How many recruiters in today?s world are frustrated by not getting results in user groups for those hard to find talents? I have lot of recruiters raising concerns on not being successful on their hunt for people in user groups.

When using user groups always keep in mind the search doesn?t end by finding the user group for a specific skill set. Successful recruiters know how to utilize them by thinking out of the box. In this blog I am going to share some of the secrets of user group recruiting. I have hired 40% of my candidates from user groups.

There have been days where I will use my entire time during long weekends by going through each and every message thread in a user group to generate leads. I started thinking outside of the routine search strategies. How many people take a day off before the long weekend? 30-40% of the workforces in a company do. All these people set an automated out-of office reply message with 1 or 2 backup contact details. This leads us to more names with contact details and we know that they will have the same skill sets as the employee registered with the user group.

I adopted a strategy by sending a generic requirement email to the user group mailing lists the day before the long weekend. In less than 2 hrs I will have at least 30-40 out of the office replies with their backup details. That is 30 X 2 = 60 names generated with contact details with no effort.

Here are some of the mails that I got a day before the Martin Luther King long weekend with the names masked for privacy:

From: UXXXX, WXXXXXX [mailto:WXXXX.UXXXX@amd.com]
Sent: Monday, January 21, 2008 6:53 PM
To: Sadakathullah Mohamed Ali (mohamali)
Subject: Out of Office AutoReply: [SI-LIST] Cisco Systems - Sr. Signal Integrity Engineer position

I am currently out of office without any access to my email. I will be back in office on January 24, 2008.  If you need immediate assistance please contact MXXXXX FRXXXXXX at 408-XXX-XXXX or SAXXX SANXXXX at 408-XXX-XXXX

-----Original Message-----

From: fXXXX_gXXXXX@emc.com [mailto:fXXXX_gXXXXX@emc.com]

Sent: Monday, January 21, 2008 7:05 PM

To: Sadakathullah Mohamed Ali (mohamali)

Subject: Out of Office AutoReply: [SI-LIST] Cisco Systems - Sr. Signal Integrity Engineer position

I will be out of the of office until January 21st and 22nd. If you have any questions or concerns that require immediate attentions please contact MXXXX RoXXXXXXX at mXXXXX_rXXXXX@emc.com.

Imagine 30 out of office mails like these in less than 2 hrs. This is a great way to source by getting quality candidates

Here is another tip to draft a requirement email for mailing lists:

My message was drafted in a way to entice candidates interest by just writing this line     ? Hi Guru?s, I am sending this email on behalf of the Director of Hardware Engineering at Cisco OR I am sending this email on behalf of Embedded system software manager for Ethernet switch product that Cisco is developing?. I would also notify the represented people in the mail and explain them why I was doing this.

Always note passive candidates do not like recruiters. But by drafting an email in such a way to make the candidates think that this mail is coming directly from the Director of Hardware Engineering at Cisco or Microsoft or Google , the candidates start thinking that the job position looks very appealing and the position comes directly from the technical team and respond immediately.

Mohamed Ali

Inventor of Passive Recruiting search engine www.big5hire.com

Career services manager, Cisco systems ? San Jose CA

mohamali@cisco.com

510-402-7625