A question came in this week regarding search; specifically “Semantic Search.” What is it? What’s the value? And do I need to go to school to learn it?

Let’s start this off quick and dirty. I’ll break this down in a few parts.

• Semantic Search vs. Typical Search
• My Top 3 Semantic Search Engines

Before I get started I ask that you please leave a comment with your thoughts and/or your own tool! I’d like to share your post with our audience!

Do you need to go to school to learn it?

No, but I would say subscribe to the blog to learn more about cutting edge search if you are slightly lost. Semantic search is simple at face value and for the purpose of your searching all you really need to understand is how it works and how you need to approach the system.

A semantic search works off of language, Meanings and discovery. The biggest differentiator to your normal search engines is that typical search engines search for keyword relevance and occurrence on a specific page or set of pages within websites. Semantic Search leverages real thoughts or language making it superior in locating relevant information for your search. Have you ever wondered what tags are and how they fit into the meaning?

A better way to understand the use of tags is that they identify content and create a road map to relevant and searchable information. In general, Semantic Search is the next gen search engine that only a few have been remotely successful with and a ton more are investing heavily in.

Check it out for yourself. Here are my top 3 that I encourage you to check out!

Powerset

Powerset aims to narrow search results allowing you to aggregate, summarize and navigate information. Powerset is a Microsoft venture acquired 2008. Currently the search is limited to 3 areas all based off of Wikipedia.

Use: I used Powerset to search wikis each day. I have great success gathering intelligence, like client information, sales information etc.

Hakia

Hakia in my estimation is by far one of the best if not the best available engines available. The results are relevant, they are fresh and updated and from what I have always found they are pulled from credible sources and are easier to cite if needed.

Use: Recruiting, Company searches, publications and quotations from executives

MiddleSpot.com

MiddleSpot.com is a search engine that allows you to visually search, edit and share your results in multiple workpads or spaces. I’ve previously had the opportunity to chat with one of the founders of MiddleSpot. You can read the interview HERE.

MiddleSpot is visually appealing and very relevant in it’s return.

Use: recruiting, intelligence and project sharing with groups

There you have it. Semantic Search explained and my top 3 Semantic Search tools (as of today, but probably different tomorrow)

Feel free to leave a comment with your favorite tool!

Need a Job – Check out our Newest Postings! CLICK HERE

Related posts:

1. Hakia – Semantic Search displayed well
2. 50 Awesome Search Engines and more for #Recruiters
3. 10 Top #metasearch Engines for #recruiting & #sourcing

Ask the recruiter question of the week:

Ryan, (paraphrased for posting)

I am looking to better understand how to source for  mid level sales reps: 2-7 years in commercial,  biotech, medical device and pharma using Boolean  strings to target resumes on Google and profiles on LinkedIn.

Pat Licata

www.patlicata.com

Hi Pat,

Thanks for asking a great question! There are many different techniques to use here, but no one size fits all solution. I took a few moments to look at your company site and saw that you focus on sales recruiting. So before I get into some key techniques you can try using, let’s step outside of recruiting to better understand this response.Starbucks has grown to be the single most respected specialty coffee chain in the world. Why is this? Starbucks figured out that both their customers and employees are looking for an experience. How else would they get a customer to pay $8 for a coffee with a fancy title? This experience has been created through 5 distinct and creative management principles that you can find here.

In a nut shell, Starbucks has been extremely successful at creating a community of high end coffee drinkers where they have both a virtual and physical place to share and collaborate with each other.  Much the same as we try to accomplish as recruiters in a Web 2.0 or a Recruitment 2.0 world, Starbucks has adopted the mindset that the experience is no longer about them, but rather it’s about the consumer and the employee and it’s not who you know but who they know.

In recruiting this is true as well. The experience has to be centered on your prospects. In recruiting 2.0 (Web 2.0 etc.) we need to focus on what I like to call the 4C’s. You can read about them here.  Now, you can certainly jump into a Boolean search and be successful; and you can also fish the Atlantic Ocean for fresh water fish. They are there, but you have to have some serious luck on your side and have the ability to work in a completely reactive manner.

What if we took the reactive piece away and created a community of 10,000 sales professionals collaborating and having conversation daily; and at the precise time you need to fill a specialized role you reach out grab the candidate of your choice, without posting, sourcing or wasting valuable time on ordinary everyday sales recruiting?

There are many ways to accomplish this but here are two to get you started.

- Create a Social Community

Try using a site like Ning to create a social community dedicated to sales professionals. I would suggest studying Recruitingblogs.com which is built on the Ning platform. You’ll notice that the site is full of industry experts and crucial industry information. The site is engaging to all users and has grown to almost 15,000 members as of today. This site is a prime example of giving back to the community and getting much more back in return. I would suggest joining to anyone who is not a member.

You will also notice there are sections for jobs and companies looking for specialty recruiters. With both parties active in this community the conversation is natural and immediately brings credibility to the skill set of the recruiter being sought.  Flip this scenario to sales professionals and you can do the same thing. Remember the line: “If you build it, they will come.”? Give it a shot it works, and the talent you ultimately connect with will be better.

Boolean Search

Keep in mind this is to the only way to go and I am a much bigger fan of building Talent hubs. From your original question regarding string searching and what is called site searching, I can give the following advice.  Using the site search string you do not have to worry about the immediate size of your LinkedIn network. Now, you’ll have to play with keywords and titles but this is what it will look like:

site:www.linkedin.com intitle:linkedin “ Honors: * Club” pharmaceutical sales new york -intitle:answers -intitle:updated -intitle:blog -intitle:directory -inurl:jobs -inurl:megite.com -intitle:profile

To break this down for you:

site:www.linkedin.com = The site command will look into or xray only the site specified.

intitle:linkedin = LinkedIn has to be in the title of the page

Honors: * Club” pharmaceutical sales new york = These are the keywords. In this example they are specifically sourcing Pharma reps with honors or awards. If you have specific awards you are targeting replace these keywords with your own.

- = Anything after the – sign is being omitted to provide targeted results. Play with it a bit, add and delete some sections. Eventually you will nail it.

This is the results of the above string:  Pharmaceutical Sales String Results

You will notice that the results are profiles of candidates that fit your search parameters. From here you’ll have to be creative in connecting and contacting these potential candidates.

I hope this helps get you on your way. If you have anything you would like to add as recruiters please do so in the comments section. All will be posted.

Ryan Leary

No related posts.

Another question featured in Ask the Recruiter

Thanks  for the question. So here is the deal; we essentially have 3  versions of the web. Web 1.0, Web 2.0 and now Web 3.0 or  the semantic web. Let me first give a very brief two sentence  definition of each and try to show examples that will help to  make sense out of everything. Web 1.0: The internet in its infancy. In this era we saw print media, like encyclopedias, newspapers and even magazines start to be digitalized. The challenge here is that web 1.0 was 1 dimensional and not interactive in the least. The public wanted something a little more advanced, something that would allow them to share information with their peers. It was at this time around the Y2K era that we saw a slight shift to a need for data integration, or the sharing of data across multiple channels. In 2004, O’reilly coined the term Web 2.0 to describe the phenomena that was taking place.

Web 2.0 really talks to technology and the platforms that allow users like us to communicate. Whether it’s on social networks, skype, twitter or any of these applications, the technology that allows us to communication is what we call web 2.0. It’s what I like to refer to as the 4 C’s – Communication, Conversation, Collaboration and Community. (See previous post here) Rich user generated content in vast yet personal environment, sharing information.

So lets move on to the future. Web 3.0 is not really here just yet. In principal, Web 3.0 acts as the semantic web, or a web that will aid in making suggestions as your final result. Confused? It’s considered a platform as a service. Here is an example: Let’s say I am searching to arrange for a special evening with my wife. My goal is to find a great spot for dinner, a movie, and some fun activity all in the same general area with a budget of $125. I log on to Google Semantic (not a true site but they are working on it – Google and Yahoo ar leading the charge at this point) and type in something similar to the following: “I am looking for a great place to have dinner and see a movie in Philadelphia, Pa. for less than $125.” Try typing this into Google and see what you get… 100% non-relevant results. This is because of a few reasons, one being stop words and how Google handles these terms. Read more about stop words here.

In a semantic world you will have a conversation with the computer in real type (yes I meant real type). The system based upon your requests and previous search history will begin to suggest items of interest for you. Web 3.0 aims to bring meaning to your search with relevant, meaningful results. So in the example above, if we were living in a web 3.0 world, my results come back with reservation suggestions, specific movie times and menus to show prices, practically planning my entire night for me. Freaky right? But it’s coming and in some cases it’s here and hunting you down.

Now, it’s too soon really to say how we can use this and how effective it will be for recruiters. I think it’s fairly obvious that the more literal we can get in our searches the better our results. Take for instance if you are running some pronoun searches in Google searching for terms like “I worked” I wrote” etc etc. semantic search would suit you well in this case allowing you to ask complete questions without the use of sometimes difficult Boolean strings. This article can go on for days. I will stop here, but I promise to put together a though paper on this for you shortly.

Feel free to comment back.

No related posts.

This response comes from a question posted the  other day regarding the differences between  Creative Sourcing and Deep Sourcing. This is a great  topic to talk about and really defines the strategy in  which you find yourself implementing. Well I hope  this helps. Feel free to comment and post your  thoughts as well.
___
Question: What is your definition of Creative Sourcing vs. Deep Sourcing?

Creative Sourcing is the baseline or fundamental approach a recruiter will take in developing their map to recruit from. Creative sourcing falls under the umbrella of information gathering. You’ll find thousands of answers out there to this age old question, but if you were to speak with true “sourcers” in the industry you will find that they are researchers at heart. At the world conference this question came up a lot in discussions and I tell most people the same thing; we are in the information gathering business.

Recruiting, sales, deep sourcing, workforce planning and virtually anything we will do in our jobs require us to gather information. Without this we cannot be successful. So when we talk about building talent communities or talent gateways and social media etc. these are all forms of creative sourcing.

The question to ask is “How do we create interest and engage those talent gateways once they are created?” Without getting real tactical for this explanation it would be our goal to create chatter and a sense of community within these hubs. By chatter I mean conversation regarding industry topics, eventually with the “experts” naturally rising to the top of conversations. Most call this cultivating the group. I call this deep sourcing.

So to make things a little simpler:

Creative sourcing: The process of development/branding for workforce planning. I.e. Information gathering; tactical planning; channel development; creation and development of talent communities.

Deep Sourcing: Micro managing these talent communities to maximize their potential. Making individual contact with and introducing the prospects to the specific organization we are working with.

Related posts:

1. Sourcing Resumes with CraigsPal. <– Craigslist’s friend
2. Anyone Can Learn the “Art” of Sourcing
3. Deep into the Web: a Brief Guide for Recruiters

I had two questions come through this past week so I wanted to share them with you all. In this post I am asked to address my top 20 or so web 2.0 tools. Before I jump into my favorite tools I wanted to share a sourcers perspective on what is meant by web 2.0. So, we all have heard the jibber jabber and buzz words of web 2.0, social media and the like. But what does it mean?

 I will start by saying that I am not technical, and by no means claim to be the expert from a development standpoint. In its very simplest form and for OUR purpose I will just say that Web 2.0 is technology and the thought that allows users to share, develop and collaborate on information. It is the “interactive web.” This is separate from social networking which is the offspring of the technology. (I know we have some techno buffs reading this and screaming as they read…I know this is a minimalist’s definition and barely scratches the surface.)

 So here we are, the top 25 web 2.0 tools as I see it:  *Item listed are listed because I use them and believe in them.

 (If reviews do not exist on this blog, they will over the next few weeks.)

There are thousands of web 2.0 base sites that are very useful. The sites above, are a sampling of what I like to keep handy in my toolbelt.

Questions? Comments? Please reach out and add your own favorites in the comment section!

Related posts:

1. Jobvite Launches a Free #SocialRecruiting Tool: Jobvite Share
2. #Diversity Sourcing with 8 #SimplyHired sites
3. 5 Free Job Posting Sites for #Recruiters and #Employers