I think diamonds are a recruiter's best friend. It's because we all love shiny bling. Actually, I'm referring to a research process that builds a pipeline before you do long listing and name generation. An efficient and methodical research process is important in closing searches quickly and efficiently. After doing research for nine years, I finally learned something about the structure of my own research process.

Most people think of research processes in a few different approaches:

• The Shotgun: It's scattered with no rhyme or reason;
• ZigZag: All over the place but there is at least some structure;
• The Sniper Approach: Very targeted, but things can be missed;
• The Upside Down Pyramid: Starts broad and comes to a point.

The Shotgun approach is the most unorthodox and least efficient process. There is neither rhyme nor reason to this process. In fact, one could argue that it isn't a process at all. Still, there are people who just start blasting out the emails and phone calls without a clear game plan.

The ZigZag approach is similar to the Shotgun Approach, but there is a process. You follow a linear path to a point and change direction. Instead of looking at what you truly need, you go back and forth between different tools and research strategies. The ZigZag is very common and sometimes cannot be avoided as the client/hiring manager changes his/her mind. I hate having to go back through resources because I came up with something I didn't think about before.

Before I move on to the last two approaches, I want to expand upon the topic of research strategies. Before I kick off the research process, I try to understand everything I need to know. I ask a lot of questions. I hit Wikipedia to make sure that I understand all the concepts covered in and off the position profile (a Lou Adler shout-out). I am inherently lazy. I want the shortest distance between starting the research and getting a hire. So, I want to make sure that I work smart and hard...not just hard. By developing a solid research process you can save yourself a lot of time and energy by not having to repeat yourself over and over and over again.

My favorite processes are the Sniper Approach and the Upside Down Pyramid. Combining the two gives us something both brilliant and solid.

A Diamond!!!!

The Diamond approach gives you a very targeted pipeline before you start building the long list that you will ultimately whittle down to a hire.

With all the great tools in our arsenals, we can be incredibly targeted. So, with the Sniper Approach, you do miss potential candidate targets that might not have detailed information in your tools (Zoominfo, Linkedin, Hoovers, HotJobs, Yahoo! Searches, etc.). What the Sniper Approach does give you is a very small list of extremely "hot" leads. With this approach, you use as many keywords and criteria as you can that will give you 5 to 20 leads (My magic number is 10). I then crank out those calls immediately. These calls usually net fantastic candidates and exceptional referrals.

These calls will be the best calls that I make throughout the entire lifecycle of the search. I have closed several searches in the last few years with less than 10 calls by using this approach. This doesn't mean that I stopped making calls. This just means that the calls I made after the first 10 did not have as much of an impact on the search.

So, now that you've been incredibly focused, you start to expand the search process until you reach the long list. This is where the Upside Down Triangle approach kicks in. I usually expand the criteria until I reach 100 names/profiles. Then I dig into the backgrounds and call the leads that I know the most about. I keep digging until I've identified the best people for my client's role.

Using the Diamond Approach to research can net you something that is extremely valuable...that diamond in the rough that we all seek out in our day to day activities. We search and we dig. We dig and we search. We do it all so that we can mine the finest and most brilliant people for our clients.

Article by Chris Murdock and courtesy of Kenndy Information Recruiting Trends providing leading edge insights and strategies for the recruiting professional