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There is certainly no shortage of articles written on how to use Twitter, let alone leveraging it for recruiting. 

If you want an ultra-mega-so-huge-you-may-get-lost-in-it Twitter guide check out Mashable’s. If you want something short and concise that will cut right to the heart of how to effectively leverage Twitter for recruiting, read on.

There are various elements of this post that will be of high value to Twitter recruiting n00bs, journeymen, and veterans alike. 

Why Twitter?

Recruiting has always been social – interactions have primarily taken place in person and over the phone. Social media simply enables a third way to communicate: online.

Twitter can be a big deal in recruiting because it enables and facilitates real-time conversations. Facebook does this as well, but the vast majority of people (non-recruiters) use Facebook for communicating  with their friends and family – not so much for professional networking. And while LinkedIn is certainly a social network, LinkedIn’s social functionality isn’t nearly as real-time (e.g., discussions, Q&A).

Essentially, Twitter can be used to do exactly the same thing that recruiters have been doing since the dawn of recruiting - because it enables and facilitates interactive conversations, which are the foundation of relationships.

What Twitter has over in-person and over the phone interaction is that it is less intrusive. Most people would not call or meet with the same potential candidate every day, every other day, or even every week (you would come across as a stalker or stage 5 clinger), but you could have an exchange on Twitter that often with a particular person and no one would think twice about it.

Have a Detailed Bio and a Picture

Having a descriptive bio that allows others to get a sense of who you are and what you do is critical. People search for words specifically in Twitter bios to find others to follow, and they also use bios to determine whether or not to follow you back after you’ve followed them.

Not having a picture is like showing up to a party with a bag over your head. It’s social media – don’t be anti-social. Enough said.

Find and Follow

To have conversations with potential candidates, you actually have to have your target talent pool following you. For recruiters who complain that ”Twitter’s not working for me,” or “I don’t get Twitter” – most of them either don’t have (m)any followers, and/or don’t have anyone in their target talent pool following them.

If you have no followers and you tweet a job opportunity – that’s like going to an empty room and talking about your hiring need – no one is there to hear it!

If you hire mechanical engineers and you don’t have any mechanical engineers following you on Twitter, don’t expect any results – you’re selling to the wrong people!

To get the right people following you, one thing you can do is find people in your target talent pool on Twitter, follow them, and at least some of them will follow you back.

How do you find people on Twitter? Many ways – but here are my top picks:

1. TweepSearch
2. PeopleBrowsr
3. JobShouts Social Search
4. X-Ray Search (e.g., site:twitter.com “bio * * software engineer” “location * chicago”) 

Finding people based on what they do for a living and ideally the general area they live is critical to sourcers and recruiters – and the best way to find this information is to search in bios. All of the above methods do this, while Twitter search does not. Of course, one needs to be particularly thoughtful and creative when searching social media sites, as many people don’t use cookie-cutter terminology that they would in resumes and such.

Remember, when you find and follow someone that doesn’t know you, you can’t expect them to follow you back. The first thing they will do is click on their notification that you followed them and check you out to determine whether or not to follow you back. Typically, no bio/no picture = no follow.

Even with a great bio and an inoffensive picture, they still might not follow you back, because they don’t know you.

The #1 Method for Cultivating a Relevant Following on Twitter

Whenever you speak with a potential candidate, either over the phone or in person, simply ask them if they are on Twitter. If they are, then suggest reciprocal following (you follow them, they follow you).  If they are not on Twitter, suggest that they look into it – and if/when they do, suggest reciprocal following.

Yes, it’s that simple.

People are MUCH more likely to follow you back on Twitter after they’ve interacted with you over the phone and/or in person and have a sense of who you are – you will get a higher conversion rate this way over simply searching for people and following them.

If you talk to 10 potential candidates per day, that would mean 50 opportunities every week to add the right people to your network on Twitter.

Imagine tweeting about a job opportunity for an accountant and you have 300+ accountants in your metro area following you… 

Contribute and be SOCIAL

If you only tweet twice a day and the only things you every tweet are job opportunities, don’t expect a high ROI with your non-social recruiting efforts. Just posting jobs on Twitter isn’t social recruiting.

Sure, you’re a recruiter, and you have job openings, but that should not be the only thing you tweet about. Far from it.

It’s okay to tweet about the weather, your morning commute, the owls you heard hooting in the woods behind your house, last night’s game or the movie you just saw – it’s called “small talk.” Small talk is essentially social lubricant – you’re likely already applying it to every phone conversation and interaction you’re having with your potential candidates, so it’s equally applicable to your online social interactions as well.  Of course, don’t overdo it with the small talk - you also need to provide some value/content that others can use and will find interesting. If all you do is drone on with irrelevant, random thoughts, you will drive away current and potential followers quickly.

Ulitmately, people like helping people they like, and people like people they feel that they know. Your followers can get a better sense of who you are as a person if you actually share something about yourself other than the positions you’re working on. So when you DO have an awesome position you’re trying to fill with the right person, when you tweet about it – if your followers feel they know you, they are MUCH more likely to help you out by either referring people to you or by retweeting your tweet.

Don’t Talk AT People, Talk TO Them

If you see someone tweet something interesting, respond to them. Ask questions of others. Engaging people in two-way conversations is social.

While you can certainly use Twitter to tweet out random thoughts and bits of information into the Twitterverse, you’re only broadcasting - you’re not engaging specific people, which is where the “rubber hits the road” when it comes to recruiting.

Twitter Lists are for Listening

Twitter lists are great, but remember that when you create or follow a list, the people on the list are not necessarily following you back, thus they may not actually “hear” anything you tweet about.

Twitter lists can, however, be useful for finding people in your target talent pool and of course, listening.

Here are my top 2 picks for searching for Lists

1. Listorious
2. X-Ray Searching (e.g., site:twitter.com inurl:engineers list -”This list doesn’t follow any users yet”)

There is at least one app for bulk-following people on Twitter – Twitterator. It can be buggy at times, but I have used it to successfully follow lists of recruiters. 

Final Thoughts

If you don’t have (m)any followers on Twitter who are members of your target talent pool, your Twitter recruiting ROI will likely be nil. Cultivate a targeted and relevant group of followers. 

If there are very few, if any people in your target talent pool using Twitter, Twitter will not be an effective method of talent identification and acquisition for you. Go where the people are.

Be social – be yourself, get to know others, and don’t be just another job opportunity spammer. Contribute, add value, and help others. What goes around comes around.

To that end, when you see a (or are followed by that) recruiter who obviously just started using Twitter, who has no (or a bad) bio, no picture, and/or their first 2 tweets are about job opportunities – please point them to this article to help them use Twitter more effectively for recruiting.

I’m very much an anti-hype, anti-bandwagon person.

I neither like to nor want to get caught in the undertow of the emotional rush associated with being excited about something that nearly everyone else seems to be excited about, where everyone celebrates the new and “cool factor” with little-to-no critical thought.

When that next bright and shiny object comes along, it’s all too easy to be blinded by it.

Rest assured I have not been blinded by #socialrecruiting. I’ve been using social media for a little while now (Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and blogging), purposefully remaining calm and collected on the subject - choosing to explore the true potential rather than get caught up in the hype. 

So whether you’re a social recruiting evangelist, hater or n00b (I’ve been all 3, not necessarily in that order), you’ll find some value in this post because I am going to strip away all of the hype surrounding social recruiting, demystify it, and cut straight to the heart of the real opportunities associated with using social media for sourcing and recruiting.

So What’s the Big Deal About Social Media and Recruiting?

Many people want to know - what exactly IS the big deal?

Well, from my perspective, the advent of social media affords sourcers and recruiters with easy and unprecented levels of access to more people than ever in the history of recruiting.

For free.

Using just the “Big 3” social networks, recruiters have the ability to find, communicate with, engage, and build relationships with well over 100,000,000 million in the U.S. alone.

That’s kind of a big deal.

Hasn’t Recruiting Always Been “Social?”

That’s always been my question! As if there ever was antisocial recruiting?

“Social recruiting” is simply the use of social media and social networking sites to find, engage, communicate and build relationships with potential candidates with the intent to network and recruit.

Yep, it’s that simple.

However, using social media to communicate and build relationships with potential candidates is no more “social” than using the phone to do the same thing, or actually doing it live and in person (that still happens, right?).

To demystify social recruiting, it is simply the use of specialized Internet-based technologies and websites to perform the same standard and basic recruiting practices that have been conducted over the phone and in person for decades - finding candidates, initiating contact and engaging candidates, and building relationships with candidates.

Social Recruiting: Finding vs. Attracting

Suppose you only use a social network such as LinkedIn to find potential candidates, and you use other means to initiate contact and engage them - isn’t that social recruiting?

Social recruiting purists would say no – that using social media only to identify candidates but not to communicate with them isn’t “social recruiting.”

I don’t think it’s so black-and-white an issue.

If I identify a potential candidate on Facebook or Twitter, cross reference them on LinkedIn to find out where they might currently work, use the phone to initiate contact with them, then invite them to connect with me on Twitter and LinkedIn as an additional way for me to stay in touch with them - is that not social recruiting?

I’ll let you decide, but I think the answer is obvious.

Isn’t Social Media Just a Big Waste of Time?

Can a recruiter waste a lot of time using social networking sites? Most definitely. But don’t be silly – social networks don’t waste time, people do.

Carol Rozewell, a VP/Distinguished Analyst at Gartner, explained brilliantly in her “Resisting Social Media is Futile” blog post that, “An employee wasting time on social media is a performance problem. Don’t blame it on social media. Productive employees are too busy with work to spend lots of time in social media having personal conversations. Instead, they use social media as a means to get their work done.”

Enough said.

Social Recruiting Doesn’t Work For Everyone

When it comes to social recruiting – one size does not fit all.

If you’re hiring Information Technology professionals, you can easily use social media for recruiting and get results.   That’s because there are many I.T. professionals using social media.

However, social recruiting won’t work so well for you if a large percentage of your target talent pool isn’t using social media. For example, Jerry Albright has observed that many groups of candidates seem nowhere to be found on Twitter. Jerry’s a recruiter, he’s social, he blogs, he’s on Twitter- and yet recruiting with Twitter still eludes him for one simple reason: the kinds of people he typically recruits for are scarce on Twitter.

When it comes to fishing – you go where the fish are.

When it comes to recruiting – you need to go where the people are. If the people you need to recruit aren’t on certain social networks, you obviously don’t need to go there to be a successful recruiter and to get results.

Social Recruiting at the Corporate Level

Companies have an unprecendented ability to engage millions of potential candidates where they live online – at little to no cost.

As I said before – when you’re recruiting, you go where the candidates are. When you can create a Facebook Fan Page to represent your corporate brand, socialize your hiring needs, communicate hiring events and post videos to attract talent for free on a site where there are over 130,000,000 monthly unique visitors from the U.S. alone (sorry, www.compete.com only shows U.S. data), why wouldn’t you?

When you can create a corporate Twitter profile for free to communicate in real time with 1,000’s of people who are interested in your company, why wouldn’t you? 

No-brainers.

However, companies that limit their “social recruiting” efforts largely to posting jobs on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn aren’t really performing social recruiting in my opinion. Job posting is job posting – there’s nothing “social” about it.  

Final Thoughts

Social media and social networks that enable and facilitate social interaction have without a doubt given recruiters unprecedented access to large populations of potential candidates where they live online, but social media is no more “social” than attending a user group/networking event or simply picking up the phone and speaking with a potential candidate.

Social media simply gives sourcers, recruiters, and employers one more way to find and interact with potential candidates - sites such as LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook are not replacements for in-person or telephonic interaction.

The basics of the “human element” of recruiting - effectively communicating and building relationships with candidates, understanding candidate motivators, consultative selling, etc. – none of these have been changed or altered by the emergence of social media.

Social media and social networks merely give recruiters a 3rd medium through which they can perform the same thing all good recruiters have been doing over the phone and in person for decades. Having said that, I do think that a recruiter or recruiting organization that effectively leverages all 3 mediums (in-person, over the phone, online) will outperform anyone who is only leveraging any 2 of the 3.

If you happen to be a social recruiting non-believer, please know that you aren’t qualified to say that social recruiting doesn’t work for you or your organization unless you’ve actually tried it in the first place, beyond posting jobs on Twitter and LinkedIn groups and creating a Facebook Fan Page.

Bottom line – you should use recruiting methods that work for you and produce the best results - not what the industry is buzzing about.

I’ve been making a habit of posting the U.S. traffic data for the “big 3″ social media sites (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter – the ones that seem to matter most to sourcers and recruiters) on a monthly basis.

Last month, I predicted that all 3 of the sites would experience a decline in monthly unique U.S. visitors, and as it turns out, I was right only about 1 of them.

And I was quite surprised to see which one it was.

Facebook Unique U.S. Visitors Declines for First Time in a LONG Time

Amid all of the recent press Facebook has been getting for crossing the 300M user mark and finally becoming cash flow positive, I haven’t come across anyone who’s pointing out that Facebook’s monthly unique U.S. visitors actually dropped in August. So, I’ll step up and be “that guy.”

Facebook’s unique U.S. visitors has been on a tear upwards over the past 12 months – and I can’t recall the last time (if there WAS a time) when Facebook’s visitors has declined. I don’t have premium access to www.compete.com, otherwise I could tell you definitively if Facebook’s monthly visitor count has declined in the past 24 months. Does anyone have access to Facebook’s unique visitor data for the past 2-5 years? If so – please share!

Okay, so exactly how much of a decline did Facebook experience? Well, Facebook’s unique U.S. visitors only dropped by .37%, or 456,197 visitors from July to August. Admittedly, that’s a VERY small drop. However, it’s a drop nonetheless, and I personally find it odd that it’s dropped at all while Facebook is at the same time passing the 300M user mark.

Perhaps Facebook is growing more on a global basis, adding a higher volume and percentage of non-U.S. users? Perhaps more people in the U.S. are creating Facebook accounts, but are not returning on a monthly basis? I don’t have the answer, but I do know that although the total number of U.S visitors shrank slightly in August – those visitors actually visited more often: total U.S. visits to Facebook in August rose 4.69% to 2,202,528,780. 

In any event, regardless of how small a decline it may be, I find it newsworthy (and interesting) that Facebook’s monthly unique U.S. visitors declined in August, for the first time in a long time, and in the same time frame that Facebook crossed the 300M user mark.

LinkedIn U.S. Visitors Surge in August

LinkedIn’s monthly unique U.S. visitors climbed past the 14M mark for the first time ever in August, up 8.19%, or 1,077,955 visitors. While LinkedIn’s U.S. visitor traffic has cooled significantly this year, declining from January to February, and from March to May, LinkedIn has been on a bit of a upwards tear from June onward.

Not only did the number of unqiue U.S. visitors to LinkedIn increase in August, those visitors also visited more – with visits climbing 9.94% to 53,593,375 visits. It’s nice to see LinkedIn on the rise again after experiencing some choppiness earlier in the year.

Twitter Gains Visitors, Declines in Total Visits

If any one of the “big 3″ social media sites were to experience a visitor decline in August, I would have placed my money on it being Twitter. However, Twitter managed to thwart a decline in monthly unique U.S. visitors, growing by 1.27%, or 294,649 visitors. But all that glitters is not gold for Twitter, as they experienced a decrease in total visits in August by 2.99%. This is noteworthy, because it is the first such decline in total monthly visits for Twitter in 2009, with the last decline happening in November, 2008.

Still, Twitter logged 148, 651, 794 total visits in August, which isn’t too shabby considering that many Twitter users don’t actually visit Twitter at all, instead accessing Twitter through 3rd party applications such as TweetDeck and Seesmic.

Final Thoughts

Think you know all there is to know about Google search?

I was recently asked a question regarding the use of the asterisk when searching on Google, specifically in conjunction with certain punctuation.

This person was under the impression that if you used the equal sign on either side of an asterisk when searching Google, it would function as a multiple word wildcard operator. For example, searching for [linux=*=administrator] should return results of linux system administrator, linux systems administrator, linux network administrator, linux server administrator, etc.

The short answer is that Google ignores most punctuation, and that there is no need to combine the asterisk with any other punctuation or symbols for it to perform as a single or multiple word wildcard.

The long answer is much more interesting. I decided to perform some experiments with Google’s wildcard asterisk and I uncovered a few oddities and unsolved mysteries. I’m curious if you might be able to shed some light on them. But first, I will show you exactly how you can make good use of Google’s asterisk when searching for resumes on the Internet, as well as when X-Ray searching LinkedIn and Twitter. 

The Asterisk Operator on Google

Google treats the asterisk (*) as a placeholder for 1 or more words – it can also be referred to as a single or multiple word wildcard operator, because Google treats the asterisk as a placeholder for any unknown term(s) for which it tries to find the best match(es).  Essentially, Google “fills in the blanks” wherever there is an asterisk.

According to Google, here is an example of proper syntax when leveraging the asterisk: [ Obama voted * on the * bill ] – notice how there is a space on either side of each asterisk.

Searching for Candidates using Google’s Asterisk Operator 

Judicious use of the asterisk on Google when searching for candidates can yield great results and can increase relevance.

For example, if you are looking for someone who has experience administering linux, you could search for rigid phrases such as “administered linux,” or perhaps “linux systems administrator.” However, utilizing the asterisk on Google, you can add greater flexibility in your search and capture a wider variety and a larger number of results. 

(intitle:resume OR inurl:resume) “~administer * linux” -job -jobs

Notice the variety of the results of this search:

The variety of relevant phrases that Google’s wildcard operator returns from just these 6 results is eye-opening. No sourcer or recruiter would sit down and be able to think of every conceivable phrase a candidate could say to represent their linux administration experience. With the proper use of Google’s asterisk search operator, there’s no need to, because the asterisk “fills in the blanks.”

When it comes to leveraging the asterisk in a Google search, don’t think in terms of single keywords – think about sentences and phrases that candidates might use to express their responsibilities.

Using Google’s Asterisk in a LinkedIn X-Ray Search

You can make use of Google’s wildcard operator to target current titles when performing an X-Ray search.

For example:  

site:linkedin.com (inurl:in OR inurl:pub) -intitle:directory (”current * project manager” OR “current * program manager”)

This is how the asterisk is put to work – it “bridges the gap” across the word “current” to the current title – in this case – “Program Manager.”

Please note, however, that this technique is not flawless. In my testing, while this approach does find many profiles with the target current title, it does not actually find EVERY profile with the target current title. You can test this for yourself by running back-to-back external X-Ray and internal LinkedIn searches.

LinkedIn Phrase Searching

Of course you can also use the asterisk to search for flexible phrases just as we did with the Linux admin search above.

For example:

site:linkedin.com (inurl:in OR inurl:pub) -intitle:directory engineer “* cisco routers”

Instead of just searching for “cisco” and “router” or “routers” and simply matching keywords, we’re actually trying to target PHRASES that communicate responsibility. As sourcers and recruiters – you should not be looking just for keywords, you should really be looking for what people have DONE, not just mentions of search terms. Below you can see how using the asterisk has yielded results of people talking about configuring and implementing routers:

Google essentially “filled in the blank” of the asterisk preceding the two words of “cisco routers.” Clicking on a “cached” result shows exactly how our use of the asterisk pulled a phrase on this LinkedIn profile of someone who has been responsible for configuring Cisco routers.

Using Google’s Asterisk in a Twitter X-Ray Search

When X-Ray searching Twitter, you can use Google’s asterisk to search specifically for words mentioned in the “Bio” field. This is especially helpful because this is the place where you can more reliably find titles and professional skills.

Let’s try looking for people who mention the word “accountant” in their Twitter bio:

site:twitter.com “bio * accountant”

Click here for the 579 results.

Clicking into a result, we can see how this worked beautifully:

You can go a step further and try using two asterisks to reach further into the bio field:

site:twitter.com “bio * * accountant”

Click here for the 468 results.  Notice the lack of overlap in the results with the single asterisk search above.

Remember that Google treats the asterisk as a single or multiple word wildcard. Exactly how many words? I am not sure, and Google’s documentation does not appear to say. Using 2 asterisks in the example above essentially extends the distance between the word “bio” and the word “accountant” – inserting more “blanks” for Google to fill in.

And you can keep adding more. For example, let’s try 3 asterisks:

site:twitter.com “bio * * * accountant”

Click here for the 350 results.

Punctuation in Google Search Strings

Now let’s get back to the initial question about combining the asterisk with punctuation.

Google’s basic help page USED to explain that “with some exceptions, punctuation is ignored (that is, you can’t search for @#$%^&*()=+[]\ and other special characters).” I say “USED” to because I can no longer find that specific statement on Google’s basic or advanced help pages, although it can be found quoted in the web search help forum.

Interestingly, if you search Google’s web search help for “punctuation,” the second result is this:

There’s the phrase I’m looking for – however, when you click on the result, it takes you to this page, which doesn’t actually contain the phrase “with some exceptions, punctuation is ignored (that is, you can’t search for @#$%^&*()=+[]\ and other special characters).”

Weird. I wonder why it’s been removed. No doubt due to my Google-thinks-I’m-not-human search experiments.

In any event, Google is supposed to ignore the equal sign, along with @#$%^&*()+[]\. Remember that list – I’m going to show you that Google doesn’t actually ignore all of those symbols/punctuation marks.

Experimenting with the Asterisk

While Google states that you can’t search FOR the equal sign, I decided to do a little testing to see exactly what Google makes of it if you do use it on either side of an asterisk in a query, just like the person who asked me the initial question apparently did (e.g. linux=*=administrator).

I also tried several different searches using some of the other supposedly ignored punctuation in combination with the asterisk, as well as one scenario where I didn’t use any spaces on either side of the asterisk – just to see what would happen. Yeah – this is what I do in my spare time. I’m that guy.

Search #1 =*=

(inurl:resume | intitle:resume) linux=*=administrator (301 OR 703)  -job -jobs

1 result.

Search #2 /*/

(inurl:resume | intitle:resume) linux/*/administrator 301 -job -jobs

1 result- the same as the one from search #1

Search #3 Single space on either side of the asterisk, using quotes

In addition, I added quotation marks around the “linux * administrator” phrase to more closely approximate searches #1 and #2 above, as there is technically no space on either side of the asterisk, keeping it a single phrase.

(inurl:resume | intitle:resume) “linux * administrator” 301 -job -jobs

1 result again, same as before.

So this shows that Google does in fact ignore the equal sign and the slash - it doesn’t have any effect on the asterisk/wild card operator over a space.

However – things get a little interesting when you try the question mark.

Search #4 ?*?

(inurl:resume | intitle:resume) linux?*?administrator 301 -job -jobs

We get 357 results.

Okay – we go from 1 result with the = and the /, as well as spaces enclosed by quotation marks, to 357 results simply by using a question mark? Something is going on with the question mark, but I am not sure exactly what. However -let’s remember that Google doesn’t explicitly mention the question mark in their list of ignored punctuation: @#$%^&*()=+[]\.

So the question mark really is a question mark. Yeah, I went there.

Do you have any insight as to why Google treats the question mark (?) any differently than an equal sign or a slash?

Search #5 A single space on either side of the asterisk, without quotes

(inurl:resume | intitle:resume) linux * administrator 301 -job -jobs

357 results again.

These results provide SOME insight, because they return the same number of results as search #4 that used the question marks. This leads me to believe that the question mark is actually ignored, because it returns the same number of results as the string that simply has spaces on either side of the asterisk.

However, if the question mark is ignored, then how can Google return fewer/different results in searches #1 and #2 that use the = and the /, which should also be ignored?

More questions than answers here. Have any insight?

Search #6 No space on either side of the asterisk

(inurl:resume | intitle:resume) linux*administrator 301 -job -jobs

499 results this time. Interesting, yes?

This reveals another mystery, because I can’t explain exactly why linux*administrator (no spaces) and linux * administrator (single space on either side of the asterisk) return different results, let alone why the search with no spaces returns broader results, which is a little counterintuitive considering all we did was eliminate the spaces around the asterisk. If anything, one might assume the results should tighten?

I attached a capture of 3 results from page 10 – notice how far apart the words administrator/administration and Linux are from each other. 

Search #7 &*&

It gets even more interesting. As we’ve seen, Google claims to ignore most punctuation, including the ampersand. However, it certainly does not ignore the &, as evidenced by the fact that this search returns 0 results:

(inurl:resume | intitle:resume) linux&*&administrator 301 -job -jobs

Zero results.

Conclusion

The single/multiple word wildcard operator on Google has many uses – it can help you target current titles with LinkedIn X-Ray searches, search for terms and titles in Twitter bios, and move beyond simply searching for keywords and step into the realm of searching for phrases that suggest actual responsibilities.

As for the combination of punctuation and the asterisk operator, it appears that the = sign (as well as a few other supposedly ignored symbols) actually seem to “bridge the gap” and effectively convert strings employing the asterisk (*) to something very similar to a phrase search using quotation marks (e.g., “linux * administrator”). While the asterisk can represent 1 or more words, when used in conjunction with a phrase search using quotation marks (or, as we have seen with = or / punctuation on either side of a single asterisk), Google returns results where the words on the left of the asterisk are always very close to those on the right of the asterisk – in most cases they are separated by only 1 word.

However, as we have seen – not all symbols are created equal. The linux?*?administrator is not processed the same way as linux=*=administrator. It appears that the ? does not “bridge the gap” of the words on either side of the asterisk as the = sign does, and the results are much looser – resembling the results of linux * administrator without quotations. Without the quotations, Google expands the proximity/distance between the words on the left and the right of the asterisk, in many cases well beyond 3 words.

Do you have any answers to the mysteries revealed in this post? If so – please let me know. Thanks!

Article by Megan Hopkins

Let’s get one thing out in the open very quickly. I’m a very stubborn person and I like to learn things on my own…even if it is painfully obvious to others. 

Confessions of a Twitter Hater…

My relationship with Twitter started out very slowly and much like my relationship with my ex-husband – I was not a fan. At all. In fact, whenever Twitter was mentioned around me I cringed (much like I do when I hear “Steve Jobs” or “Apple”) and immediately tuned out.  You see, not only am I stubborn, I am also all knowing…just ask my parents…and I am NEVER wrong.  Ok, so to be fair, “never” is a bit of a stretch… In any event, I associated Twitter with all things stupid that did not catch my fancy (though I’m sure Ashton Kutcher is a very nice person) and I preferred to stick to my tried and true recruiting ways.  Experimentation is not my thing. 

After what seemed to be the one hundredth Twitter argument (that I won), I was forwarded an article in the Orlando Sentinel about a local girl that got laid off and used Twitter to notify the masses that she was back on the market.  Within a week or so, Brittany Ward’s tweets had gained so much attention that an unlikely suitor came calling and wanted to do a featured story on her and her love of Twitter and social media.  Apparently the Orlando Sentinel needed to cover something other than Orlando crime (and Ashton Kutcher was unavailable) and Brittany Ward seemed to be just the ticket. This was her defining moment and she was catapulted into Orlando stardom.  Rumor has it that she is set to be on this season’s Dancing With the Stars, but TMZ has yet to confirm or deny. 

I was intrigued (and I was stalling a few recruiting calls…naughty, I know) so I decided to read this fine piece of literary work.  I was instantly impressed by Brittany and her creative use of Twitter to get her name out in a challenging economy.  After I read the article, I called a friend and mentioned to him that I know a girl that would be great fit for his company.  I emailed him Brittany’s resume and within two weeks, he had extended her an offer and she accepted (and she LOVES her now job, thankyouverymuch!). 

This got my wheels turning. I thought if Twitter could facilitate a placement with a perfect stranger so easily, there had to be some way I could leverage it to improve the way I recruit.  

My little pea sized brain was on to something!   

From Twitter Hater to Twitter Lover 

I immediately set up an account and got to work building my Twitter network. Apparently it seemed that the majority of my IT contacts were on Twitter (what a shocker…like I said, I’m only right most of the time) and they were gracious enough to welcome me, @OrlandoTechNuts, into their Twitter inner circles.  I also started to ask all of my new candidates when making recruiting calls if they were on Twitter.

I think at first this caught them off guard (they weren’t too jazzed about giving a recruiter one more way to stalk them), but when they realized they were dealing with the world’s biggest geek (I’ve got the certifications to prove it) they lightened up.  Eventually I had about twenty followers and I thought I was big timing it.  I’m proud to say now I have over 200. Woot! Woot! Learning the Twitter lingo proved to be somewhat of a challenge for me but as soon as I got the hang of that, I was ready to rock…or Tweet. 

Now it was time to start Tweeting…and hopefully, in the process, recruiting.   

Twitter Hire #1 

I posted my first requirement for a .Net developer and (I’d have to check my Twitter diary to be certain…and yes, I kept one…stop laughing.  No, seriously.  Stop.) waited for any sign of life on the other end.  It seemed like 17 minutes went by (again, that’s in the diary) and then finally, someone RT’d (“retweeted” for all you newbies) my Tweet.  “Holy crap!,” I thought, “This is working.” 

Eventually, I had several people retweeting my post that day and by the end of the day, I had five referrals, three interviews, and…wouldn’t you know it…a placement…with a great .Net talent I never would have known otherwise.  This is when I started to really believe in the power of Twitter.  The fact that this candidate saw my Tweet because someone I didn’t know reposted it blew my mind.  I was addicted.  So addicted now, in fact, that even as I write this blog post, I am Tweeting about it…well, that and how my dog smells like corn chips. 

Twitter Hire #2 

My second placement happened much like the first one.  I had a position come in that I was on the fence about – partially because I was slammed…and partially because I’m a dev-loving snob (this position was infrastructure…ick!). In any event, I updated my Twitter followers on my newest need and it got retweeted several times.  I’ve found it helps to ask for a Tweet to be retweeted but more on this in a second.  This was position was slower to fill (it was a “purple squirrel”) but about a week or so after I posted it, I got a message from a candidate (and now Kforce contractor) that was interested.  

It seemed he had just been laid off unexpectedly and was now on the market…and was just the purple squirrel I thought I’d never (ever, ever) find. He emailed me his resume and within four hours we had him driving up to Jacksonville from South Florida to interview face to face.  He received an offer a day later and he started work the following Wednesday.  This was a particular success for me because he was an out of area candidate that I would have never met otherwise, he was one of very few that had his skill set, and it was a perfect match with a brand new client (that coincidentally, came from a Twitter lead). @OrlandoTechNuts was feeling pretty darn good about herself at this point.   

Twitter Hire #3 

My most recent placement is the one that gets me most excited.  I had been recruiting (or stalking) this candidate for about a month (at least!).  He was absolutely dead on for a position I was working on (again with a new client) and for some crazy reason, he would not answer his phone, and he would not return my hundreds of voicemails and emails.  I briefly contemplated showing up at his house but I was advised against it (seriously…or not). I had just about given up on this candidate (apparently he was too good for me) when I got a direct message on Twitter about a job I had tweeted.  

My contact had a friend that was looking and was looking for a reputable recruiter to work with and he saw the RT of my position.  He was interested. Well, wouldn’t you know if that the candidate that was interested was the very same candidate that I had been chasing down and losing sleep over (yes, I get very involved in my job).  Looks like @OrlandoTechNuts now had the upper hand.  For a moment, I thought about acting like I was a jilted ex-girlfriend and not calling him back…but, I am a recruiter.  We’ll always call back.  Long story short, he FINALLY answered his phone when I called and we got him a job (and a great one!) within two weeks. 

Twitter Hire #4 is in the Works! 

Stay tuned!  I’m very close to getting my fourth Twitter hire in the next week.  Assuming our client doesn’t go MIA (again…gotta love that, right recruiters?), I should have another great dev talent working very soon.  Like the others, this was a guy that I had never met, nor probably would ever meet, because he is a passive channel candidate and not on the boards…and frankly, he wasn’t too keen on recruiters (until @OrlandoTechNuts got to him, that is!).

Following the right people (and having the right people follow you) along with tweeting relevant information is a great way to build your credibility and it can effectively separate you from the hundreds of other recruiters out there – that is what really helped move this potential hire along. 

How to Use Twitter in Recruiting 

I look back now and kick myself for not being open to Twitter sooner.  It took a while to get Kforce onboard and unblock it for me but once I got going, I was not going to stop. Twitter has become such an integral part of my every day life (even outside of work) and I’m not sure what I’d do or how I’d effectively recruit without it at this point.  Sure, I’d manage (after all, David Dunkel didn’t have Twitter and somehow he managed to do ok), but I would not be able to touch nearly as many people and connect with my community as deeply as I have.  

Your use of Twitter needs to be approached like any other aspect of recruiting or sales. It is a long term investment and you really have to care to grow and develop your relationships. One of the most common concerns I hear from candidates is that recruiters seem to be all about instant gratification.  They tend to view talent as a commodity and lose sight of the fact that they are working with people. The relationship is not important and there is a strong need to take your “kill” back to the den as quickly as possible.

If you go into it (it being Twitter, in this case) thinking, “What am I going to get out of this and how soon?” you might as well stop now.  Chances are you aren’t going to walk away with an immediate “reward”.  I think the majority of my success has stemmed from actually caring about the connections I make and what is going on in my (IT) community.   

I try my best to contribute daily (and this time I’m not referring to my Tweets about my smelly dog) and demonstrate that I am very much invested in my community. It never hurts to be engaging.  Ask questions, respond to Tweets that interest you, and basically, take an active interest in what your fellow Twitter folk are doing. It has to be more than just posting a job opening you have.  It never hurts to RT other people’s Tweets, either.  That goes a long way. 

Now, when you do decide to Tweet your positions, make sure those Tweets count.  Make sure you don’t use all 140 characters (that is a pain to RT…and I learned that the hard way in the beginning) and if you want others to RT your positions, ask for it.  I always do and people are more than willing to oblige.   

Of course there is also the risk that Twitter can drain all of your time, but so far, even though I heavily rely on it, that really hasn’t been an issue.  I do keep it up all day at work…and on my phone…but I check it once an hour or so to see if there is anything relevant I can comment on (or occasionally heckle some of my dev friends) and then I post something as I feel like it.  I’d say if you added up the collective amount of time I spend tweeting, it is around an hour or so per day.  Considering that I’m a full time recruiter who works about 60+ hours a week, that’s a relatively small investment and the rewards have been huge…plus you make some pretty interesting friends along the way. 

Final Thoughts 

At the end of the day, I really don’t think there is just one way to leverage Twitter successfully. My experience was very much trial and error and so far, I’ve managed pretty well (other than making a few rookie errors).  Like anything, stick to the basics. Remember that relationships are king and you can’t make a withdrawal if you never make a deposit. If you keep this in mind as you Tweet, I promise you will be right on track to make 3 hires in 6 weeks using Twitter too. Trust me. After all, I am always (almost) right. 

About the Author

Megan Hopkins is a senior technical recruiter working for Kforce in Orlando. She specializes in recruiting .Net developers and is very active in the Microsoft development community, regularly attending events such as Orlando.Net User Group and the Tampa ASP.Net MVC Developer User Group at Microsoft - she’s also the exclusive sponsor of these groups and several more.  As you can probably tell, Megan is a passionate Twitter evangelist (follow her at @OrlandoTechNuts) and an up and coming blogger. Feel free to connect with her on LinkedIn  – she’ll be happy to accept your invite!

I’m always interested in the traffic for the “Big Three” social media sites (Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn), and I discovered today that  www.compete.com just released July’s data. 

And here it is!

Facebook

While Facebook’s been on a tear of growth as it passed the 250M member mark, Facebook only added 117,142 unique U.S. visitors in July 2009 . That seems like a large number – but with how large Facebook has grown to,  that’s only 0.1%, which is the lowest growth rate Facebook’s posted in the last 12 months.

Could we see a drop in August?

We cannot overlook, however, that Facebook saw 2,103,776,022 visits July. Yes, 2.1 Billion – which is nearly an 11% increase from the 1,898,910,472 visits logged to Facebook from the U.S. in June. So while monthly unique visitors has stagnated, those who are visiting are visiting more. 

Twitter

After experiencing a decent 16.57% spurt of growth in June, Twitter slowed significantly in July, growing unique monthly U.S. visitors only by 1.25% to 23,284,395. Similarly, visits to Twitter grew only 1.54% to 153,227,857.  We’ve seen this kind of plateau before with Twitter from April to May before unique visitors jumped in June. It will be interesting to see what happens in August.

LinkedIn

In July, LinkedIn experienced a second month of growth in a row following 2 straight months of decreasing monthly unique U.S. visitors in April and May, growing 5.77% to 13,163,696 from June to July. However, visits to LinkedIn dropped slightly in July by -1.26% to 48,748,204.

With around 22M total U.S. profiles, 13.2 unique U.S. visitors in July means that approximtely 60% of all U.S. LinkedIn members actually visited the site in July.

An intriguing feature of Compete.com is that it will display top search terms for the sites you are researching. When digging into LinkedIn’s data, I noticed this:

Someone’s definitely trying to fish some MDM/data quality professionals out of LinkedIn via an X-Ray search! You go – whoever you are!

The “Big Three”

Here’s a graph of the 6 month unique U.S. visitor data for Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook:

August should be an interesting month. With the significant cooling of monthly unique visitors for the Big 3 social media sites in July, I’ll go with a bold prediction of a decline in monthly unique U.S. visitors across them all. 

I will continue to monitor the traffic data for the “Big Three” and share it with you – please share this information with others. Thanks!

Sometime in the mid-morning I was trying to send a quick Direct Message via TweetDeck to one of my valued network contacts and it didn’t go through. I waited and tried a few more times, and after further failures – I headed directly to Twitter.

My Internet connection was good – I could navigate other sites, but when I tried visiting Twitter, I got a “network timeout” message stating that the server at Twitter.com was taking too long to respond.

Then I went to Google and searched for: [Twitter down]

I uncovered Twitter’s status blog and another helpful site appropriately named downforeveryoneorjustme and found out that Twitter was defending against a denial-of-service attack.

Ouch. Well, since it was obvious I wasn’t going to get my Direct Message through to my contact, you know what I did?

Yep – I picked up the phone and I called her.

Imagine that!

I routinely check www.compete.com for the latest traffic data for my favorite social media sites and was pleasantly surprised to find June’s data has been released. I will review the June traffic data for Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook (aka, the “Big Three”).

Twitter

Twitter experienced explosive growth from February 2009 to April 2009, going from 7.9M to 19.4M unique U.S. visitors before leveling off around 19.5M visitors between April and May. However, after that brief cooling period, Twitter has experienced another spurt of growth, adding approximately 3.2M unique U.S. visitors (16.57%) to hit an all time high of 23M unique U.S. visitors in June. Okay, 22,997,148 to be exact.

Those ~23M visitors hit www.twitter.com 150,752,603 times in June, which is a 12.05% increase.

Twitter 6 Month Compete.com Traffic

LinkedIn

LinkedIn’s experienced a bit more of a rocky path than Twitter has over the past 6 months, with unique U.S. visitors decreasing from January to February and from March to May. In June, however, LinkedIn’s number of unique U.S. visitors grew 6.07% from 11.73M to 12.45M visitors, who logged 48,371,121 visits.

LinkedIn 6 Month Compete.com Traffic Data

Facebook

I’ve been seeing Tweets referencing how Facebook had crossed the 250M member mark and was curious to see their traffic data. It’s no surprise to see them continue to grow, which they did by 8.45% in terms of adding nearly 10M unique U.S. visitors from May to June, for a total of 122,559,672 visitors. A truly staggering number comes in the form of the 1,898,910,472 visits logged to Facebook in June. Yep – almost 2 Billion visits to Facebook from the U.S. alone!

Facebook 6 Month Compete.com Traffic Data

The “Big Three”

Here’s a graph of the 6 month unique U.S. visitor data for Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook:

Twitter LinkedIn Facebook 6 Month Compete.com Traffic Data

Of note is Twitter passing LinkedIn in terms of unique visitors betwwen February and March of 2009, but the real standout on the chart is just how many more people in the U.S. visit Facebook over LinkedIn and Twitter. Yes, I know they are 3 totally different types of social media/networking sites – but the size of the chasm is quite dramatic, and Facebook does not show any signs of slowing down any time soon.

I will continue to monitor the traffic data for the “Big Three” and share it with you – please share this information with others. Thanks!

An article posted on the Nielsen Wire blog on April 28, 2009 claimed that more than 60 percent of U.S. Twitter users fail to return the following month. From the number of times I saw people ReTweet and comment about the Nielsen article about Twitter quitters, it seems that many people are intrigued by and concerned about the large number of people who visit and don’t come back to Twitter the next month.

At first, I was a little surprised at the high rate of quitters - a 40% retention rate seems pretty low for something that seems so popular. But then as I started thinking about it, I really don’t care if 60% of the people who visit Twitter in one month don’t come back the next.

Why don’t I care?

Twitter Quitters Leave Data Behind

As a recruiter, I’m pleased whenever I have access to a new resource that I can use to search for and identify talent – the critical first step in the recruiting life cycle. Twitter is highly searchable – if I can find them, I can establish relationships with them, network with them, and recruit them.

But what about all of those Twitter Quitters?

Here’s the thing – if someone visits Twitter and they create a Twitter profile – they leave behind valuable Human Capital Data. Data that can be searched for, analyzed, and acted upon. Even if they only visit once and never come back. 

You Can Still Reach Twitter Quitters

Sure, it would be nice if every person who visited Twitter would stay around, Tweet it up, and contribute to the Twittersphere. But they don’t have to for me to be able to find them and even contact them.

As long as someone who’s following me on Twitter checks the box next to the “Email when I receive a new direct message” under the “Notices” tab of their profile settings, I can DM them and they’ll receive an email from me. Even if they never come back to Twitter.

Therefore it is critical to be able to quickly find the right people (people you’d like to network wth and/or recruit at some point), follow them, and ideally elicit a follow-back. As long as you can accomplish this with potential candidates before they “quit” Twitter (temporarily, or permanently), you can still reach them via DM/email.

How can you ensure that potential candidates will follow you back? Ah – great question. It can be done at a surprisingly high success rate, but that’s a topic for another post entirely.

Twitter is Still Growing

While the Nielsen article about Twitter quitters certainly created a concerned buzz, let’s not forget Twitter is still growing strong, increasing the number of unique U.S. visitors by 38.56%, from 14M in March to 19.4M in April. And if you think Twitter’s growing primarily from all of the celebrity exposure in April from the likes of Ashton and Oprah, think again. Twitter actually grew from 7.9M unique U.S. visitors in February to 14M unique U.S. visitors in March – an increase of 6.1M visitors, as compared to the 5.4M added in March to April.

That’s right – Twitter actually added more unique visitors prior to Ashton Kutcher’s challenge to CNN and Oprah showing up on the scene. That surprised me – I had been expecting an acceleration in Twitter’s growth due to all of the exposure Twitter received in April alone. Instead, Twitter’s growth slowed down. 

LinkedIn’s Losing Loyalty

While everyone was atwitter about Twitter quitters, in the same time frame that Twitter grew by 38.56%, LinkedIn’s unique U.S. visitors DROPPED 4.57% from approximately 12.7M in March to 12.1M in April.

Yes, it’s a small percentage drop, a relatively small number of people (if you can call nearly 600,000 people a small number), AND LinkedIn’s been around longer than Twitter, but I’m still personally more intrigued by LinkedIn’s drop than in Twitter quitters.

LinkedIn Leavers

I just ran a search on LinkedIn (around 5:00 PM EST, May 17th, 2009) and found that there are 19,918,833 U.S. users with a LinkedIn profile.

Wait a minute – didn’t we just see that LinkedIn only had about 12.1M unique U.S. visitors in April?

Yes – that means that about 7.8M people with a LinkedIn profile did not return to/visit LinkedIn in April. While I haven’t been able to concoct a catchy rhyme to match the likes of “Twitter Quitters,” I can take an alliterative approach and label the 39% of people with a LinkedIn profile who did not visit LinkedIn in April “LinkedIn Leavers.” 

Conclusion

The Nielsen post only claimed that more than 60 percent of U.S. Twitter users fail to return the following month. That doesn’t mean they won’t or don’t EVER come back. As we have seen with LinkedIn, not every user of a given social media application actually returns every month.

The people who come to Twitter and “get it” DO stick around – they are the ones who make Twitter awesome. It’d be nice if more people who visited Twitter actually stuck around from month to month and participated more in the social media phenomenon – but if you are a sourcer or a recruiter, it really doesn’t matter. 

While having more Tweets to search and analyze would be ideal, all a good sourcer or recruiter needs is a bio and the hunt is on. One you’ve found and followed your quarry and successfully elicited a follow-back, you can even send Twitter quitters direct messages that they can receive via their personal email – so contacting them isn’t an issue if they seldom or never return.

Personally, I don’t really care about Twitter quitters. Twitter will grow and evolve into something none of us can anticipate or predict. But as long as more people create Twitter profiles and leave valuable Human Capital data behind, I’ll be happy.