By Meg Brazill, AIRS Staff Writer
Virtual communities attract millions of people by providing a central meeting ground - a server where they can build homepages to connect with their family, friends and co-workers. Recruiters are attracted to these communities for the vast number of candidates these meeting grounds hold. But the word "community" can also apply to other types of sites on the Web in which different kinds of people congregate and set up homepages in a common location. One kind of such site is an Internet Service Provider (ISP).
Hooked On ISPs
ISPs are a different kind of virtual community. Many ISPs offer homepage-building tools and free server space, and all of them supply their users with a telecom connection to the Net. Anyone you find on the Net has to have access to it one way or another, which is where ISPs play such a critical role. Today, it's estimated that more than 15 million people are hooked into over 9,300 ISPs in North America alone. And, as with other virtual communities, if you find the right ISP, you find candidates - all told, millions of them.
Size Matters
There are thousands of ISPs. Some are large, national ISPs, and some are smaller, local ISPs. Each kind can be equally useful to you, but the smaller ones are more difficult to identify because there are very few Web resources that can help you find them. National ISPs have an obvious value: they serve the entire country and draw on a large group of people which will increase your chances of finding candidates with specific or hard-to-find skills sets. Many will let you conduct a simple keyword search on them through an on-site search engine.
Why, then, would recruiters want to search local ISPs if they are small and hard to find? Targeted searches sometimes produce the most useful results, and regional ISPs function as location-specific resume banks, pre-sorted geographically. The end result? Fill your job req with a candidate located in the same geographic locale as the company.
Make The Connection
We'll admit, the ISP market is complicated. But don't forget to draw from your own experience when looking for an ISP that might hide candidates in your local market. Keep your eyes open for ads about ISPs when you're watching TV, reading magazines and using the Web - it's likely your candidate will see and hear those same ads. Community guides on the Web with a city or regional focus may also host ads for regional ISPs. Remember to look at the Baby Bells; they've also entered the race to provide Internet service.
If you're looking for candidates that must live in a particular region or city, check the local media market. Which ISPs are advertising in the local papers, on the radio and on billboards? Look at your current crop of candidates' email addresses - and at your recent placements. Let those addresses lead you to more ISP sites to explore. There are lots of providers out there, and any of them may yield a bumper crop of candidates.
Search For ISPs, Find Candidates
In addition to searching for ISPs on your own, there are a couple of Internet resources to aid in your search. The AIRS Directory homepage has a link under "Find People" called "ISPs." This link shows you two Web sites that are useful for their lists of ISPs. These sites, The List and Boardwatch, let you search for a local ISP by city. If you look for an ISP in Arizona, they will bring back a listing of all ISPs that service that state. Let's choose one that services Phoenix only: here's a Phoenix company called FastQ Communications. With the domain name in hand you can easily X-Ray this Web site, a powerful search tool. Using a search engine that recognizes Boolean logic, type:
host:
and then the domain name of the ISP directly after. Then, add your keywords using Boolean Operators.
Like everything on the Web, the ISP landscape is experiencing dramatic growth and changing daily. But like the tumultuous market in other virtual communities, this change hasn't affected the viability of ISPs as a great hunting ground for high-value, passive candidates. And while the Davids of ISPs collide with the Goliaths, we can use their free databases to find candidates.
AIRS Glossary Of Terms Used In This Article
Boolean Operators - A set of Boolean Operators such as AND, OR and NOT, that make up a Boolean search string. Boolean search strings are what power your advanced searches on the Net.
Domain Name - The part of a Web address that identifies an organization by name and type, such as cnn.com or yale.edu. No two organizations can have the same domain name. Over 11 million domain names have already been registered worldwide. Domain names end in .com, .org, .net, etc.,. depending on what kind of group is being identified.
Homepages - Personal pages that individual users create to describe themselves, their interests and skills. Such pages serve as invaluable resources for finding candidates on the Web since they often provide as much information as a resume. Sometimes the term is used to describe the starting page of a Web site.
ISP - Internet Service Provider. A company that supplies people and other companies access to the Internet. Many provide Web page hosting services, as well.
Virtual Communities - Web sites that offer free homepages to the public and provide ways for people to share information, interact online and communicate with one another.
X-Ray - A field search command that lets you look inside a server and view all the documents indexed there.
-- Meg Brazill is AIRS director of News and Content. She is also the managing editor for AIRS Source Book and AIRS Search Guide publications. This article is reprinted by permission from AIRS, a global leader in Internet recruitment, tools, news and information. For more information on AIRS, please go to: http://www.CollegeRecruiter.com/pages/airs.php. Copyright © Hanover Capital Management Corporation 1997-2001. All Rights Reserved
