By T.J. Ripley
One of the benefits of conducting research on the Web is having ready access to a wealth of reference material. With the click of a mouse you can search through encyclopedias, dictionaries, atlases or directories to obtain timely information. Though you might not imagine that dictionaries could do much to help your recruiting efforts, the right ones can provide invaluable assistance.
Obviously, writing well and speaking effectively are essential business skills. Your ability to communicate with others plays a critical role in your success as a recruiter. A dictionary can help you hone those skills - giving you the definitions of words and showing you how to pronounce them correctly. But online dictionaries can provide a lot more information.
Take yourDictionary.com (http://www.yourdictionary.com.) for example. Its quick look-up feature gives you instant access to Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary and Thesaurus, but yourDictionary.com provides many other language resources. Here there are links to dictionaries in over 230 different languages, translation tools, grammar guides, compendiums of quotations and sites filled with synonyms and acronyms. But probably the most useful links the site provides are ones to specialty dictionaries that define jargon.
Every industry and field has its own jargon - the words and phrases that experts use which make it so difficult for everyone else to understand what they're talking about. Though you've undoubtedly encountered lots of computer and Internet technobabble, the high-tech industry doesn't have a monopoly on jargon.
To help you sort through that jargon, the specialty dictionaries are organized into over 80 categories by industry and technical field (http://www.yourdictionary.com/specialty.html.). Though ones covering humor, mythology and sailing probably aren't going to be too valuable when sourcing candidates, there are plenty of categories that you can put to good use. The categories cover such diverse fields as advertising, computing, construction, e-commerce, education, energy, engineering, environment, finance, geology, health, insurance, law, medicine, mining, printing, retailing, shipping, telecom and water.
Each category contains a group of links to dictionaries and glossaries from a variety of sources containing terms that are specific to that field. For example, under e-commerce there are links to five sites, including the Electronic Commerce Dictionary, ecProfessional Glossary, e-Commerce Glossary, ECRC e-Commerce Glossary and Glossary of e-Commerce Terms.
These are great places to find out what all those technical terms really mean. And they are great places to find keywords you can use in your searches. Remember, you want to use very specific terms when conducting searches. Using overly broad terms such as e-commerce won't help you pinpoint the kinds of people you're looking for. If you can use industry-specific terms, like tunneling, CIP and ESP, you'll be able to focus in on people who are familiar with these terms and have experience with them.
Another dictionary site that's worth checking out is OneLook (http://www.onelook.com/browse.shtml.). This site serves as a meta-dictionary of sorts. You enter a term and the site looks through a vast array of dictionaries and glossaries for matches, promptly returning links to all the sites that contain matches. For example, if you enter CCI as the word to look up, you'll get links to sites that define terms related to computer technology and medicine, as well as more general words. You simply choose the site that seems most appropriate to get the definition you’re after.
With access to over 600 dictionaries and over two-and-a-half million definitions, the database is quite extensive and searches are fast. The site maintains a list of all the dictionaries and glossaries it uses in its database (http://www.onelook.com/browse.shtml.). Unfortunately, this list is too loosely organized to prove of much value in searches for industry keywords. Your best bet is to use the site to look for specific terms.
All said and done, both yourDictionary.com and OneLook deserve places on your online bookshelf.
-- T.J. Ripley is a journalist and Web explorer who contributes to AIRS research and writing.
About AIRS
AIRS teaches recruiters and high-growth companies to find passive candidates hidden inside directories, databases, archives and the public Web servers of over 400,000 companies and organizations on the Net. For more information about our cutting edge training seminars, publications, or web applications, please go to http://www.CollegeRecruiter.com/pages/airs.php.
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