To be successful you need to use and have the right tools that will assist you in tapping into the best talent.  Technames is a great online tool you can use to help you find and network with the top talent.  Identifying specific talent can be one of the biggest challenges we face as we go about our search for the finest.  Technames is a great low costing tool you may consider trying and using.  Check it out!

I’m always on the quest to find the very Best – The Leaders within a certain sector or industry.  Typically one way to locate the best are finding speakers.  Geekspeakr is currently a small growing beta website of technical woman speakers.  The goal of this website is to introduce more women to event organisers since female gender diversity can be a lot more difficult to find within a mostly male dominated industry for technical speaking conferences, workshops, organizations, etc.    You can search for technical women by topics, location, or even by spoken language.

I hope this website grows and gets more visability.   Kudos to my manager Marisela Flores for showing me this website.

I will be at the Kennedy HR Conference from May 19th – May 21st.  I will be one of the workshop session speakers on material from Chris Murdock and myself on becoming a sourcing MacGuyver.  Love to see you there!

What is our most valuable asset? Yes, our time! How many of us have experienced that early morning call-back when our computer or laptop hasn’t booted up just yet? How many of us have that old slowing computer that takes like an hour to start up after you’ve had your cup of coffee!

Here is a tool that can save many busy sourcers/recruiters time.   Presto is available now in Beta starting today! Its a Free download.   [Taken from the website] Presto can help start up your productivity in seconds, allowing you to instantly start to email, chat, Skype, instant message, surf the internet, download apps – before Windows XP or Vista even boots.  You can also listen to music  and watch videos to viewing and editing documents created in Microsoft Office.

Here’s a video showing Presto:

I hope everyone enjoyed the holiday time off.  We can all look forward to making 2009 great for us.  Amid all the negative news, layoffs, economic uncertainty, now is is a good time (as any) to challenge ourselves learning and growing.  I’ve been meaning to share a couple books I’ve recently read and would highly recommend.

Finding Heroes is a great book by Larry Dillon.  I had the privilege of working alongside during a portion of his time while at NetApp.  This book uncovers what questions to ask, but also help you differentiate and find the best candidates.   If you learn what questions to ask, training your eyes (via screening resumes correctly), and ears (listening/understanding their answers) to uncovering the best – You will find companies wanting your talent.  It should be used anytime as a desk-side reference for any recruiter to hiring manager.

The other book while not exactly recruiting related can help you in virtually all areas of your life.  The book is 177 Mental Toughness Secrets of the World Class by Steve Siebold.   He outlines what actions, habits, performance, and philosophies to have within your thought process that will make you a focused champion in whatever you decide you want in life.

Lastly, I want to plug Shally Steckerl’s jobmachine training.  I was fortunate enough to take one of his 1-on-1 web/phone trainings in 2005.  His methods, processes, and techniques for uncovering talent on the web are absolutely one of the best! He can help you or your team have a solid understanding of internet sourcing and uncovering the talent on the world wide web.  His trainings truly can take you/your team to the next level.

Hello All and Happy Thanksgiving Holidays!

I would like to ask a quick question to recruiters and it should take no more than 20-30 seconds unless you are indecisive

Check out my question here

Wishing all of my readers the very best and enjoyable holidays!

-Dan

I’m the secretary of the HRCA volunteering my own time to network and surround myself with other HR leaders and professionals.  Here is another FREE event we are putting together this upcoming Wednesday November 19th evening from 6-9pm at Paypal.

I highly encourage you to attend if you are a Human Resources/Staffing SVP, VP, Director, Senior Manager or even a recruiter so you not only networking with peers, but improving, learning, and challenging yourself.

Tickets are going fast and nearly sold out!!! Register now (its Free) at: http://hrca.eventbrite.com

This is HRCA’s BIG HR Event of the year hosted at PayPal at their San Jose, CA facility.  We will be having the distinguished David Swanson (VP of HR at SAP), Amy Cappellanti-Wolf (VP of HR at Cisco), and Sonia Clark (VP of HR at Align Technologies) share their perspectives on “Managing Talent during the Downturn in Today’s Economy”.

There will be an Open Bar along with Free Food and a networking hour starting at 6:00pm.

This is the Bay Area HR event to attend!

This event is FREE for both Members and non-members of HRCA.  If you are planning to attend please Pre-Register NOW as seating is limited and our last event sold out in less than 7 days.

When:
Wednesday, November 19th 2008 starting by 6:00pm with an Open
Bar/Drinks/Wine/Beer and Food. Discussions to start at 7:00pm with the event ending by 9:00pm.
6:00pm – 7:00pm Open Bar & Free Hordouvers
7:00pm – 7:15pm HRCA Updates and introductions
7:15pm – 9:00pm Panel Discussion with Sal Giambanco, Amy Cappellanti-Wolf and others

Where:
PayPal Inc
2211 North First St.
San Jose, CA 95131

The RecruitingRoadshow is coming to the bay area.  This is a FREE event to attend! I will be participating on the sourcing panel and would love the opportunity to network and meet you in person!

Here are the details:

Thursday, October 23, 2008
9:00am to 2:00pm
Silicon Valley Recruiting Roadshow
Adobe Systems – Park Conference Room
321 Park Ave., San Jose, CA, 95110

Register by visiting
http://2008siliconvalleyrecruitingroadshow.eventbrite.com/

The Recruiting Roadshow is a half day of networking and professional education for recruiters.

Learn more at
http://www.recruitingroadshow.com
Registration begins at 8:00am. The event starts at 9:00am. Presentations are finished at 1:00pm. Lunch begins at 1pm.

The presentations begin with “Spiky and Flat: Why Local Recruiting is Critical in a Flat World”. John Sumser, Founder and CEO of the Recruiting Roadshow, describes critical changes in the Labor Market that offset the trend towards a flat world. The material is a logical follow-on to last year’s Multi-generational Recruiting presentation.

A panel of Silicon Valley’s greatest Sourcers will gather to discuss their best practices and trade secrets. Featuring Dan Harris, Chris Murdock and Mark Tortorici, the panel will field detailed questions and provide useful documentation.

Nicole St Martin makes her living using Search Engine Optimization techniques to fuel Recruiting initiatives. Her talk will cover the ins and outs of SEO for Recruiters.

The final piece of the puzzle is an offering from Don Ramer, CEO of Arbita. Don’s breathtaking presentation, Recruiting as if People Mattered has been the high point of the Roadshow over the past year.

We’d love to have you join us. Register by visiting:

http://2008siliconvalleyrecruitingroadshow.eventbrite.com/

I love finding talent in many different ways.  Here’s another web tool I found last week and been playing with.  Userrnamecheck is interesting in that it goes through many common social sites and searches for a particular handle or username.  I like it because through this I can do a lot of research quickly and easy on someone I’m targeting, or better yet find more information or other talent – coworkers/friends/or a forum board to links they and similar others maybe active on

This might be most similar to an internet site such as Spokeo.  There is another online web tool that comes to my mind also that searches boards, conversations, and forums.  Cocomment searches for and tracks comments or postings within websites and forums.  I first found out about Cocomment last year at the Techcrunch 9 August Capital party where I met the owner and found out he is an avid motorcyclist too

[Note: I noticed while Usernamecheck isn't perfect all the time, it has on several occasions for me thus far uncovered good free competitive intelligence to information on talent.  An example of how I used it last week would be that I was curious about discovering more information on Gov. Sarah Palin so I typed in gov.sarah (and possible alternatives such as sarah.gov or gov.palin and more) into the username field box at the top.  I then searched and saw what results and possible common social sites she may have an account or presence on.  So...a common handle I usually use is people's first part of a person's email as usually most people keep their same patterns or shorten versions of it. The "handle" I mentioned could also be as a blog, website or something they go by like researchgoddess, recruitinganimal, or idonato.]

Hope this may help give you additional insight into talent and/or lead you to discovering others!

All The Best!

On a side note I will be at a luncheon from Noon-1:30pm at Birk’s restaurant in Santa Clara on Wednesday, October 8th to learn and see more about JobFox.  JobFox is hosting this FREE luncheon! To learn more about JobFox and grab a possible free lunch on them at Farallon, Birk’s or Zibibbo next week in the bay area please e-mail dweiss@jobfox.com for more information/reserve a free seat!

Hello All.  I hope everyone enjoyed their summer! I’ve been heads down busy working at NetApp as we’re actively growing and adding talent to our company.

Speaking of talent…Our economy has been challenging lately to a number of displaced researchers, sourcers, and recruiters being let go as companies scale back in recruiting and HR departments to balance and survive.

I have a solution to all the emails I’ve been getting! Well, truthfully from a great friend and one I highly admire for making this – none other than the magnificent Jim Stroud.

Jim has created a free resource for HR talent to find those hidden opportunities which may lead you to your dream job.  Click Below!

http://www.therecruiterslounge.com/2008/09/13/google-search-strings-for-recruiters-looking-for-work/

[Note: This blog is of my own personal opinion and may/may not be of reflective of the views of NetApp]