Sourcing with MSN

How many recruiters/sourcers are on the look out for Microsoft Certified Personnel? Right away you may be thinking of search strings you can use to source those "perfect" candidates, but if you are limiting your discovery to websites only... Well, you are missing out - a lot - on some good leads. Let me show you what I mean. Let's hop over to MSN and do a quick search for a "Microsoft Certified Engineer." However, instead of doing a web search for a resume, let's click the "Images" link. (see below)

MSN seach results brings back pictures, lots of pictures actually, of Microsoft Certification logos. (see below) Hmmm... who would post a logo of this type on their website? Well, duhh... engineers. Let's take a closer look at one of these results. By using the scientific method of eenie-meenie-minee-moe, I choose the second result.

Hmmm... MSN has two links of immediate interest to me. The first link is to the website hosting the image and the second link is to the image itself. My first instinct is to click the link to the website the image is hosted on, but then I notice the "back to Personal Record" link. (see below) So I click it.

And voila! I am taken to a portion of somebody's resume who is (among other things) a Microsoft Certified Professional. (See below)

If you think this is a groovy trick for finding resumes under the radar, well... it is and it is about to get better. What if you wanted to find a particular type of Microsoft Certified Professional? Not a problem... I typed in MCSE on MSN's Image Search and 16,000+ results were returned. (see below)

Now will all of these leads to resumes? Nope! There are quite a few companies promoting themselves as partners of Microsoft, companies who mention how qualified their people are by displaying the certifications they earned and others. Still, this too snazzy a trick to ignore. And while we are on the subject, try these terms for giggles...

MCT MCAD MCDBA MCSA MCSE (Plus, any other Microsoft certification you are in need of.) Can you dig it?!