O.K., you sit down at your computer, log on to your favorite recruitment web site and cruise to its resume database. You're ready to go to work, and your mission is to find the best candidates before the competition does.

But there's a problem: You can't see the candidates or their credentials. They're hidden and you have to tell the prickly little system what you're looking for. Hopefully, the computer understands you and you've described your target candidate clearly. It's a formidable challenge that can undercut the return on your online recruiting investment, not to mention raising your blood pressure.

To help avoid these unpleasant outcomes, consider the following tips for searching a resume database. While no one of these ideas will significantly increase your results, collectively they'll get the job done. If you can't find the candidates you're looking with these techniques, forget about it, they're not there.

Tip #1: You have to learn a foreign language. I'm sorry, but there's no way around it. Search engines don't speak English. They communicate in a language called Boole. Therefore, the first step in using a resume database effectively is to acquire a fluency in the Boolean tongue. To do that, take the tutorial that's associated with your search engine and read the Frequently Asked Questions the site provides. Each search engine speaks Boole differently, so make sure that you become conversant in your database's dialect.

Tip #2: You have to learn other languages. Yep, you have to be multi-lingual in this business or you're going to have problems. So, make sure you know the key words -- the nouns and phrases -- that your target candidates are likely to use to describe their attributes and qualifications.

Look at the resumes that your best employees used when they were candidates and adapt your search criteria to their vocabulary. Even if you think their terms are not entirely accurate (from a purely business or functional perspective), use them. The search engine is dumb as dirt; it simply looks for matches between the words you give it and the words it reads in a resume. Hence, the only way to find the candidates you want is to speak their language.

Tip #3: You need to be creative in developing search criteria. Sure, you have to specify the skills you want and maybe the industry in which you work, but after that, you're only limited by your imagination. The following criteria will help you speak outside the lines.

• The names of your competitors. It's the best way to find candidates in your industry.
• The names of your vendors and suppliers. This technique can be problematic, but it's also useful in finding candidates who are familiar with your company and its work.
• The names of top universities, graduate programs or technical schools. Ask the hiring manager which academic institutions or programs specialize in the field for which you're recruiting.
• The full names and the abbreviations for critical degrees. Get this information from the hiring manager, as well.
• Zip codes. If searching on a city or state yields too many candidates, try searching on postal codes. Every candidate puts one on their resume, and it's a good way to find those candidates who are living a reasonable commuting distance from your location.

As you can see, probing a resume database is an exercise in linguistics. The more languages you can speak and the more fluent you are in each language, the better your prospects for finding that all-star candidate before the competition.