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Recruiter's Toolkit:

An Introduction To Electronic Recruiting

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  • Advanced features in Alta Vista and Hot Bot
  • Search Strategies

    Introduction

    The Web is potentially a terrific place to get information on almost any topic. Doing research without leaving your desk sounds like a great idea, but all too often you end up wasting precious time chasing down useless URLs. Almost everyone agrees that there's got to be a better way! But for now we're stuck with making the best use of the search tools that already exist on the Web.

    It's important to give some thought to your search strategy. Are you just beginning to amass knowledge on a fairly broad subject? Or do you have a specific objective in mind--like finding a specific candidate, or the e-mail addresses of the engineering department in a particular company?

    If you're more interested in broad, general information (groups of candidates or data about an entire industry), the first place to go is to a Web Directory. If you're after narrow, specific information, a Web search engine is probably a better choice.

    Searching by Means of Subject Directories

    Subject Directories are like library card catalogs. In the old card files, and even in today's computer terminal library catalogues, you find information by searching on either the author, the title, or the subject. You usually choose the subject option when you want to cover a broad range of information.

    Example: You're trying to discover consistent sources of candidates in a specific industry and the various trends and rhythms affecting that industry.

    Your best bet is not a search engine, but a Web directory like Yahoo. Yahoo is a subject-tree style catalogue that organizes the Web into 14 major topics, including Arts, Business and Economy, Computers and Internet, Education, Entertainment, Government, Health, News, Recreation, Reference, Regional, Science, Social Science, Society and Culture. Under each of these topics is a list of subtopics, and under each of those is another list, and another, and so on, moving from the more general to the more specific.

    Example: To find out about the Electronics Industry from Yahoo, select the Business and Economy, under which you find a subtopic on the Wide World Web. Click on that and you find another list of subtopics (including Companies), several of which are pertinent to your search: Economic Indicators, Electronic Commerce, Internetional Economy, Companies, Small Business Information, Consumer Economy. Selecting any of these subtopics eventually takes you to Web pages that have been posted precisely for the purpose of giving you the information you need.

    If you are clear about the topic of your query, start with a Web directory rather than a search engine. Directories probably won't give you anywhere near as many references as a search engine will, but they are more likely to be on topic.

    Web directories usually come equipped with their own keyword search engines that allow you to search through their indices for the information you need.

    Important note: More and more search engines are incorporating Web directories into their sites. These directories interact with the main search engine on the site in various ways. See Excite, Infoseek and Lycos--they are no longer "just a search engine."

    If you wish to cast a wider net that is usually provided by a Web directory, you will need to turn to one of the major Web search engines.

    Searching by Means of Search Engines

    This is where things start to get very complicated.

    Search engines are trickier than they look! You'll discover this the first time you enter a query on C++, the programming language. Most of the Web search engines will essentially say, "Huh?"

    C++ is not a word. It's a letter followed by two characters that might, depending on the index, be regarded merely as punctuation. Few text search engines can handle input of this type. Many can't handle numbers, either. So much for "007," "R2D2,"or "Catch-22."

    Here's another example of a text string search engines hate: "To be or not to be." Just about anyone who finished junior high school will be able to tell you where the phrase comes from and (possibly!) what it means. But most of the search engines choke because all the words in the phrase are stop words--i.e., unimportant words too short and too common to be considered relevant strings on which to search.

    Let's take a less obvious example. Suppose you're looking for UNIX professionals. If you simply enter the words "resume" and "unix", most search engines will return hyperlinks to all Web documents that contain the word "unix" or the word, "resume" This will probably include hundreds--or even thousands--of URLs, most of which will have no relevance to your search. In fact, most of the results of that search will be job postings from other companies. If you enter the words as a phrase (by placing quotes around the words "unix resume"), however, you stand a somewhat better chance of getting some good hits.

    If you understand how search engines collect and organize information and run queries, you can maximize your chances of getting hits on URLs that matter.

    Check Out Our Search Engine Glossary

    Power Searching For Anyone

    Search engines have a variety of ways for you to refine and control your searches. Some of them offer menus systems for this. Others require you to use operators, which are special symbols or words, as part of your query.

    Sometimes different operators -- called commands on this page -- can be used with the same search engines to produce the same result. That is why you may see more than one method shown for the same search engine, in the tips below.

    Not every command is shown, only the main ones that are most likely to be used. Read the search engine help files for more detailed information.

    References to Lycos are for Lycos Pro. Commands are shown as capitalized but needn't be when used with some search engines, such as WebCrawler.

    Match Any

    This is a search for pages containing any of your search words, rather than all of them. For example, you may want to find pages with references to both Ireland and Eire.

    Command Used By Example
    Automatic AltaVista
    Excite
    WebCrawler
    Match Any is automatically done. No special commands are needed.
    Via Menu HotBot
    Lycos
    Open Text
    Match Any can be specified using the menu systems.
    OR HotBot
    Infoseek
    Lycos
    Open Text
    WebCrawler
    ireland OR eire

    Match All

    This is a search for pages containing all of your search words, rather than any of them. For example, you may want to find pages with references to both Clinton and Dole on the same page.

    Command Used By Example
    Automatic HotBot
    Infoseek
    Lycos
    Open Text
    Match All search is automatically done. No special commands are needed.
    + AltaVista
    Excite
    Lycos
    +clinton +dole
    AND AltaVista
    Lycos
    WebCrawler
    clinton AND dole

    Exclude

    All the search engines allow you to exclude documents that contain certain words. This is a helpful way to narrow a search.

    For example, you may want a page about the philosopher Calvin, not the cartoon character Calvin. By excluding those that mention Hobbes, the cartoon character's sidekick, you will get better results.

    Command Used By Example
    - AltaVista
    Excite
    Lycos
    calvin -hobbes
    AND NOT AltaVista
    HotBot
    Infoseek
    calvin AND NOT hobbes
    NOT Lycos
    WebCrawler
    calvin NOT hobbes
    BUT NOT Open Text calvin BUT NOT hobbes
    Via Menu Excite
    HotBot
    Exclude can be specified using the menu systems.

    Phrase Searching

    Not all engines support multiple word searches, or phrase searching. Most will try to find the words in documents as they appear and list these first. To be safe, use the phrase command for the engines that support it.

    Command Used By Example
    " " AltaVista
    Infoseek
    Lycos
    WebCrawler
    "star trek: the next generation"
    Via Menu Excite
    HotBot
    Open Text
    Phrase search can be specified using the menu systems.

    Proximity

    Some search engines let you indicate how close words should appear to each other.

    Command Used By Example
    Near AltaVista
    Lycos
    Open Text
    WebCrawler
    moon NEAR river
    (means within 10 words to AltaVista,
    25 words to Lycos, 80 characters to
    Open Text, 2 words to WebCrawler)
    Near/# Lycos
    WebCrawler
    moon NEAR/10 river
    (specifies that moon and river be within 10 words of each other)
    [ ] Infoseek [moon river]
    (means find both no more than 100 words apart)

    Wildcards

    You can search for plurals or variations of words using a wildcard character. It’s also a great way to search if you don’t know the spelling of a word.

    Command Used By Example
    * AltaVista sing* finds singing and sings
    theat* finds theater and theatre
    $ Lycos (OLD) sing$ finds singing and sings
    theat$ finds theater and theater

    (this was the command for the old Lycos. Lycos Pro may also support it, but doesn't actually list it any longer)

    Media Search

    AltaVista, HotBot, Infoseek, Lycos, Open Text and WebCrawler all have ways to let you search for media types, such as sounds or images. Some make it easier than others. For best results, check the help pages of each engine.

    Field Search

    AltaVista and Infoseek allow searches of page titles, URLs, domains and in hyperlinks. For AltaVista, see the help page for a rundown on the various methods. Infoseek has a Special Searches page that inserts them for you. HotBot also has a wide-range of fields and a graphic interface to make searching them easy. Open Text has some fields via its advanced search page.

    Table Of Contents
    SEARCH TOOLS
      1. Search Basics
      2. Search Strategy
      3. Company Info
      4. Finding People
      5. Resumes
      6. Web Pages
      7. Usenet
      8. Mailing Lists
      9. Competitors
    10. Discussion Areas
    11. Cheat Sheet
    POSTING JOBS
      1. Master Sites
      2. Free Sites
      3. Usenet
      4. Niches
      5. Writing Postings
    ROBOTS & AGENTS
      1. Newbot
      2. Informant
      3. URL Minder
      4. Other Robots
    BASIC SOFTWARE
      1. Starter Tools
      2. Browser Tips
    OTHER RESOURCES
      1. Salary Surveys
    MORE TIPS -TRICKS
     

     
     

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