REAL Results from a Deep-web People Search Engine
- Author: Shally Steckerl
- Posted: June 5, 2007
- Category: Recruiting, Tools and Resources, Sourcing Strategies
- Tags: Deep web, Recruiters Toolbox, Recruiting 2.0, Search, Sourcing Strategy
- Comments:
There’s been a lot of noise and chatter lately about “people search engines” particularly those claiming to get deep-web data. Most of them, like Spock, are nothing but over-hyped “me too” sites which return less than what I can more quickly and accurately get from my own searches. Thus, it hasn’t been worth my time to experiment with them, until now.
I’d like to introduce you to my new friend – pipl
pipl claims to be the most comprehensive people search on the web. It won’t completely replace looking folks up on databases like LinkedIn, JigSaw, or Zoominfo. Nor will it replace lookups like Argali or Zabasearch, btut it will make a researcher’s life much easier. Here’s how:
pipl finds stuff search engines can’t find.
How… you may ask? Its not depending on an index of historically archived data, but instead it retrieves data in real-time from dynamic content sites. When you give it a name to find it will log into databases that are not indexed by search engines and proceeds to extract facts, contact details and other relevant information from personal profiles, member directories, scientific publications, court records and numerous other deep-web sources.
What you get is a simple, easy to read, one-page summary of highly relevant information about your target person. Try it and you will be shocked on how much is out there. For example…
To test it out I first searched for myself. It found my birthdate (year), contact details from Yahoo People, MyPeopleSearch, PeopleData and the Google Phonebook. All the data is correct, and two of the entries are current.
It also located my Friendser profile, my MySpace page, and information on my house. In addition it summarizes “Quick Facts” about me as follows:
Shally Steckerl is a talent acquisition strategist, speaker, and recruitment consultant originally from Colombia, South America, now residing in Atlanta, Georgia… is the founder and Chief CyberSleuth of JobMachine, Inc., the premier provider of sourcing consulting services and research training… is the Research Manager for Microsoft’s Central Sourcing Organization and Founder of JobMachine.net, a leading edge recruitment intelligence website…
To put together the summary it drew information about me from SHRM, EMA, a number of conferences where I’ve spoken and about 10 other places. Pipl then went on to reveal a personal Yahoo address that few people know about, my profile on LinkedIn, my Zoominfo page (via A9), numerous blog posts and Google Groups messages I authored, as well as this blog, my company site and my bio page.
All that in a few short seconds, and without askimg me to register for an account and invite ten friends!
Go ahead, try it on yourself and on those elusive people you are trying to locate.
Cheers, Shally
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Comments (4)
Comment by Amitai Givertz, June 5, 2007 at 6:32 am
Shally, this is an amazing tool! As usual, brilliant post.
Naturally, I plugged my name in to give it a whirl. I guess being freaked out by what is actually public domain and freely available - albeit deeply buried — can be offset by results like this listed under News Articles:
But “ooh, I’m famous” — the stuff about us we want to push — aside, doesn’t “unfettered” to access to this type of information — public domain or not — also raise the questions of trust and professionalism? How should recruiters be applying this data and how to you define “ethical” use? What is the potential for abuse of tools like pipl? What is the potential downside for an employer and should they be making sure guidelines are in place for their recruiters to follow?
Comment by Shally, June 5, 2007 at 7:35 am
If you don’t want to be found you can request these data sources to remove your information. That is your right and they should comply.
We as individuals choose to give away our privacy for the sake of convenience. For example, we create wish lists on Amazon so that our friends may conveniently find gifts for us. But that same convenience is quire revealing, like Ami’s wish list which includes a book on Barbies
Privacy is a matter of choice. How much information your reveal is entirely up to you as an individual.
That said, if you choose to reveal something private and people in positions of trust abuse that knowledge then they are behaving unethically and perhaps immorally.
Lets say and individual chooses a particular lifestyle which may be unagreeable to a “moral majority” and that individual chooses to reveal this part of their life in social places like their Flickr profile, their Amazon Wishlist, their MySpace page and so on - all intended to be for personal sharing among friends.
Now lets say that a person with hiring authority were to become aware of that revealing piece of information regarding a potential applicant. Ethically, in my opinion, the authority has been given a trust much like the trust they are given when we have a private conversation with them during our interview. The authority would be obliged to keep that information to themselves and not share it outside of the medium in which it was found, be that an interview or a social networking website like facebook, etc.
They are also obligated not to take that information into consideration when makin a hiring decision. In particular they should not take negative action against the individual who has chosen to share that private information in an online social context where its unintended for work purposes.
So do we need guidelines? Yes, but they should be the same moral and ethical guidelines we would adhere to with our employees.
Let me explain - say that same individual whas not an applicant but rather an employee. Would that hiring decision maker - now the individuals manager - be able to take any action against an individual based on the information about their lifestyle? No. If they did, and it could be proven tha they did, their judgement could land them in hot water.
So I propose the standard should be to treat peoples private information - yes even if its online - as private, and to treat a candidate’s privacy as we would an employees. Then I feel we should all be safe from an ethics dilemma.
Comment by Amitai Givertz, June 5, 2007 at 7:45 am
OK, too much juice to squeeze an orange. I shall reply in a post. But to your observation about Barbie being on my wish list, that then raises the next question:
If we know are being surfaced this way we can then start to manipulate the data being found. For example, knowing what I know now about my Amazon wish list I shall now add some more thoughtful titles like: “Zen and the Art of Motor Cycle Maintenance” and “101 Things Not to Say on an Interview!”
Comment by Christi, June 7, 2007 at 6:53 pm
I find that on people search engines provide only certain types of information, such as from social networks. It’s not quite the same as a site like peoplesearch.com or zabasearch.com which actual “find” people. I found info on myself on pipl.com, but it was articles I had written and not necessarily going to help a person “find” me.