I don't know many tech recruiters who don't at least have a grudging appreciation of Dice. Not only was Dice one of the sponsors of Talent42, their new President Shravan Goli gave a presentation on their latest offering, Open Web. I think he said he's been on the job for about three months. I'm not sure what he did before Dice, but I'm sure it takes a brave man to represent a JOB BOARD in front of a room of hungry (and possibly some purist anti-job board) recruiters.

Most would agree Dice has you covered for active candidates, obviously. What about passive? Because everyone knows that’s where the money’s at. Dice’s Open Web database claims to have over 6 million profiles. Open Web’s goal is to allow recruiters to reach more qualified candidates with fewer steps – instead of running Boolean strings on a bunch of obscure websites.

What if you can go to one place (aggregator) to find unique candidates? Open Web is in beta, available for free to all Dice customers. But how does it work? Some really smart developers behind the scenes have created these fancy algorithms using data mining techniques and a little AI to process tons of information and turn it into profiles. The aggregator pulls from Facebook, LinkedIn, github, Google+, Twitter, YouTube, Gravatar and probably a lot more sites to compile information. This is great for skeleton profiles that are hardly filled out across different sites. Now a Dice profile links to the Open Web profile offering a 360 degree view of your potential candidates.

My favorite quote from the presenter was that the brains at Dice recognize there is “no single way to source talent. Open Web can be part of the workflow.” FINALLY. Someone realizes that there is no single Holy Grail of Recruiting. The day there is only one place for recruiters to go we’ll crash the system and recruiting will go back to the dark ages.

What’s the point of Open Web, you ask? Now recruiters can take information and use it to craft better messages. Customize your conversation. Aren’t we always told how much candidates hate our stock messaging? Open Web can help by providing more details about our targets. If you’re already a Dice user, Open Web is currently free. The first thing I did was call my sourcing partner, who has a license, and asked her to check it out. I'll let you know what she says about the product!