Become an Internet Sourcer... Use Your Surfing Talent and Make a Few Bucks!

I've spent many thousands of hours on the Internet searching for
information, jobs, contracts, people, and other items of interest. You can
literally find out anything! The trick is learning how to find relevant and
hidden information in an efficient manner. This is the job of an 'Internet
Sourcer.'

--- What is an Internet Sourcer? ---

The Internet Sourcer is a relatively new position for many organizations.
The most common use of a Sourcer is in the recruiting and talent-search
fields. Usually, a Sourcer scours the Web for resumes and candidates using
several search techniques to ensure their searches are complete and
accurate. Some of the better Sourcers come from the computer industry and
work independently as well as have an extreme amount of focus, patience, and
inquisitiveness.

--- Data Mining ---

Data mining uses various techniques to examine data and organize that data
into a meaningful presentation. This is also a part of an area known as
Knowledge Management---an entirely different world and best left for a later
tome.

* Finding Information

As applied to Internet Sourcing, data mining consists of a set of search
techniques (i.e., Flip Search, X-Ray, Peel Back) to acquire information.
These techniques allow you to locate relevant and hidden information on the
Internet that would otherwise be out of your reach. Each of the techniques,
mentioned shortly, can be applied to any of the larger search engines such
as AltaVista (http://www.altavista.com/) and HotBot
(http://www.hotbot.com/).

* Organizing Information

Once you locate the information, you have to organize it by relevancy. This
can be accomplished with various tools, including, Correlate
(http://www.correlate.com/). This tool allows you to organize links, text,
and documents in a tree format to better view and understand the information
you've acquired.

--- Various Search Techniques ---

Locating information on the Web is not as straightforward as you might
think. Of course, you can always do a simple keyword search and locate a
few thousand links, of which only 25% to 50% are truly relevant to your
specific search. To really dig into the Web, you need to understand the
three search techniques explained below. To present valid examples, the
following explanations use the techniques for searching potential candidates
and resumes on the Web.

* Flip Search

Flip Search locates items by link association. For instance, instead of
searching for potential candidate pages based on specific keywords, the Flip
Search returns pages that are 'linked to' a target Web site. Links might be
personal homepages, colleges, industry organizations, companies,
publications, or associations. Each of these 'linkers' represents a
potential of providing candidates or related information.

Two of the primary search engines that support various Flip Search
mechanisms are as follows. Once you understand the premise for this search,
you can determine the specifics for the other major search engines on the
Web.

- AltaVista: On the 'Advanced Search' page, in the Boolean Query text field,
enter 'link:host.com AND homepage AND "java programmer"' and press Enter.
With this search string, you're searching for all links that are associated
with the keywords 'homepage' and '"java programmer".' You can refine the
search using skills, job titles, and any term that might refine your search
target.

- HotBot: On the 'Advanced Search' page, enter the URL or domain name in the
Search text field. In the Look For drop-down box, select 'links to this
URL'. Refine your search by entering skills, job titles, and any term that
defines your search target in the 'Word Filter' text fields.

Examine the results as you work with different searches to see how this
search works. It is extremely powerful and can generate numerous relevant
links for any given search condition.

* X-Ray Search

Most sites have documents that aren't accessible through links on their
site's pages---hidden from view, yet publicly available. The X-Ray technique
searches files in a server and lets you view most of these 'hidden'
documents.

To try this out, go to AltaVista's 'Advanced Search' page and type
'host:tripod.com' in the Boolean Query text field. Like 'link:', 'host:'
tells the search engine to look for keywords in documents on the specified
Web site---the Web site for the 'tripod.com' domain.

When you click the 'Search' button, you could end up with several million
documents from your target host. To obtain a more manageable group of
results for this example---look for freelance writers. For example, enter
the following search string into the Boolean Query text field:
host:tripod.com AND "freelance writing"
When I did the search, I got about 100 results. Consider that, intuitively,
many people name their resume page 'resume.' With this assumption, let's
fine-tune the search again to look for resumes using the following search
string:
host:tripod.com AND title:resume AND "freelance writing"
The word 'title:' tells the engine to look for keywords in the