Who.Is as a Sourcing Tool

"WHOIS is a query and response protocol that is widely used for querying databases that store the registered users or assignees of an Internet resource, such as a domain name, an IP address block, or an autonomous system, but is also used for a wider range of other information. The protocol stores and delivers database content in a human-readable format."

Or so says Wikipedia. As a technical recruiter we've already got such a throng of tools available to us; why would this be useful to us, and how is it even relevent? The WHOIS protocol, when manifested in websites such as who.is or whois.com, will (more often than not) allow you to get the e-mail address and phone number of the person who registered that domain. That is why it's relevent to us.

I used this as recently as last week to get hold of a contractor for a very specific Flash role I have been working on. I had found the candidate through a simple X-Ray search via Google on LinkedIn. No joy in adding him, or InMailing him.

A Google search brings up his portfolio, but there are very few other contact details, and he's done well to hide his e-mail address from any of the forums, boards and social networks he frequents.

Handily for us, his blog appears on his own domain, which allows us to use http://who.is/ to hopefully bring up those all important things; the contact details.

And there they are. :)

I'd also add as a side note; a more obvious solution could be to contact a potential candidate at their place of work, but a) that is not always possible (especially with contractors) and b) as a rule, I don't like doing it; only as a last resort. I've had several people react very badly to being contacted at work and given my business is built mainly around my relationships with candidates, it's an option I try to avoid.

-TW