ZoomInfo: Pro or Con?

BOSTON, MA - California technical recruiter and internet sourcer, Kevin Jenkins, asked the sourcing gang over at RecruitingBlogs.com what they make of ZoomInfo.  Kevin's question:  ZoomInfo, pro or con?

Here's my answer:

Zoom is very useful for senior executive level searches in industries that are outside of the recruiter's normal area of expertise.  For example, I am an ecommerce marketing recruiter, but I was able to build a very compelling slate of candidates for a Fortune 500 CIO search I handled last year. The winning candidate was a referral, but the two runner ups were from ZoomInfo.

However, I don't do that much work outside of my normal area of expertise.  My inhouse database holds >50,000 ecommerce executives, which is larger than Zoom's.

Also, ZoomInfo is not cheap -- and their reps do not engage in deep discounting.  The company also frowns on group subscriptions (at least in my experience).

And finally, at the time my ZoomInfo account had expired I had >10,000 unused exports in my account. While Zoom was anxious to renew my subscription, getting them to roll-over my exports was not a slam dunk.  I never fully understood this, as these exports had no value to anyone else but me.  But to me, these exports were (and still are) very valuable inventory.

Bottom line: Great tool. Nice people. Not cheap.