the "cross posting services" available at CareerSite. The capbility is not visible from their website. You'll have to call them to discover more.

Tech Gurus at Career Site

Under the hood, CareerSite is a marvelous experiment in the application of Natural Language Processing (NLP) to recruiting. NLP is the holy grail of matching technologies and search engine designers. The basic idea is that The basic theory is that searches are driven by a "thesaurus". That way, your search (or a candidate's) produces a broader variety of responses. The typical troubles with the NLP approach include cross referencing all of the possible alternatives to the search terms you use. The CareerSite approach cleverly addresses this problem. If you think that more effective searching and matching will make a difference in the effectiveness of your job postings, give them a try.

The really important work being done at CareerSite a byproduct. In conversation last week, the team happened to mention that they've developed a "cross-service" posting tool. You fill out one form and CareerSite posts to all of the rest of the job boards. You have to establish accounts with those companies, but this approach saves all of the time you spend cutting, pasting and remembering which service is which.

While lots of companies are slugging out the distribution game, CareerSite appears to be demonstrating a solid commitment to meeting the needs of real recruiters.

Why English 101 Matters

Jennifer Hicks now writes the job hunter's newsletter and is rapidly expanding our view of the trials and tribulations of contemporary web based job searches. If you follow her work, you'll develop a keener insight into the candidates who compose the ultimate asset in a labor shortage.

Today's article is reprinted below. It underlines an important, simple and often overlooked aspect of the business...getting your spelling and grammar right.

The other day the boss laid me out. I'd sent in not one, but a few, columns that I'd neglected to spell check. OOPS. It matters.

Whether you're writing on the job or are trying to get one, how you put your words together matters. And although not all of us are natural born spellers, most readers recognize when a word is misspelled and create a judgment about the writer. For instance, when I receive resumes that haven't been spell checked, they end up in the circular file.

Sure. We all make mistakes--and that's okay--as long as we fix them before sending them out.

So, here's a recap of English 101 and how to edit your resumes and cover letters.

• When you think you're done, you're not.
• Read what you've written out loud. It's quite surprising to find that what you thought isn't always what you really wrote.
• Check for errors. Use the spell checker. Look at your punctuation. If these are tough for you, find someone for whom it isn't. Ingratiate yourself with that person and ask him or her to read your work for you.
• If you know there are certain types of errors you make, like using "there" for "their" or "enviroment" for "environment", make a note of them. Then be sure to check your cover letters and resumes to make sure those errors don't appear.
• Business correspondence is not personal writing. Make yourself quite clear.
• Can you say it more simply? Remember, your readers won't spend gobs of time on your stuff. Say it clearly and concisely.

You might also want to check out the online writing centers. Many of them have helpful suggestions for improving your editing skills. Of the many that exist, perhaps the one at Purdue is most complete.

-Jennifer Hicks

With more than 30% of the company's branch offices online, MRI is poised to make a real contribution to the state of the art.

As in most large Recruiting firms, technology absorption (the rate at which the branch offices move in to the new technology) is a central issue in the firm's growth plans. After getting to know both the corporate officers and the managers/owners of the branch offices, we began to understand the depth of MRI's commitment to the use of technology as a growth driver. Given that the web is only four years old, a technical penetration of 30% is nothing short of astounding.

Time and again, we heard stories of offices making 20%, 30% even 50% of their (not insubstantial) revenue directly from the web.

The MRI culture, which is deeply decentralized, is a perfect setting for broad scale recruiting on the net. And, it was completely clear that the core team understood the full implications of net recruiting....it's much more than job postings. We found a company that is embracing the web as fast as is possible for a large organization. Wow!

interbiznet is now offering single topic reports for the Industry.

The first offerings are:

   The 21st Century Advertising Agency
   Recruitment Branding Part I
   Recruitment Branding Part II - The Mechanics

Email Colleen Gildea for your copy in PDF Format.

View Table of Contents at http://www.interbiznet.com/briefs/.

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