Metatags, Newsgroups Help to Recruit on the Web

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There are currently about 5 million resumes online in career sites, resume banks and job boards. But there aretens of millions of passive candidates who have resumes and home pages outside recruiters? traditionalhunting grounds.

The good news is they are definitely within reach. There are two free, but unconventional, techniques forattracting these passive candidates, as well as the active job hunters, which should be part of any company? soverall Internet recruiting strategy.

Most job seekers use search engines and directories, like Yahoo!, Excite, HotBot, and Lycos, to find new siteson the Web, according to "Lessons from the Global 500," the latest report by iLogos.com, an Internet researchand consulting firm. But in order for a company to be referred to by a search engine or a directory, it needs toregister its Web address with them. Yahoo! is the most popular Web referrer site, followed by Excite and AltaVista. Registration is simple and it? s free.

How to Be Found

Now, the trick is to make sure that your corporate Web site address is one of the top sites listed by the searchengines when someone does a specific search. The way this happens is with metatags, which are special HTMLcodes on Web pages, Yves Lermusiaux, president of iLogos.com, tells Recruiting Trends. Metatags contain thekeywords people who are looking for a Web site are likely to enter into a search engine. For example, IBMcomes up in a search for "personal computer" or "ebusiness" because those words are contained in the company? skeyword line. The metatags are not seen on the page itself.

"The more aggressive employers use metatags in everything they are doing, but they are a minority," saysLermusiaux. Although Web development is handled by a company? s IT department, this is one area that therecruiter should become involved with. "Web developers have no idea which keywords to use. The recruitingprofessional has to create a list of keywords that will most likely match those entered by job seekers."

Another tool on the Web that should not be overlooked is newsgroups ? arenas similar to online bulletin boardson the Web where people exchange information about virtually any topic. Go to www.deja.com to access over30,000 newsgroups, which include resume newsgroups categorized by geography and industry.

Seek and Post

Newsgroups can be used by recruiters to post jobs, as well as to approach the passive job seeker. Specificnewsgroups are available for posting job openings and they usually contain the word "jobs" in the title,according to Lermusiaux? s report. For example, www.ny.jobs is a newsgroup specializing in job postings inNew York.

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