Toolkit Addition

ToolKit: Emulating Ideas

We've indicated in the past that we believe the future of recruiting will rest in your ability to cultivate people-either by means of online discussions, chatrooms, interactive sites of interest, strategic alliances, or whatever.

Microsoft is already there. It's working with ZDNet to create a model site.

Their Career Explorer site is a potential masterpiece for drawing a crowd.

Employees are just that-employees. They work because they must. They hope for a position they like and gain benefit from. They seek happiness in life as we all do. They are not simply "workers", though.

They have hopes and dreams, families and friends, a need for contact and support.

Microsoft capitalizes on this knowledge.

Their site offers:

• An interactive database allowing a job search by skill set and location
• An video section where real people at Microsoft talk about being there
• A discussion by current employees of working at Microsoft in its various areas
• Live chat with recruiters and employees
• An online application process.

Kathy Weisfield, recruiting director for Microsoft's sales and support group, said,

"We wanted to be more creative in our recruiting approach. That's why we are using ZDNet - it's extremely targeted and reaches the type and quality of high-tech professionals we want to hire."

She goes on to explain that the site uses loads of Web technologies, from pull-down menus, to digitized video and audio. According to her, the site does so because:

"As Microsoft has led the way for many of these innovations on the World Wide Web, it is fitting that we would incorporate these technologies into our recruiting efforts. We want to demonstrate this to ZDNet's users."

What does this mean to you?

No longer is posting a job enough. Look at Wall Street's career center. They provide extensive company information and hypertext links as well as detailed postings. The meta sites such as JobFind provides career information as well as postings. Both places understand the need to offer more than a dry description of a job that sounds like many others.

Microsoft does that and more. It recognizes that the Internet is about relationships. It puts its employees online to talk to prospects. It discusses what the corporate culture is like-not in dry and dusty research-like prose, but in a conversational tone. It targets itself to a very particular audience.

As job postings approach the billion mark, they become less and less likely to draw candidates. There's just too much for a prospect to sift through to find what she's looking for. Instead, the hunters will search in niches, looking for those relationships, those areas where interaction is apparently valued, where the employer understands the need to look at a human's needs in addition to its needs for workers.

This is an expensive site. Not all companies will be able to duplicate it nor should they. But look behind the glitter. See what Microsoft is doing and why. Then, forge your way and carve a niche of your own.

Search Tips

Search Tip: Go for the Self-Employed and Entrepreneurs

According to several major research groups, 60% of new businesses fail within five years. Of course, there are a variety of reasons for the failure-but not all are related to the skills and abilities of the entrepreneur.

Consider looking for those who are self-employed or contract workers. Many are tired of it; some are barely hanging on; others really would prefer to work for someone else.

Where can you find them?

Search Usenet, through Alta Vista, for the phrase self-employed. There are about 2,000 postings-not all of which are appropriate, but which do provide interesting leads. A quick scan of the group the note was posted to, as well as the subject line, can give you a clear indication of whether it's worth your time to pursue it. Of course, you can narrow the search even more by expanding your keywords.

A search for self-employed at Liszt provides no leads, but a search for entrepreneur garners 20 hits. That's 20 lists that are populated by people either in business for themselves (or looking to hit on those who are).

A bit more time consuming, but worth the collection of several names, is the National Association of the Self-Employed site, which contains press releases and information with names.

Or, if you're looking for slightly less experienced people, consider querying Alta Vista or Hot Bot with the following phrase: objective permanent +resume.htm*. In Alta Vista, you'll get more than 400,000, of which at least the first 100 are people looking for permanent employment.

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