What Level People Sourcer (One or Two) can you expect to achieve if you join the Certification Program?

I believe that everybody who searches for professional people online – recruiters, sourcers, sales, marketing, business development people – need to aim to answer yes to these 20 questions below, to remain competitive and productive:

1. Do you search for professionals on Google?
2. Are you familiar with the Boolean logic in searches (AND/OR/NOTs)?
3. Do you use advanced operators on Search Engines (like intitle: or site: )?
4. Would you know how to locate resumes posted online?
5. Would you know how to locate LinkedIn profiles (or some other online profiles) using the site: operator on Google?
6. Would you know how to look for associations and events relevant to a particular type of professionals?
7. Would you know how to locate a list of people posted online, such as “members” or “attendees”?
8. Are you aware of some changes in Google’s search syntax in the last 6 months?
9. Have you used other search engines, such as Bing or Blekko?
10. Is your profile on LinkedIn filled out up to ~70%?
11. Do you search for people on LinkedIn using its advanced search dialog?
12. Are you a member of many professional LinkedIn groups?
13. Do you use messaging on LinkedIn?
14. Do you know what InMail stands for on LinkedIn?
15. Do you know the difference between private and public profiles on LinkedIn?
16. Do you have a profile on Google+?
17. Do you have a profile on Twitter?
18. Have you used “lead generation” sites such as jigsaw.com?
19. Have you used people search engines such as pipl.com?
20. Would you know how to look for contact info for a person?

For those considering signing up for the People Sourcing Certification Program: If you have answered “yes” to most of these questions, you might be able to get to the Level 2 in the Program. If you have answered “no” to most of them, you will probably answer “yes” to all – and will reach Level 1 if you sign up and complete the Program.

The great part is, you can decide which level test to take toward the end of the program; all participants get the material for both levels.

Circles on Google+ present excellent people sourcing capabilities. Without looking closer, you may at first think that circles are like groups on LinkedIn, or maybe like lists on Twitter, but they are not. The interesting thing about circles is that only you, the circle creator, know what any circle is about and how you have named it. “Outsiders” can see a list of everyone in several of your circles together, even if your circles are public.

You can add people to circles who are not on Google-plus, by adding their email addresses. Only you will know about this inclusion, until those people warm up to joining. Google-Plus is very happy if you “share” news with a circle containing those non-member emails. It will mass-email notifications on what you had shared, plus, will invite these people to join. Obviously, this can serve as a way to deliver a link to a job post to a list of emails. As always, we need to select those, to whom we email, with care.

So, Google-plus is happy to email large numbers of people who are not members. But it will not let you email your sharing notification to more than 100 members (guess, why?). Therefore, to share with Google-plus members with a notification, create circles with fewer than 100 members.

Using Google+, you can “share” not just a link but you can also “share” a circle. Those with whom you share will then see everyone who’s included in the circle, sans email addresses of outsiders and the name of the circle.

Here is an example of a shared circle.

Some sourcing techniques may be based around existing publicly shared circles of experts in your target area/industry. Circles that have been shared publicly are not hard to find.

In Part 2 I will talk about finding people for your circles.

-Irina

P.S. I’d say Sourcers can safely ignore yet another announcement, posted today, about  Google’s semantic search (unless we need to source for celebrities). If you are curious, see Introducing the Knowledge Graph: things, not strings.

Congratulations to our very first Level 2 Certified Peoplesourcer – Jing Wang, a Sourcer and a Recruiter from Goldbeck Recruiting in Vancouver, Canada.

Based on Jing’s work through the Peoplesourcing Certification Program and on her Test Level 2 results, I would recommend her as a strong up-and-coming Sourcer, able to work hard, to absorb new material in high volumes, and to creatively apply a variety of tools and methods to get to the desired information.

Here’s what Jing wrote to me this morning, after receiving the news:

I can definitely say that Sourcing is something that I am passionate about and I have been following you (Irina) from the beginning, learning from you and other Master Sourcers out there. I am very happy and honored to be the first one to pass this certification program. The test was definitely challenging but extremely rewarding!

As for feedback on the course, I think it was very helpful in showing me the thought processes that are behind searching. I had been learning about Sourcing from so many different places, jumping from one article to another, reading up on blogs all the time but I didn’t know for sure whether I was going the right way. So your course has combined all the threads of knowledge and now I am very clear on the areas I need to keep on top of as well as the areas that I understood properly. The test was quite challenging as I said, and I must say that I kind of panicked a couple of time thinking that Oh my gosh, I am not going to be able to answer these questions. But then, I re-watched your slides and I feel like I was able to make use of all the things you taught us. I am happy that I was part of this progress in the People Sourcing industry with the launch of your certification program and being in the first batch of graduates! Thank you for creating this program and I will make sure to keep on learning, reading and practicing!

Congratulations, Jing! The best of luck to you in your career.

Irina

Personal search is the type of search that takes into account what your online friends favor. For a researcher who wants to be objective it makes no sense to have it on.

We can (and should) turn off personal results, as Google lets us.

Personal search implemented by Google is at its highest power when we are logged into Google-plus. At that point anyone who is in our circles is a big influence. But there’s more. People from extended circles, from social networks connected to the Google+ account in the about section, and the Gmail contacts all come into play to tweak the search results.

Strangely though, due to the very “social” quality of the way it affects search results, I have recently thought of a couple of scenarios when keeping the personal search on may be a good thing!

Scenario number one. Include only people in your industry and profession in your circles. (Google+ will quickly sense what this is about and will start suggesting other members “like” the ones you have included, to be added to your circles, so you could take advantage of that, too.)

This way, if you search, you will see some of the relevant items those influential people in industry have posted or shared, at which point you can a) learn from trusted sources and b) say “hi” to them by adding a +1 to the post or commenting.

Scenario number two.  Create a different Google+ account and only include your target candidates and people from target industry and geography.

This will be your, shall we say, “talent community”. (For non-recruiters this would be a target audience.) Now, when you search for anything of interest, you will find what those folks had to say or what they +1’ed or shared – and it’s your chance to communicate with them by adding a +1 to the post or commenting or re-sharing.

How does this sound? I have not heard anyone suggest this.

I have run across some interesting URLs that seem to give us very good approximations for the number of public LinkedIn profiles and their distribution across countries. To benefit, please log out of your LinkedIn account.

All LinkedIn Public Profiles – 144,224,954 as of today.

This gives me the following statistics to view:

Further on, these are the numbers to check out for the listed countries…

• US
• India
• UK
• Brazil
• Canada

…and for all other countries as well (the numbers are as of now):

• Ireland 591668
• Australia 2689314
• South Africa 1474072
• Singapore 691945
• Mexico 2211714
• Israel 585929
• (etc.)

-Irina
View Irina Shamaeva’s profile

P.S. Actually, if you log back in now, the same links will give you some other interesting things to explore.

Remember this recent post on Mashable Google: Sorry, Twitter, We Don’t Index the @ Symbol? Those of us on the Boolean Strings group, who are search syntax perfectionists and are tired of seeing yet another suggestion to search for @*.com or *@ibm.com, etc. to find emails, were glad that this info (that is present in Google’s help as well, by the way) was confirmed once again.

It still remains true, regarding searching for emails. Try these search strings:

• @*.com some other keywords and additions 

• *.com some other keywords and additions

• /*com some other keywords and additions

Now everybody’s talking about Google searching for special symbols. But wait, it hasn’t quite happened yet!

(Let me remind you, how much celebration, tweets, and re-tweets we had just two months ago about Google Showing Results for Punctuation Marks. What happened at that point was that Google started recognizing search strings consisting of just one special symbol such as / or @)

With the necessary reality checks in place (and let’s watch the strings above and hope they will look for emails one day) here is what I have noticed so far.

Google would recognize

• a twitter handle if you put it in quotes: chat   “@braingain”
• a hashtag if you put it in quotes: what is “#Followfriday”

Pretty cool! 🙂

“LinkedIn is becoming just another Job Board.” Is that true?

I think we are mixing up several unrelated things in a statement like this.

1) Job Boards seems to be used as a criticism. But Job Boards, such as Monster.com are still great for sourcing (you may skip the advanced semantic search when signing up if the price is a concern). Why is there a perception that Job Boards are not a place to go to? They have parsed resumes, structured search, and a good sourcer can still dig out a lot.

2) I agree, it’s too bad when LinkedIn is adding new restrictions. I have complained about LinkedIn quite a few times, but I must say that I haven’t been able to stay away from LinkedIn on any of my searches. It has become our top resource, especially given a great rate of response from potential candidates.

With any added restrictions and added functionality targeted at recruiters, LinkedIn will never become a job board, for two main reasons:

• Job boards have resumes vs. LinkedIn profiles, 80% of which are not filled out completely; this is a challenge but is also an opportunity
• on job boards recruiters and candidates are on the “opposite” sides and can’t view each other as members of a network; on LinkedIn we can check each other out and establish trust.

Sure, LinkedIn’s growing limitations are frustrating to all. But so far there are so many great ways to use LinkedIn for sourcing. Hope it remains this way.

The latest Update: Congratulations to the two winners:

• Jeanne Darby of Volt Workforce Solutions
• Debra Quiat of ToysRUs

– welcome to the Program! 🙂

We have a tremendous amount of interest in the upcoming People Sourcing Certifications – and the space is already filling out!

Check the Press Release! http://www.prweb.com/releases/2012/3/prweb9302124.htm

This is the first program that will:

• cover all the material that everyone searching for professionals on the Internet needs
• assure that the attendees practice and master the skills they learn
• teach the principals and ideas of peoplesourcing along with the rules and templates
• be a proof of true hands-on people sourcing skills
• be referred for new opportunities

Those who have already signed up know that it’s the real deal.

You will get a beautiful certification to hang on the wall in your office if you pass the test. But even if you didn’t, the program’s pricing is affordable enough to justify the learning alone. For  $599.00 you get all of the following:

• 6 hours of training for your level
• 6 complementary hours of training for the other level
• 3 video-recorded 90-minute lectures and slide sets for your level
• 3 complementary video-recorded 90-minute lectures and slide sets for the other level
• extra materials and documentation
• one month of support
• two attempts to take a test

The free info session – that your colleagues and anybody else who’s interested are invited to attend – is held on Tue Mar 20 at 9:30AM PST/noon EST/5:30PM London https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/171994770

We expect the program to become an industry standard in the upcoming months. In the meantime, please help us spread the word. People who do the following will be entered into a drawing for two free passes to the Peoplesourcing Certification Program. Want to be the lucky one? Here’s the deal:

1) Invite friends and colleagues to attend the info session and have them mention your name in the “Referred by” field https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/171994770

2) Tweet, share on your LinkedIn status line, share and recommend on the LinkedIn recruiter-oriented groups as appropriate, share on Facebook, and share on Google-plus the following:

Win a Pass to the #PeopleSourcing Certification Program http://bit.ly/pass2sourcingprogram

3) Also, optionally, tweet: Add to Dictionary: #peoplesourcing

and (feel free to edit to your liking):

Check out the People Sourcing Certifications http://booleanstrings.com/certifications/ #peoplesourcing

4) By March 22nd which is the deadline:

Email to [email protected]. We’ll be counting the posts but feel free to point us to your social media posts in the body of your email.

(Please note: if you have questions on the program, email me instead, [email protected])

We’ll notify two winners on March 23rd. (If you have paid for the program by then, we will reimburse you.)

Good luck! 🙂

Please note: here’s the NEW SITE with all the up-to-date info.

We have a huge volume of inquires about the Certifications and sign-ups are on-going, and I am very happy about it!

Here are some Frequently Asked Questions:

Q. What are the dates for the next training?

A. I will provide materials and video-recordings for all sessions. There will be live Q&A sessions convenient for everyone’s time zones.

Training in San Francisco, CA, USA at the Talentbin HQ (1550 Bryant St, San Francisco):
Level 1: Wed, June 6, 2012
Level 2: Thu, June 7, 2012

Alternatively, Online:
Level 1: Tue, June 12
Level 2: Thu, June 14

Q&A Sessions; weekly homework June-July 13th
Test week July 13th-July 20th.

Q. What is the cost?

A. The cost for the Certification program is $599.00 payable via a credit card or via paypal at the link, or send a check to: Irina Shamaeva ~ 201 Vista Heights Road ~ El Cerrito CA 94530

For this price you get all of the following:

• 4.5 hours of training for your level
• 3 video-recorded 90-minute lectures and slide sets for your level
• extra materials and documentation
• one month of support
• two attempts to take a test

 Q. I will probably not be able to attend when you are giving the presentation live but would like to view them after work and take your test afterwards. Is it possible?

A. Absolutely! The lectures will be recorded. The materials and the recordings are yours to keep.

Q. Will other dates be available in the future?

A. Yes. We will be offering the program on a regular basis.

Q. Is it possible to only pay for the testing? Also I am not interested in the beginner lectures.

A. You can skip any lectures that you feel are not relevant to you (of course!), but we are not offering only material for either level, or just the tests. If you are interested in purchasing prerecorded classes on a particular topic we have them available.

Q. Is it possible to buy the materials only and perhaps join the program and go through testing later?

A.  Yes, we have made this available! You can get all the materials (“All But Tests”) for $399. You will get six 90-min lectures (slides, recordings).You will have an option to upgrade to the full program for the difference in price.

Q. How is this certification different from AIRS?

A. Great question!

• The major goal of our certifications is to boost productivity and to reflect true knowledge and performance of those who pass the tests.
• The material provided will teach attendees to understand the principles of peoplesourcing and to stay up-to-date.
• The certification program will provide you will a solid foundation to succeed in any of your people sourcing activities.
• I do not believe in specialization such as “social recruiting” vs. “Internet sourcing”; a true specialist needs to know it all. Therefore we only offer levels, not specializations.
• We offer hands-on practice (a key to getting hands-on skills!) to by providing practice sessions and one month of unlimited support
• It is more affordable than AIRS certifications; I offer more material for lower cost.
• Those who get the Certifications will be listed on this site. (Check out the current list of Experts). I will recommend them for future projects, including “extra” projects coming my way that I can’t accommodate at this time.
• This is simply the real deal.

Q. Would the Level 1 be appropriate for a true beginner of sourcing?

A. Yes! Level 1 is appropriate for “true beginners” and “old school” recruiters.

March 12, 2012

I am happy to announce our Sourcing Certification program.

Terminology

Instead of using the term “Sourcing” (as we are used to in recruiting), and per a great suggestion I got, I will call the discipline “Peoplesourcing”, which means finding information about professionals.

(Recruiters call it “Sourcing”, “Candidate Sourcing”, “Talent Sourcing”, or “Internet Recruiting”; sales people are not familiar with the term “Sourcing” and call it “Name Generation” or “Lead Generation“.)

“People Sourcing” or “Peoplesourcing” is finding information about professionals. We do Peoplesourcing so that (either we or our business partners) get on the phone – or, perhaps, on Skype or on Google-plus-hangout 🙂 – with just the right people and  as soon as possible. Peoplesourcing is also helpful for making a cold call warm.

Those of us who do that could be called Peoplesourcing Specialists.

Certification

We will be offering the People Sourcing Certifications at two levels:

• IS-CPS-1 – Irina Shamaeva Certified People Sourcer Level 1 (or Certified Peoplesourcing Specialist Level 1)
• IS-CPS-2 – Irina Shamaeva Certified People Sourcer Level 2 (or Certified Peoplesourcing Specialist Level 2)

Level 1 is designed for all Recruiters, Sales, Business Development professionals, and for junior Sourcers. Level 2 is designed for all Sourcers and anybody who wants to take their People Sourcing skills to the next level.

For each of the two levels we will include:

1. Three 90-minute webinars in one day, with breaks between them, covering the topics briefly outlined below. For Level 1, I will cover the basics of People Sourcing, go slowly, and provide many details and examples; for the Level 2, I will briefly go through the basics and add more topics, concepts, tools, and tips. This is the outline of the topics for either level:

1. Internet Research. Search Engines: Syntax, operators, options; people search engines.
2. Social Networks: LinkedIn (in-depth); Facebook; Twitter; Google-Plus.
3. Productivity Tools: Parsing, Filtering, Browser Extensions, Verification; Use Cases (Peoplesourcing Scenarios)

For each class I will provide materials and video-recordings.

2. [several days after the long training day] A 90-minutes Q&A session; discussing example test questions.

3. One month of Q&A over email.

4. Test:

• 60 multiple-choice questions for Level 1
• 80 multiple-choice questions for Level 2.

The test will be “loosely” timed: you will need to complete it within one day. The Test needs to be taken within 90 days from the training day. It can be taken twice. (Please note, we will have variations of test questions for each level.)

Here’s the great part! If you sign up for a Certification Package, you are welcome to attend both programs. You will have to decide for which level you will take the test.

Pricing

Certification Package (includes log-ins to two full days of training, Level-1 and Level-2, along with the materials and video-recordings; two 90-min Q&A sessions; one month of support; and two chances to take a test, at either Level 1 or Level 2): $599.00

There’s no separate pricing for just the program or just the test.

Discounts. Those who have AIRS certifications (either current or expired) relevant to People Sourcing: CIR, ACIR, or CSSR, get $150 off.

Those who have taken two or more of my 90-minute classes get $150 off.

Those who have won any contests at http://booleanstrings.ning.com, Sourcecon contests, or were runner-ups: $150 off for the program, or take the Level 2 test free of charge.

Group Discounts are available. Please contact me at 510-233-9493/[email protected]  or our Director of Client Support Doug Bakke at 510-685-6111/[email protected]

Certification is valid for one year. Starting next month, we will also be offering an upgrade package from Level 1 to Level 2 and will provide information on renewals. (We will make it easy and inexpensive to renew.)

Benefits:

• Certified Peoplesourcers will be listed on my site & recommended for future projects
• The class will cover all the basic/intermediate material that you need to be competitive today; the materials are yours to keep
• The program attendees will learn the peoplesourcing concepts and ways to stay on top of ever-increasing Internet tools and sites

More Info

I will hold two free information sessions. Please bring your questions.

• Wed Mar 14 at 9AM PST/noon EST/5PM London https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/743717242
• Tue Mar 20 at 9:30AM PST/noon EST/5:30PM London  https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/171994770

The tentative upcoming dates for the Certification program:

• Wednesday March 28, 2012: Training Day for Level 1
• Wednesday April 4, 2012: Training Day for Level 2
• Thursday April 5: Both Tests become available online
• Tuesday April 10: Q&A for Level 1
• Tuesday April 10: Q&A for Level 2
• May 4: End of one month support
• July 6: Deadline for passing the Test

Please watch the Certification page for further details.

Also, please check out, just posted:

Certifications FAQ