Loads of people today have asked me how I go about discovering candidates. My job could be re-titled “internet sleuth,
Office 2007,” and that would be a fair description. While I use a large number of tools (some of which I;ll tell you about later), one of my favorites is Eliyon. In the company;s words: Eliyon Technologies provides the most comprehensive information on business professionals available. Our service is used by hundreds of companies to streamline their recruiting efforts, quickly compile sales leads, enhance competitive intelligence efforts, and more. Eliyon's customers range from small firms to over 25% of the Fortune 100, and include companies such as Microsoft, AOL Time Warner, IBM, Oracle, Monsanto, Staples, Lockheed Martin and AT&T.
Eliyon's patented technology continually scans millions of corporate websites, press releases, electronic news services, SEC filings and other online sources. From this material, it automatically extracts biographical and other data on business professionals and the companies for which they work. Users of Eliyon's service search for individuals and companies using a number of diverse criteria, such as job title and educational background, as well as the size, nature and location of the firms for which they have worked. The company's database currently contains information on over 19 million professionals and 1,192,634 companies, with 450,000 new records added monthly. In its most simple form, it;s a search engine. But what makes Eliyon neat is that it takes information about where a person has worked in the past (just based on data already out on the internet) and builds a resume for that person, along with any contact information it can find. To check it out for yourself, you can sample their service with limited capabilities. Recently, Eliyon implemented a feature where you can supplement or build your own profile by providing information about yourself. Brilliant! Even though I;ve posted all over the internet the past 4 years (first as Gretchen Garland and then as Gretchen Ledgard), I still wasn;t recognized by the tool … so it has obvious limitations. But as soon as I saw this feature, I created my own profile. A headhunter has yet to call … but I guess it never hurts trying! <Just kidding … I;m really happy here. > gretchen