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Tip: Try New Databases for High-end Jobs
By Joyce Lain Kennedy

Dear Joyce: I'm looking for a managerial job paying over $75K. Where can I find recruiters working online who specialize in sales, marketing and telecommunications? -- T.T.

Dear T.T.: Use electronic databases to customize your job prospect list. First, target certain recruiters and employers, then send them a résumé. Some e-databases are free, but the easiest to use with a mail-merge program and the most current are fee-based.

The new e-databases, a component of what employment professionals term, "e-recruiting," became an important stand-alone hunt tool only within the past six months. E-databases with the power to customize a list of recruiters by specialty both by industry (telecommunications) and functional field (sales) aren't new. But the way they're being used today, if not revolutionary, is very different than in the 1990s.

In a movie simile, yesteryear's recruitment e-databases were like the original television show, "Charlie's Angels," featuring soft plots and good manners. Today's powerful e-databases are like the new hyper-action feature film with the same title that blows its heroines through skyscraper glass windows. Among other e-database changes:

Online. Earlier e-databases were offered on diskette or CD-ROM and updated periodically; new versions are on the Web and the premier products are updated daily.

Direct Access. Earlier versions were produced by information vendors and resold by outplacement, executive marketing and résumé writing firms as an optional service; today's renditions are directly accessible to individual consumers.

Executive Jobs. Until recently, high-end jobs weren't frequently brokered on the Internet; that limitation is fading with the new e-databases. Job seekers can specify targets for employment in salary ranges above $1 million a year. You specify recruiters dealing with jobs in your pay range, industry, functional specialty and geographic area. Scout a variety of free and for-fee e-databases on Margaret Riley Dikel's Web page, the extraordinary Riley Guide. She is an Internet researcher I'm indebted to for her diligent eyes in spotting the new e-databases.

Here are my two favorite fee-based customizable e-databases, followed by a remarkable new free resource: Custom Databanks, Inc. is a boutique information firm in New York. It offers full contact data name, telephone, fax and e-mail address for a solid core of recruiters, companies and venture capitalist firms. You can choose its mail-merge product allowing you to send your cover letter and résumé yourself. Or, if you're not technically handy, for a higher fee, the company will do it for you.

How much does access to the e-database cost? Prices start at about $60, but could easily rise above $500 depending on how much product you order. The firm employs 12 "database cleaners" to constantly correct the entries. You can place your résumé on targeted computer screens within 24 hours.

A strategy suggested by the firm's owner, Jane Lockshin, starts with recruiters and venture capitalists (who sometimes know start-ups' hiring plans) and skips employers for the initial distribution. What if you lack a college degree but have great experience? Lockshin recommends a tailored e-letter instead of a résumé; a letter doesn't flag your missing degree and gives you a chance to explain if a recruiter calls you.

The Directory of Executive Recruiters from Kennedy Publications in Fitzwilliam, N.H., offers somewhat similar selections in an e-database maintained by six full-time "cleaners," including mail merge, but at slightly lower prices.

A new Kennedy service, ExecutiveAgent.com operates at a separate Web site but allows you to target recipients. This could be a "best buy" because the cost is a flat $99 and the firm sends your résumé to your targets.

The free RecruiterLink Online Database in Stamford, Connecticut is a new Internet-based service from Hunt-Scanlon, experts in the recruiter industry on which recruiters pay for inclusion and update their own listings. After you target, all the recruiters that meet your profile are displayed. Next, you move to full descriptions of each recruiting firm, including pictures and a link to e-mail. There's no mail merge feature in this classy presentation but the price is right.

E-databases are promising tools to search for senior-level jobs.

Send career questions for possible use in this column to Joyce Lain Kennedy at Box 368, Cardiff, CA 92007, or e-mail her at jlk@sunfeatures.com. Sorry, the volume of mail makes personal replies impossible.