The Art and Science Of Web Searching

Despite the sophistication of the Web’s technology, searching for candidates in the vast expanse of cyberspace is still both an art and a science. Sure, one has to know Boolean search operators and search engines, but the actual execution of the search is as much about creativity and persistence as it is about bits and bytes. The variability of human expression practically guarantees that no two pages of information on the Web will use the same words or phrases to describe the same subject. Even common terms, such as "human-resource management," are often expressed in a variety of ways: management of human resources, HR management, and the venerable personnel administration. Today’s computers and search engines aren’t smart enough to know that all of these terms mean the same thing, so recruiters have to tell them. Then recruiters have to experiment with the results to find out which way of expressing that bit of human knowledge will produce the best search results.

Here are some tips from the art and science of web searching that might improve your yield the next time you’re out there clicking for candidates:

Science. Most individual search engines cover only a very small part of the Web. Even the biggest and best known search engines are extremely limited in the range of information to which they can connect you. AltaVista, for example, indexes 18% of the Web’s pages; Excite indexes 7% and Lycos just 6%. So if you’re looking for candidate resumes or home pages on the Internet, you simply cannot rely on a single search engine to get the job done.

One alternative is to repeat your search using different several engines. Each of the engines on the Web, however, has its own peculiar requirements for composing a search, and you will have to know them all to be successful. Another approach is to use a metasearch engine -- an engine that searches across several engines at the same time. These metaengines have been programmed to account for the differences among the individual engines they use, and the best will also eliminate any duplicate information they return.

The table below lists a number of metasearch engines that can improve the efficiency and effectiveness of your search process.

Dogpile

www.dogpile.com

13

Yes

Art. Despite the advent of the spell-checking feature in word processors, lots of people still regularly misspell. And that fact makes searching a very real challenge. While most recruiters can figure out what the term "HR Managr" is likely to mean, their computer cannot. So, what’s to be done?

One option is to simply ignore the candidate. After all, anyone so careless or ill-educated that they misspell their own title isn’t likely to be competitive for most positions. In today’s tight labor market, however, even imperfect candidates may be worth a look, so an alternative strategy is to use a Boolean operator called a wildcard. It’s really an asterisk and acts as a brain enhancer for dumb search engines. Basically, a wildcard focuses the engine on the root characters of a word and asks it to find any extensions of that root, no matter how illogical they may be.

For example, if you used a wildcard with the term "HR manager," it would look like "HR manag*." That expression would tell the computer to look for any word that was derived from the root "manag." What would the computer find? It would typically uncover any page of information with such expected terms as "HR management" and "HR manager" as well as those with such off-center phraseology as "HR managr," "HR manageer" and my personal favorite, "HR managerr."

Wildcards can also appear in the middle of a word. For example, if you’re looking for prospective candidates who have worked for a certain target company because you like the training they give their employees, you would use its name as one of your search criteria. But what if the name is difficult to spell and therefore is often noted incorrectly, even on resumes of former employees? To avoid missing such candidates, use the wildcard in the middle of the company’s name. For example, if you’re looking for former or current employees at Hechinger Co., you might use the expression, "Hec*nger." That way, you’ll find your candidates, whether they spelled the company’s name as "Heckinger," "Hechinger," or "Heckenger."

It takes practice to become proficient at such techniques, but that’s what makes web searching both an art and a science. Those who are best informed and most skillful will always achieve the greatest success.