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Hot Tip #20 - Stop Googling and Start Networking

By Lou Adler, July 10, 2007

A piece of data worthy of note: some old friends just told us that their daughter - a very talented Gen Xer - has just joined a professional business network weeks after landing a new job. The only thing unusual about this was that she told her parents she was using this network to plant the seeds for her next job.

Read more articles by this author.

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Some other data worthy of note: I just Googled for resumes using this search string "(inurl:resume OR resume) -your* -job*" and got 80 million hits, mostly resumes. I then added the term "GPA" into the same string, since only strong people put their GPAs on their resumes, and got 495 thousand resumes. Adding the term "eagle" (for Eagle Scout) brought this number down to 11.3 thousand. When I substituted "Tau Beta Pi" (the big engineering honorary society) for GPA and dropped the bird, I got 20,000 hits. When I narrowed this down to Zip codes using the range term "94000...95000" and added (computer or software) I got 730 resumes of Tau Beta Pi software engineers who live in Silicon Valley. (Here's the final search string if you want to try it yourself - (inurl:resume OR resume) -your* -job* "tau beta pi" 94000..95000 (computer OR software).)

Now if you're smart, you won't call all 730 of these talented people. Instead you'll call about 20 of them who seem to be well networked and recruit them. Then you'll get each one to give you three names of other great people they know who are open to explore better opportunities with your firm. These referrals will all call you back, since you're going to leave the name of the person who referred them to you. Networking like this is the secret of recruiting. Of course, the secret to the secret is getting the first group to return your call and give you three names each. Here are some ideas on how to pull off this part of the puzzle:

1. Become worth knowing. You must be a subject matter expert not a BSer. This means you must understand the real challenges and opportunities for the jobs you're representing. As part of this you must know your market, the competition, your hiring managers and the compensation structure for these jobs. When you call a Tau Beta Pi member, or any top person for that matter, they'll blow you away if you don't sound credible and knowledgeable. No one will give you the name of someone they know unless you're completely credible and someone worth knowing.


2. Get the person to return your call. You'll get 80-90% of your calls returned if you can mention the person who referred you vs. 15-25% using typical techniques. That's why getting referrals is the key to recruiting passive candidates, not Googling for resumes.


3. Recruit first, network second. Assume you're recruiting the person you're calling for a specific and important position. Then, when the person says they'd like to talk with you about the opportunity, make sure they give you their information before you tell them anything about the job. (If you don't know how to do this, you need to attend Recruiter Boot Camp Online or come to my next LIVE: Performance-based Hiring Tour 2007 in Los Angeles on August 15th.) People will only give you names of other people if you know how to ask insightful and probing questions.


4. Only recruit and network with top people. Using recognition terms in your search strings, like described above, separates the best from the 80 million resumes online. Your hiring manager clients only want to hire top people, and only top people know other top people they're willing to refer. So don't waste your time networking people who don't know other good people.

Getting names today is easy. Try the search strings above modified for your specific needs for proof. Just about anybody of importance can now be found using this technique, ZoomInfo or LinkedIn. The key to recruiting these people, though, is great networking and phone skills. It all starts by really understanding the career opportunities involved in the jobs you're trying to fill. That's why you must prepare performance profiles if you want to recruit passive candidates and you must become a great networker. That's the only way you'll be able to connect with top people who are planting seeds for their next position.