Category: Sourcing Tools and Tutorials

May 16, 2013

How To Find Programmers Worth Recruiting

I was approached recently with an interesting question.

“Jim,” they said, “I need to find some open source programmers, game developers actually, but I only have time to recruit the very best.”

“Umm… un huh,” I replied.

“How can I find a programmer that is worth recruiting,” he asked and when on to say, “especially when I do not know (expletive) about programming?”

Hmm… I thought that was an interesting question. After a bit of thought, I think I came up with an interesting answer.

I directed them to SourceForge, a repository for downloading free open source software. The programmer they wanted to hire was a game developer. The project was a first-person shooter game.

Resume Forensics - How to Find Programmers Worth Recruiting

2. I found a category for “First Person Shooters” under the “Games” category.

3. Clicking that link lead me to a list of (open source) first-person shooter games. Cool! I pay close attention to which of the games was recommended the most and had a high number of downloads. Why? If a LOT of people are giving the game the thumbs up, it must be a well made (and creative) game. Can a bad programmer make a highly popular video game? Maybe, but most likely not as a game made by a bad programmer would be very buggy. Make sense?

The game I decided on was “Unvanquished” which was downloaded 15,364 times and recommended 92%, a high ratio compared to some of the other games I saw here.

4. I go to the download page, but instead of downloading the game, I click on the name of the programmer who developed it. Clicking their name takes me to their SourceForge profile page which lets me see their recent activity on the site. (Although, nothing to see there at this writing.) More importantly, it also offers me a way to contact the Programmer. I simply click “Send me a message” and I am taken to a form where I can, well, send them a message. (Its not rocket science folks!)

You have to be a member of Sourceforge to send a message, but no big deal as its free to join the site. The person I assisted really like this strategy because, well, let me count the ways.

There was a lot of software available for downloading, which meant that there were a lot of programmers they could be reaching out to.
They could target their searches to programmers who were proficient in building a certain type of application. (In our case, first-person shooter games.)
They could pre-qualify their leads based on the wisdom of the crowd. Most likely buggy software would get bad recommendations and not rank so highly, so if they focus on the “good stuff’ they can spend time on the “programmers that worth recruiting,” if I can use their words.

So, what do you think? Do you like this strategy? Please do leave a comment and let me know.

Happy hunting!

Jim

How To Find Free Resumes and
Passive Candidates on Google

P.S. If you like this type of thing, you will love my book – Resume Forensics. Just sayin’…

May 6, 2013

New Book: “Resume Forensics” by Jim Stroud Debuts! (again)

I mentioned in an earlier post how I was updating Resume Forensics and making it available to all concerned. Well, that day has come! Yay! Hurrah! Umm… Okay.

Click here to get your copy now. (Only available in print. At least, for now.)

Here is a description of what you will find inside:

Resume Forensics by Jim Stroud - How To Find Candidates and Free Resumes on the Internet

Resume Forensics is a quick and easy guide to finding free resumes and passive candidates on the web. Heavy on visuals and light on text, this book is written and designed for the short attention span of recruiters, sourcers and the companies that employ them.

In this book, you will learn:

What you should do prior to sourcing resumes online.
Why you should use more than one search engine
How to find free resumes on Google
How to find free resumes on Yahoo
How to find free resumes on Bing
Secret search commands that are exclusive to Google
How to build resume search strings for finding candidates
How to find resumes your competition has overlooked
How to use Google resources to find passive candidates
Research data relevant to resume sourcing and lead generation of passive candidates
Strategies on how to manage your sourcing research
And more…

Whether you are a novice, an expert or something in between, this book is filled with tips, tricks and strategies that you can immediately use to fill your open positions.

Get your copy of Resume Forensics now.

-Jim

April 27, 2013

Resume Forensics: How To Find Resumes

A quick note to my subscribers and friends:

Way back in 2008, I created a training guide called Resume Forensics. In a nutshell, it was a how-to for finding resumes and passive candidates on Google, Yahoo, Bing and a few other resources. In all modesty, it was an underground hit. I clocked several downloads from my site and learned that it was passed around extensively from recruiter to recruiter and sourcer to sourcer, all over the world. Go figure.

As recently as a few months ago, someone asked me for an autographed copy which I found very flattering as I had not promoted my work or made it available for download since, umm… late 2009. So, I got this idea.

I decided to update Resume Forensics to reflect so many changes on the web since 2008. I also focused the content a bit more in reaction to some of the feedback I received.

Resume Forensics is not ready yet, but its very close to being released. If you want to know the moment its ready, click here and you will be notified via email.

If you would like a copy of my original guide, you will have to ask around. Sorry! I am not making it available. If you ask around however, you might get lucky and find one. (fingers crossed) If you have no clue as to what to expect from “Resume Forensics,” check out the video on this post and others on my YouTube channel.

Okay, back to the grind for me. (smile)

E’ ya’ later!

Jim Stroud