Boolean Search Strings Get Results

If you are looking for a new opportunity, an interesting web site to explore is JobCentral. Here, you can utilize boolean search operators and use the data as a starting point to find career opportunities on the internet. Start off by constructing search strings and placing them in the keyword section and then placing a zipcode or city and state in the location section. The boolean format is as follows:

(title:”Job Title” OR title:Key Term) AND (title:Career Level OR title:Career Level OR title:Career Level OR title:”Career Level”)

Try copying and pasting the boolean search string for a senior level Human Resources professional (Generalist):

• (title:”human resources” OR title:HR) AND (title:manager OR title:director OR title:VP OR title:”vice president”)

Upon entering the string and searching, the result yield JobCentral (24 results); Simplyhired (176 results); Indeed (92 results); and Google (129 results). You can toggle between theses results. As you do so, you will notice filters on the left hand side of your results.

Here are a couple more boolean search strings:

• (title:training OR title:learning) AND (title:manager OR title:director)
• (title:recruiting OR title:recruitment OR title:staffing OR title:"talent acquisition") AND (title:manager OR title:director)

Once you run these searches you can also save the results as an RSS feed to export the results to your favorite feeds in Internet Explorer browser (sorry only version 7.0 or better supported) or send them to your favorite feed aggregator such as My Yahoo, i Google, My MSN or NewsGator.

Networking Opportunities...

Can be found in unusual places. Have you ever considered volunteering in your community?


President Barack Obama's call for Americans to better their communities through community service is an opportunity to not just better the community, but to also meet new people and expand your network.

Those people who know me know that I am a Chicago White Sox baseball fan - so much so I proudly mention it in my LinkedIn profile. I was happy to read this article:

Sox heed Obama's call to service
First Fan inspires club to start new charitable venture

posted on the Chicago White Sox website. The ball club will organize community service events during 2009 that will incorporate support from the organization, players, staff and members of a new volunteer group. These volunteers will be called upon to join team members and front-office staff at special events during the 2009 baseball season and offseason.

Click this link to sign up for the White Sox volunteer corps, for updates in scheduled service events or for more information on White Sox community service efforts and their charity partners. Who knows.. you might even be able to add Ozzie Guillen to your network.

Enhance & Leverage Your LinkedIn Profile

When LinkedIn opened up its API (Application Programming Interface) last year, it really opened up some nifty new possibilities for those wishing to take advantage of cool new tools and enhancements brought forth by the software development community.

One application that has some very good potential to help those in transition is Box.net. This application allows you to create folders and place files into your LinkedIn profile.

You can also share files with any of your first degree connections if you choose to do so. This means you can post additional enhanced detail summarizing your work as a document (pdf, doc, xls, ppt - take your pick). This might be another cool way to add a resume with just a custom email address, city and state listed for contact information.

Add Box.net to your LinkedIn account by clicking here and don't forget to enable the check boxes to:
• Display on my profile
• Display on LinkedIn homepage

Ladders Work Around

(Oxymoron)
click graphic to make larger

I received an email from a Human Resources Consultant and friend of mine who got an email alert about a Human Resources opportunity. It came from a group called Retired Brains. She sent the note to me and said:

Hello, Matt:

I hope that you have had a wonderful 2009 so far. This year promises to be another challenging year for HR professionals. I'm forwarding this email to point out the oxymoronic nature of the recruitment process. I received the following job alert from Retired Brains. I clicked on the HR Mgr, Chicago role only to find that it was a Ladders listing and it was imprinted broadly w/ "Must be currently employed to apply".

The Ladders listing requires you to be a paid subscriber.. What else to do? Here is a trick you can do with a job description that sometimes works when it has "unique language" in it.

The first bullet of this job posting is:

• Partner with Corporate Executives in leading enterprise-wide functional groups to develop and implement talent development programs. Provide leadership and direction to the JM people planning process.

The unique language here is "to the JM people planning process". You just don't seee too many position descriptions that contain that exact phrase.

Copy and paste "to the JM people planning process" into a good vertical search engine like Indeed or Simply Hired and see what happens. I did it in Indeed and I found that there was an additional posting. The job was listed under a free site called http://www.diversity-jobs.com/

Vertical Job Search Engines are COOL.

This post will benefit Human Resources Professionals interested in searching for positions in the Chicago Metro area. I've put together a small toolkit in Microsoft Excel that pings two search engines - Indeed & Simply Hired. Links are broken out by functional area.

Enjoy - you can download the spreadsheet here.

Linkedin Contact "Work Around" Thwarts LinkedIn Police

I have run across LinkedIn profiles that contain either an email address or contact information listed within the body, title or summary section of the profile. Technically, placing an email address or contact information in these areas is a violation of the terms of service for LinkedIn. I know the LinkedIn Police can't effectively patrol 20 million members but I think every so often they do a search looking for the @ symbol or the word "dot" to find offenders.  I personally know three people that have had their profiles "yanked" by LinkedIn, only to be restored later after much pleading and promises to revise the profile and remove the contact information. 

This begs the question...If I am in transition, how can I make it easier for a recruiter to contact me on LinkedIn without having to go through a connection or use a LinkedIn "inmail" (a paid subscriber feature often used by recruiters) ?

Because LinkedIn allows you to list up to 3 URL's in the website section, a solution might be to add one called "my resume".  

You can create an online resume with a free service called emurse (www.emurse.com).  Emurse is an anagram for the word resume. 

When you sign up for emurse, you will be asked your full name and there is a check box that indicates - yes, I would like to display my resume on the internet at http://www.firstnamelastname.emurse.com - When you create your resume, you don't have to provide your complete address or phone number, you can elect to put in a few basics as well as an email address (I would suggest using a new special one you can get for free such as hotmail or yahoo that is specifically for this purpose and not part of your mainstream email).  You can find out more about emurse here .