Web 2.0 provides new opportunity for recruiters to find tech talent

To find the top network professionals and managers, recruiters have to go where the talent is -- and, increasingly, the talent is online.

There's more to recruiting online than posting jobs and searching résumé banks, however. Whether it's done by the hiring manager or a recruiter, a sophisticated online search takes parts of a traditional search -- finding candidates, for example, or checking their backgrounds -- and moves them online.

Kent Altena, a network administrator and blogger in West Des Moines, Iowa, knows firsthand that recruiters look for candidates on the Internet. He receives several e-mail messages a month from recruiters who have read his blog -- which covers professional topics, such as certification, but personal ones as well, such as how he lost 200 pounds. Some are simply form letters, he says. But the "more intelligent" recruiters mention the skills Altena has discussed in his blog, or say they're looking for candidates near where he lives.

"I know that they've at least figured out something about me and what I'm capable of doing," says Altena, who works for a large insurance company. And although none of these contacts so far has made him want to leave his job, Altena does answer the more thoughtful letters.

One indication of how job searches are expanding online: Corporate recruiters are using online resources to find more than 40% of their executive-level candidates, according to a recent survey by ExecuNet, a job-search and recruiting organization for senior-level executives and professionals. The recruiters who were surveyed found almost 10% of their candidates using search engines (including blogs), and 3.5% through online social networks.

Looking beyond sites that target job seekers is a good way to find so-called "passive" job-seekers, those who are putting their energy into working, not job-hunting. Experts suggest several ways to find these prized workers:

* Blogs. As Altena's experience indicates, blogs can be an excellent source of expert workers. Because many include personal notes, blogs also can be useful for recruiters trying to build rapport with a potential candidate, says Gretchen Ledgard, a partner at JobSyntax, a recruiting and employment marketing-consulting firm.

* Social-networking sites. LinkedIn and similar sites are great for the recruiter trying to compile a list of candidates who have a particular job title or who have worked for a specific company, Ledgard says. A hiring manager who is active on these sites also may be able to use connections to make contact with potential hires.

* Discussion groups. Ledgard calls discussion forums an "untapped area" in recruiting. It can take time for a hiring manager to understand who the smartest contributors are in a particular forum: "Who are the people out there who consistently are answering questions and answering them correctly?"

Nicholas Tang, senior director of operations at social-networking site Community Connect, says knowing someone from an online discussion group or mailing list can be a big help in the hiring process. "It can give an indication of how they use the resources around them," says Tang, who hired as a senior system administrator someone whose work he recognized from such a group. Experts recommend looking at what questions participants ask, as well as how well they answer others' questions.