The document discusses the search capabilities and infrastructure at TheLadders.com. It describes how they standardized their search using Solr, setting up a search team in 2010 and platform team in 2011. It also discusses challenges like complex boolean queries and implementing a recommendation service using Solr as the backend.

1. Click
to
edit
Master
/tle
style
Using
dit
Master
text
styles
• Click
to
e Solr
t o
find
– Second
level
the
right
person
• Third
level
– Fourth
level
for
the
right
job
» Fi6h
level
M A Y
2 0 1 1
L A U R A
K A N G
T H E L A D D E R S . C O M

2. Agenda
Click
to
edit
Master
/tle
style
• Click
to
edit
Master
text
styles
Search
at
the
Ladders
• Current
Plrojects
– Second
evel
• Third
level
– Standardiza2on
of
search
products
– Fourth
level
– Recommenda2on
service
» Fi6h
level
• Suggested
Candidates
– Tes2ng
Sessions
– Challenges
and
Future
Work

3. TheLadders.com
Click
to
edit
Master
/tle
style
• Click
to
eob
sMaster
text
areer
management
$100K+
j dit
earch
and
c styles
• Right
person
for
the
right
job,
right
job
for
the
right
– Second
level
person
level
• Third
– Fourth
level
• >
4
million
evel
embers
» Fi6h
l m
• Recruit
Ladder
• Community
of
recruiters
and
job
seekers
• Job
search
advisors
and
talent
specialists

4. Search
edit
M adders
Click
to
at
the
Laster
/tle
style
• Click
to
edit
Master
text
styles
January
2010:
search
team
formed.
– Second
level
computa2onal
linguist,
Dr.
Leslie
BarreD
First
member:
• February
evel
plaYorm
team
formed.
• Third
l 2011:
– Fourth
level
– 9
members
» Fi6h
level
– Search,
CMS,
shared
services
– Led
by
Ed
Cudahy

5. Solr/Lucene
at
the
Ladders
Click
to
edit
Master
/tle
style
• Click
to
edit
Master
text
styles
Search
– Second
level
• Third
level
Subscriber
– Fourth
level
Candidate
Recruiter
Hiring
Editorial
Job
search
search
search
search
alerts
content
» Fi6h
level
search
search
Sugges/ons
Candidate
Job
to
Recruiter
to
Recruiters
Candidates
Jobs
to
Job
Candidate
Candidate
like
this
like
this
like
this

6. Standardiza/on
of
Search
Products
Click
to
edit
Master
/tle
style
• Click
to
edit
Master
text
styles
Before
– Second
ilmplementa2ons
Legacy
evel
• Local
l ucene
• Third
Level
index
• Different
vevel
– Fourth
l ersions
of
Solr
» Fi6h
level
– Hard
to
make
improvements
• Move
to
Solr
3.1.0

7. Solr
S o
edit
Click
tetup
Master
/tle
style
• Click
to
edit
Master
text
styles
Extended
dismax
– Second
level
• Preprocessing
non-­‐alphanumeric
characters
• Third
level
• Analyzers/Tokenizers
– Fourth
level
– Stop
word
evel
» Fi6h
l removal
– Index-­‐side
synonym
expansion
– Custom
stemmers
• Custom
length
normaliza/on
for
job
descrip/on
and
resumes
• Replica/on
• Mul/-­‐core
• Template:
maven
archetype
• Autosuggest

8. Challenges
Click
to
edit
Master
/tle
style
• Click
to
edit
Master
text
styles
Power
users
– Second
oolean
queries
Large
B level
– Target
revel
set
of
50
• Third
l esult
– Fourth
level
•
Synonyms
with
different
lengths
» Fi6h
level
– HR
manager
vs.
Human
Resource
manager
– Phrase
slop
• Company
variants
• Communica/ng
to
users

9. Typical
e uery
Click
to
Qdit
M
aster
/tle
style
• Click
to
edit
Master
text
styles
• Title:
"sales
consultant"
"sales
engineer"
"solu/ons
architect"
"solu/on
architect"
engineer
architect
– Second
level
"pre-­‐sales
consultant"
"presales
consultant"
"solu/ons
engineer"
-­‐president
-­‐vp
-­‐cmo
-­‐ceo
-­‐cfo
-­‐chief
-­‐
director
-­‐so6ware
-­‐"s/w"
–database
• Third
level
– Fourth
level
• Loca+on:
Redwood
City,
CA,
100
miles
» Fi6h
level
• Company:
apple
"ingram
micro"
"tech
data"
intermec
"insight
enterprises"
"super
micro
computer"
"digi
interna/onal
inc"
radisys
"silicon
graphics
interna/onal
corp"
cray
angilysys
voltaire
"concurrent
computer"
gtsi
"socket
mobile"
hp
hewled
hitachi
ibm
"i.
b.
m."
"i.b.m."
"interna/onal
business
machines"
"business
machines"
intevac
xyratex
quantum
"western
digital"
wd
w.d.
ramtron
"micron
technology"
e.m.c.
"e.
m.
c."
sandisk
brocade
seagate
3par
stec
"dot
hill"
ocz
o.c.z.
"o.
c.
z."
"hutchinson
technology"
"hutchinson
tech"
lasercard
edci
dataram
"overland
storage"
emc
netapp
• Keyword:
(presales
"pre
sales"
pre-­‐sales
sales)
AND
(engineer
engineering)
AND
(storage
hardware
"sun
microsystems"
"sun
servers")

10. Recommenda/on
Service
Click
to
edit
Master
/tle
style
• Click
to
edit
Master
text
styles
RESTful
web
service
• Solr
backend
– Second
level
• Third
level
• Tracking/feedback
– Fourth
level
Client
Applica/on
• A/B
framework
» Fi6h
level
Recommenda/on
Service
Candidate
Job
to
Recruiter
to
Recruiters
Candidates
Jobs
to
Job
Candidate
Candidate
like
this
like
this
like
this

11. Other
Projects
Click
to
edit
Master
/tle
style
• Click
to
edit
Master
text
styles
Resume
parsing
– Second
agging
Parse
fl level
• Company
list
• Third
level
– Fourth
level
– Company
evel
» Fi6h
l
variants
– Similar
companies
• Synonym
list
genera/on
• Search
help
for
users

12. Suggested
Candidates
Click
to
edit
Master
/tle
style
• Click
to
edit
Master
text
Ladder
Coming
soon
on
Recruit
styles
hdp://recruit.theladders.com
– Second
level
• Third
level
• Suggest
candidates
that
might
be
a
good
match
when
a
– Fourth
level
recruiter
plosts
a
job
» Fi6h
evel
• Goal:
– Help
recruiters
quickly
iden2fy
candidates
that
are
right
for
the
job
– Increase
interac2on
between
recruiters
and
job
seekers

13. Click
to
edit
Master
/tle
style
• Click
to
edit
Master
text
styles
– Second
level
• Third
level
– Fourth
level
» Fi6h
level

14. Click
to
edit
Master
/tle
style
• Click
to
edit
Master
text
styles
– Second
level
• Third
level
– Fourth
level
» Fi6h
level

15. Click
to
edit
Master
/tle
style
• Click
to
edit
Master
text
styles
– Second
level
• Third
level
– Fourth
level
» Fi6h
level

16. Click
to
edit
Master
/tle
style
• Click
to
edit
Master
text
styles
– Second
level
• Third
level
– Fourth
level
» Fi6h
level

17. Suggested
Candidates
Click
to
edit
Master
/tle
style
• Click
to
edit
Master
text
styles
Hybrid
– Second
level
Categories
1. Posi/on
• Third
level
level
Fourth
level
2. – Job
special/es/disciplines
3. » Fi6h
level
Industry
•
Job
/tle
=>
posi/on
level
(VP,
director)
+
job
func/on
(marke/ng)
•
Relevance
matrices
for
par/al
matches
– Text
•
Job
func/on
keywords
•
Candidate’s
job
experience
vs.
job
descrip/on
using
MoreLikeThis
• Boos/ng
• Filters:
salary
range,
years
of
experience,
loca/on

18. Challenges
Click
to
edit
Master
/tle
style
• Click
to
edit
Master
text
styles
Cer/fica/ons
and
skills
– Second
level
Taxonomy
• “Good”
rlesume
• Third
evel
– Fourth
level
– Resume
slcoring
» Fi6h
evel
• Job
descrip/on
– Short
job
descrip2ons
– “Series
7
&
63
and
10+
years
of
experience
in
related
field
required”
– Company
descrip2on/Equal
Employment
Opportunity
clauses
• Different
priori/es
for
each
job
type

19. Evalua/on
Click
to
edit
Master
/tle
style
• Click
to
roducts:
text
styles
Other
p edit
Master
– Second
level
precision:
search
Mean-­‐average
– A/B
tes2ng:
suggested
jobs
• Third
level
– Fourth
level
• Tes/ng
sessions
with
talent
specialists
and
external
» Fi6h
level
recruiters
• Randomly
selected
set
of
jobs
• Given
5
candidates
and
their
resumes
0
=
not
a
good
match
1
=
keep
in
pipeline
2
=
contact

20. Future
Work
Click
to
edit
Master
/tle
style
• Click
to
edit
Master
text
styles
Job
descrip/on
parser
– Second
level
Skills
and
cer2fica2ons
• UI
improvements
• Third
level
– Fourth
level
– Personalized
weights
and
filters
» Fi6h
level
– Company
descrip2on
• Geospa/al
features
• Recommenda/on
Service:
user
ra/ngs
• Search/Recommenda/on
quality
tes/ng
framework
– Customer
sa2sfac2on
metrics
– Pre-­‐release
metrics

21. We’re
hiring
Click
to
edit
Master
/tle
style
• Click
to
edit
Master
text
styles
Email
lkang@theladders.com
– Second
level
• Third
level
– Fourth
level
» Fi6h
level

22. Ques/ons?
Click
to
edit
Master
/tle
style
• Click
to
edit
Master
text
styles
– Second
level
• Third
level
– Fourth
level
» Fi6h
level