The 2010 Benchmark Pro survey involving nearly 4000 employers from about 15,000 locations across the country has revealed that 93.4% of organizations have started to actively look for qualified candidates. This is slightly up when compared to 91.1% reported in 2009. This is an indication that companies are slowly recovering from the economic catastrophe to make a gradual comeback.

The survey reveals the following:

• Employers use various methods to recruit new employees. Advertising on the Internet tops the chart at 81.1% followed by newspaper advertisement at 63% and employee referral programs & job fairs at 54%. Almost half of the companies use Internet resume database and over 30% of the companies use sign-on bonuses or trade and professional association advertising.
• Recruiting methods differ based on the industry. Job fairs are used by 75.6% of hospitality organizations, 70% of healthcare organizations, 64.2% of banking and finance, 51.6% of insurance and the least by manufacturing industry, 42.5%.
• The recruiting methods also differ based on the region. Sign-on bonuses are used by 38.7% of organizations in the Northeast, 33.8% of organizations in the Southeast, 32.7% of companies in the West, 32.3% of companies in the South Central region and 26.8% of companies from the Midwest region.

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Source: eGrabber Newsletter

Source: eGrabber Newsletter


One of the greatest advantages of contact managers is that you can easily lookup candidates who satisfy your search criteria.

Contact managers such as ACT! and GoldMine also let you set SQL queries or filters based on values in different fields. Simple to complex search queries can be set based on any of the contact fields.

For instance, if you are looking for a Java professional with 5 years experience, you can give an appropriate query to find candidates matching the requirement.

Source: eGrabber Newsletters

One of the most important recruiting tools that recruiters and hiring managers need to have is a resume database of qualified candidates. Although the above statement seems to be familiar to the recruiting fraternity, the words “qualified candidates” means a lot to the recruiters and hiring managers as it determines their success. Why qualified candidates?

Resumes and candidates are available in plenty but as a recruiter/hiring manager, you need to have “qualified candidates” to meet the requirements of the clients. You cannot take it for granted that every candidate you source will match the job requirements of your clients. The key reason behind this is talent shortage.

Studies reveal that out of 100 job applicants only two or three candidates get selected and the others get rejected due to lack of talent. In this scenario, if your client approaches you for an urgent job opening, you cannot ask the client to wait and then search for the right candidate. On the other hand, if you already have a resume database of qualified candidates, you can quickly search and match the right candidate for the job opening. This is where a resume database of qualified candidates can be a determining factor in the success of a recruiting professional.

So, how would you build a resume database? The first step towards building a resume database is to source and extract resumes. You can find resumes in search engines, job boards, social / professional networking sites, blogs, personal websites and resume portals, etc. Apart from these sources, you also receive resumes as email attachments and may also have resumes saved in your computers. Now the task at hand for you is to extract the resumes from various sources into your database.

Manual resume extraction is a time-consuming and tiresome task. You need to manually visit the resume sources and enter the resume data into your database. In addition, you need to screen the resumes for the required skill set, talent, experience, etc. and then shortlist the resumes, and finally perform candidate background check to qualify a resume. All these tasks eventually take a lot of your time and effort. If this is the case, how would you build a resume database of qualified candidates?

This is where smart and successful recruiters rely on technology to make the most of their resources. Recruiting experts use resume import tool to quickly build a resume database of qualified candidates. It automates candidate sourcing, resume screening and eliminates manual resume data entry. The resume import tool enables you to source qualified resumes from almost any source with a click of a button. All you need to do is just enter the resume keyword, select the search script and click the Find button. The built-in resume parsing technology enables you to extract resumes from almost any source. You can quickly screen the resumes based on various keywords, location, education, experience, skill sets, etc. and you can also perform a candidate background check on the selected candidates.

The resume import tool enables you to import resumes from search engine results, Google desktop, Outlook email/folders, your PC folders, and Clipboard. You can transfer the selected resumes to the most popular resume databases like ACT!, GoldMine, PC Recruiter, Zoho Recruit, etc.

ResumeGrabber Suite is one such resume import tool that enables you to quickly and easily source resumes, screen resumes, perform candidate background check and build a resume database of qualified candidates.

Visit http://www.egrabber.com/resumegrabbersuite/trial.html to download the fully functional trial version of ResumeGrabber Suite.

As recruiters, it is important that we become familiar with websites representing professional associations for positions that we recruit. For example an IT recruiter should be familiar with HDI (http://www.thinkhdi.com/), the Association of Information Technology Professionals (AITP), Women in Technology International (WITI), etc.

If you specialize in Enterprise Architects, then be on The Open Group for Enterprise Architecture Forum, etc.

These sites provide valuable opportunities for broadening your reach in the business community and getting to know the group's members, many of whom will be qualified job candidates. Often these sites will also post job openings for a fee.