How many staffing professionals, recruiters, and sourcers, create their own Boolean strings? Answer most of us. However how many copy those strings down and keep them in a file of some kind for use later? Answer not many. Why? Why do we feel the need to reinvent the wheel, recreate the search strings over and over again, when we can simply copy them to a spread sheet for use later. Moreover we can keep a tack of the results from a particular string, and then we know what worked and what did not. It sounds simple, sounds like common sense, but I bet few do it and the time they waste recreating the wheel is mind boggling and a huge hit on productivity. So stop recreating the wheel keep track. I have spread sheets showing every string I have every created. I have even shared allot of them with all of you in other posts. The time I have saved has been immense and the increase in productivity is mind blowing so stop recreating the wheel.
 

“In America” by the Charlie Daniels Band is a song about America and its veterans. About how we may disagree amongst ourselves but when it counts we stand as one, we take care of our own. In this post we are going see the many sites that are out there, that can help us find veterans.
 
Monster has a special way to designate veteran candidates, and even allow us to search for veterans specifically and or to post jobs veterans will find.
 
First posting jobs only:
https://www.jofdav.com/
www.jobs4vets.com
 
Posting and sourcing:
www.jobcentral.com
http://recruitmilitary.com/
www.helmetstohardhats.org
www.VetJobs.com
www.CorporateGray.com
http://www.patriotjobs.net/
 
Posting, Sourcing, Programs, Information and more:
http://www.militaryconnection.com/
http://www.fedshirevets.gov/
http://www.military.com/
http://www.taonline.com/TAPOffice/
http://www.hiremilitary.com/
http://www.militaryhire.com/
http://www.hireveterans.com/
http://100000jobsmission.com/
http://www.postmilitaryemployment.com/#
https://www.rallypoint.com/
 
Do’s, Don’ts, and some best practices:
http://nod.org/research_publications/americas_best/
http://www.americasheroesatwork.gov/forEmployers
 
I am constantly searching for info on finding, hiring and helping vets. The link below is to my website and specifically to the vet part so check it out for updates.
http://thesearchauthority.weebly.com/vets.html
 
There you have it, you now know why you should hire veterans, what you need to know to hire veterans, were to go to hire veterans and a whole lot more.

​Sourcing.io is the new kid on the block in the sourcing world. It is a search tool that specializes in Github and Twitter Sourcing. They have created a search engine with a nifty interface that allows you to search utilizing a plethora of option such as; Skills, Location, Works at, Status, Twitter Follows, Github repo’s and more. What some of these things allow you to do is play on human nature. What I mean is if you are looking for a good Java developer and you find one you can then see who they are following on Twitter and Github and well if they are a good java developer human nature says they are following other good java developers. Below is a picture of a search I did and what I got. 

As you can see you get a decent amount of information; Name, User Name (if it is used or found), social sites, location, skills listing, and email if available. Now to me I don’t care if the email is there or not, if I have their user name I can get their email using my email finding methodology ( it can be found on my you tube page). Now if they don’t show a user name but show social sites I will visit those sites and get the user name, so either way I am good. Now beyond that you can also leave statuses on the people you view. Those statuses are; Contacted, discussion, phone screen, interview, offered, hired, future op, bad fit, not interested. So this tool can act like an ATS or CRM of sorts. It does allow you to have a team capability so you are not stepping on each others toes.
Now early I said one of the categories for searching was skills. So that search filed has several pre populated skills all programming to include; Ruby, Python, Java, Jscript, C, C++, C# and others. It does have a way to do a custom search for a programming language not listed. So this tool is definitely for Developers, testers, architect types.
​
For me the thing that make me like it most is the Twitter searching part. There are plenty of tools that search Github. But not many that do a good job of searching Twitter this one does. Also some of the social sites it brings back are different than the norm such as; standupjack, gracelacy, gitlab, and others. The wait time form adding search term sot results is almost instantaneous. No chrome extension, but not sure one is needed. This is not a free tool, it costs 199 per month per user. 

“Made in America” by Toby Keith is one of the newest anthems for our armed forces. In this song he talks about how his father would pay extra for things made in the USA by people in the USA like our veterans. In this post we are going to discuss the research and some sourcing techniques for finding veterans.
 
First military/Veteran search terms such as:
1). Army, Air Force, Navy, Marines, Coast Guard, National Guard, Army Reserve, Air Force Reserve, etc..
2). Organizations such as Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW), Disabled American Veterans (DAV) etc. The link below will take you to a list of veteran and military organizations.
http://www.workworld.org/wwwebhelp/veterans_service_organizations_overview.htm
3). Other words or Acronyms: Veteran, Military, USMC, USArmy,  USAF, USCG, USN, Vet, Former, Retired, prior etc. See link below for a list of Military Acronyms, Initialisms, and Abbreviations.
http://www.fas.org/news/reference/lexicon/acronym.htm
4). Clearances are a huge and there are many types: Secret, Top secret, and more. Most veterans will have or had a clearance. For a list of clearances see link below.
http://securityclearancejobs.blogspot.com/2007/10/most-complete-list-available-for.html
5). Obviously knowing the MOC and actual title used in the military that you are search for helps. So the link below takes you to the best of the MOC finders.
http://www.careerinfonet.org/moc/default.aspx?audience=WP
6). Researching government agencies can also help as many veterans may have worked for government agencies. The link below will help identify most agencies.
http://www.usa.gov/directory/federal/index.shtml
7). Also there are a lot of companies that support government agencies (meaning companies providing talent and services to federal agencies), below is a link to a list of most of them.
http://washingtontechnology.com/toplists/top-100-lists/2012.aspx
 
 
 
Now with all the research done you are ready to put together a search string. Below is a simple string that will find veterans who have Java, are ex Army and have a Top Secret clearance.
 
Inurl:resume (Java OR J2EE) AND (Army OR USARMY) AND (“Top Secret” OR TS)
 
Keep in mind you can substitute subject and title for url and substitute bio, CV, or “curriculum vitae” for resume. Also you can use the pipe “|” instead of OR in Google, and you do not need to use “AND” in Google. In addition you can use terms like –job –jobs –apply -example to remove possible job ads. You can also use the Tilda (~) instead of inurl: in google to save time.
 
***** Remember to do your research first*****
 
Next post Military/Veterans specific sites to post jobs and search for resumes

​“God Bless the USA” by Lee Greenwood has long been the anthem for are armed forces and for Veterans. Over the years many other songs have come out reminding us to give thanks to those who risk their lives so we can live free. Over the next several blog posting I will go over why you should hire Military/Veterans, Understanding Military/Veterans, Research/Sourcing Military/Veterans and Lastly Sites for finding Military/Veterans.
 
First why you should hire Military/Veterans:
1). You can get between 2400-4800 in Tax Credits for hiring a Military/Veteran.
The link will take you to the US Dept of Labor, specifically were the WOTC (Work Opportunity Tax Credit) page is and explains further about the credit for hiring a veteran as well as other guidelines. http://www.doleta.gov/business/incentives/opptax/eligible.cfm
2). Over 200,000 service members leave the military every year.
30. Over 80% of military jobs have a civilian counterpart, meaning of the 200,000 getting out, over 160,000 will come out with skills and experience directly relevant to civilian jobs all you have to do is find and hire them.
3). Military/Veterans live by a code of Ethics, they are proven learners, they are proven to be able to work in teams, they are loyal, committed and some much more.
4). Special guideline for Military/Veterans in the USSERA - Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act.
The link goes to the US Dept of Labor page referencing USERRA and explains about USERRA, employer and Vet Rights on USERRA and much more. There is a USERRA Advisor which is a program designed to help employers and employees understand their right under USERRA. http://www.dol.gov/elaws/userra.htm
5). Government sponsored education benefits, allowing a military/veteran to get additional education/training. The link provided take you to the GI Bill page. This page explains the education benefits available to Veterans. These benefits can also be used to make a veteran employable, meaning if a company needs an employee who is a veteran to get training this program can help pay for it. In the case were the GI bill is not an option Chapter 31 Vocational Rehabilitation and employment program can provide the same education benefits. http://gibill.va.gov/ And http://www.vba.va.gov/bln/vre/
 
In order to recruit/hire a Military/Veteran you need to understand Military/Veteran. What I mean by understand them is understand the terminology, and understand the jobs they had.
 
First in thinking about the military you need to remember, the military is not just the Army, Air Force, Marines and Navy. The military also includes the Reserves, National Guard and Coast Guard. http://www.todaysmilitary.com/service-branches
 
Within the military there are 3 levels of military personnel:

• Enlisted think of as hands on workers or day to day operations
• Warrant Officers think of as highly technical and specialized a bridge between enlisted and Officer
• Officer the guys in charge, the high level managers

When talking to a military person and asking them what rank they were, you may get one of 2 answers. 1 will be a letter and number designation this is really their pay grade, for example E3. The other will be their rank, for example PFC (an E3). For people in the military these are often used interchangeably. For a listing of ranks see link: http://www.military-quotes.com/military-rank.htm.
 
Every person in the military has an MOC (Military Occupational Classification), basically their job. AS I stated earlier 80% of those have a civilian counterpart. The link here will allow you to take a military persons MOC and see what it means, and what the civilian counterpart is. http://www.careerinfonet.org/moc/default.aspx?audience=WP
 
When talking with military personnel you will hear about a DD214, this form describes a veterans type of discharge, some of their awards as well as some of the training they have taken and more. Every veteran leaving service gets one.
 
Another document you will hear about is PQR (PERSONNEL QUALIFICATION RECORD), this is a listing of all their training, awards, places they have serves, ranks and much more.
 
Lastly you will hear about an ACE transcript, this is a document done by the American Council on Education, and will list all the training a military person has gotten, both civilian and military while on active duty and show what that training would be worth towards a degree.
 
I know that’s a lot and trust me there is a lot more, but this gives you good foundation about why you should hire a veteran and how to understand them.

​One of the newest things that is being used as a catch all for saying no to a candidate, is really not new it is just being used a lot more as of late. It is the whole strong personality rational. Now while I agree having a strong personality can be an issue in some companies. But before jumping to that conclusion we must first determine in what ways do they have a strong personality. If their personality is deemed strong because they are confident, but at the same time has no problem admitting when they are wrong, or following directions does it really matter? The answer is probably not. It really depends on the balance between strong and amiable. Despite what some say you can have a strong personality and still be amiable. You can be a leader and a follower. The key is to know the situation and when it is better to lead and when it is good to follow. So just because someone has a “strong” personality does not mean they not a fit, it really depends on other things, like can they get along, can they follow, do they know when to talk and when to listen, and can they change their style of communication when needed. So in other words, like with all things find out more before you write them off. Otherwise you might lose a great candidate.

How we communicate with our coworkers, hiring managers and candidates will impact our ability to do our job. The question is how do we do it, how do we communicate with all those people with all those different personalities and communication styles.
 
Well it is very simple, You mirror the person you are talking to. Meaning you mimic their rate of speech, and their style of speech. If they talk slower than you normally do, you slow it down, if faster speed it up. You do this and all the while listen to get a feel for their thought style. Meaning are they all about the facts, are they all about touchy/feely. Once you figure it out you know how to talk with them, and life and work become easier. However keep in mind this tip also applied to anyone you speak to, work, play, home or anyplace.

​I read an article someplace were a lady in Utah got fired because she was too good looking. Her boss’s wife felt she was too good looking and was worried about her husband who worked there. Now mind you there had been no inappropriate contact or interaction at all. The wife just was worried and did not trust her husband.  This ended up in court, of course one would think it was open and shut and this firing would be deemed illegal. However not only was it upheld but a law was passed stating you can fire someone for being too good looking. Now I realize if it goes to the supreme court it will be over turned, but the fact that it even got this far is ridiculous and just plain wrong. I mean what’s next, your too short, to tall, to fat, to skinny, your hair is to short, it’s too long, to dark, to light, see were this can lead? I am not saying that these things do not come into play, I am not that naive, but to actually pass a law allowing such bias is wrong. Something to think about especially if it stands up in the supreme court, what will it say about our society and our supposed equality.

​In the advent of social media and social recruiting we need to learn how to be more creative with our job descriptions, advertising and how we communicate with perspective candidates/connections. We need to be creative, and find different exciting ways to get their attention. We need to understand that we need to be social and make sure it is not about what the they can do for us, but what we can do for the candidate/connection. We need to lead with, what we can do for them in a creative way that differentiates us from everyone else. That is the key to social recruiting. Creativity and showing the perspective candidate/connection what we can do for them. Do this or you will fail, it is that simple.