While attending the Social Recruiting Summit in Minneapolis back in May, I made specific note of a common sentiment expressed by recruiting representatives of two social recruiting powerhouses – Best Buy and Facebook: They don’t have any trouble attracting people, but they do have a tough time attracting the right people.

Recruiters in attendance scoffed at the thought that these two great companies with fantastic brands would have problems attracting talent.

However, I wasn’t surprised – not in the least. And I’ll tell you why.

Talent Attraction Offers Very Little Control

Talent attraction efforts, social media-based or otherwise, offer a near-total lack of control over precisely who gets attracted.

Having a great corporate brand coupled with a great employer brand will draw strong interest and response, but it doesn’t give you the ability to choose who you attract, whether they come in the form of referrals, ad responses, or resume submissions.

Talent Attraction Efforts are Passive and Non-Selective

Talent attraction is an intrinsically passive and non-selective strategy. Even if you use a state of the art interactive recruiting solution that pushes your content all over the Internet in a highly targeted manner (inasmuch as such efforts are limited to surface-level targeting), you have no control over who actually sees, perceives, or acts upon your content (jobs, tweets, Facebook/YouTube videos, etc.).

That’s right – even if you can be guaranteed to get your content in front of precisely the right people (and you can’t), it doesn’t mean they will actually “see” your content, even if their look directly at it, let alone take action.

Why?

Passive and Non-Job Seekers Don’t “See” Employer / Employment Content

The majority of people – approximately 66% – aren’t really looking for a job, or even thinking about making a change.

People who are not really looking to make a change in their employment tend to not even perceive employment-related content.

If you just bought a vehicle, or perhaps if you just like your current vehicle – do you notice car ads? Sure – if you’re into cars. But to someone who isn’t specifically interested in cars, they will not even register a car advertisement, no matter how interesting or compelling. Even if they were to “see” a car advertisement for a vehicle that they found highly appealing – how often do you think they would take a decisive action to buy that specific vehicle if they didn’t actually need a new one?

Changing jobs is a stressful event – supposedly one of the most stressful events that can occur in your life, along with getting married, moving your home, getting divorced, and coping with the death of a loved one.

No matter how compelling the employer branding content/message, as a passive strategy, a recruiter/employer is leaving the decision to act or not to act in the hands of the potential candidate.

If changing jobs is a highly stressful event, even for active job seekers, imagine how difficult is actually is to not only get someone who really isn’t looking to make a change in their employment to #1 actually perceive employer branding/job content, and #2 take specific action on it.

It’s a shame that too few sourcers and recruiters take the time to think about what the world looks like through the eyes of a passive or non-job seeking “A” player.

Don’t Just Set Traps – Go Hunting!

Relying heavily on pushing content and hoping that the right people see it and actually take action upon it will leave you constantly struggling to attract enough of the right people. Companies need to put just as much, if not more energy and effort into taking an active role in seeking out and identifying, contacting, engaging, and recruiting the right people – whether they’re looking for a new job or not.

Searching for people is an active strategy that is a selective process which affords you the ability to precisely control who you find, engage and recruit. Directly messaging and calling the right people who you’ve specifically searched for and identified puts the power of action in the hands of the sourcer/recruiter.

Well over half of the people I’ve recruited were “not looking” when I found them and made contact. Those are hires that would never have happened had I waited for them to notice my content and take action (or not!) or be referred to me.

Final Thoughts

While the “war for talent” would be a whole lot easier if simply placing employer branding content and jobs in front of people via social media and traditional channels would net you large quantities of the right talent, it simply doesn’t work that way, nor will it ever.

It can’t.

Talent attraction strategies and tactics, regardless of the medium utilized, are passive and non-selective strategies and afford no control over who is attracted.

Of course, every employer should post jobs and publish employer branding content via social media to attract talent – it works, especially for people who are actively and casually looking for new employment opportunities.

But if you’re having trouble attracting enough of the right people, don’t just sit back and hope for them to notice and take action in response to your posting or your Twitter/LinkedIn/Facebook content, or to be referred to you – take initiative and control and go find and engage them.

Because the majority of the right people won’t come to you, and they’re certainly not seriously thinking of taking action to make a change in employment.

I believe sourcing for candidates is like fishing.

When people go fishing, they are aware of the fish they can actually see in the water and of course the fish they catch. However, most people who go fishing don’t spend any time wondering about all of the fish in the pond, lake, or ocean they are fishing in that they have access to, but never catch.

Similarly, when most people source for candidates – they are only aware of the candidates they find. They don’t give much thought to all of the great candidates they actually have access to, but fail to find, review, or even recognize as a potential match. 

I recently spoke at a Technology Association of Georgia’s (TAG) Recruiting Society event about this very concept. Below is a modified version of the presentation, edited to make more sense given that you don’t have the benefit of seeing/hearing me address the slides.

Enjoy!

Sourcers and recruiters are often tasked with finding candidates that have experience in a specific industry. I’m sure that such a thing seems easy to the hiring managers and clients making the request, but it’s actually not an easily accomplished feat to perform exhaustively.

Sure, finding some people who work in a specific industry is easy – simply target one or a few major companies/competitors and you’re off to the races, right?

Not so fast, unless you’re happy only finding some people and you’re not really concerned with finding the best.

Most industries are comprised of many companies, and some have several hundred to over 1000! How can anyone say for sure that if they targeted 10 or fewer companies in an industry that they were exposing themselves to the best talent available?

Some people (and companies) think that the best talent can only come from a short list of companies they’ve identified, which seems both absurd and short-sighted in my opinion. The most talented “game changers” don’t always come from a blue chip Fortune 500 company.

However, even if a sourcer/recruiter wanted to identify people who worked at any one of a large number of companies in a particular industry, they are stuck to only searching for a few companies at a time because most search engines/interfaces have limits to the length of the search string that can be run. This can make for an extremely tedious and laborious search process, which explains why most sourcers and recruiters only search for a handful of companies or make use of built-in industry search functionality.

Industry Search Limitations

One way to search for people who have experience in a specific industry is to use an industry filter/selection, such as LinkedIn’s:

However, a while back I wrote about the intrinsic challenges and limitations of searching for people based on an industry selection which can actually prevent you from finding the people you’re looking for.

A large part of the problem lies in the fact that many people have experience working in more than one industry, yet they can only select one on their LinkedIn profile. The other issue at hand comes from the fact that people can and will identify themselves in any way they want to – which may have nothing to do with the way YOU would identify or label them. 

For example, a marketing professional working for a pharmaceutical company can just as easily think of themselves as working in the “Consumer Goods” or “Marketing and Advertising” industry when making the selection on their LinkedIn profile rather than “Pharmaceuticals.”

Of course this challenge isn’t limited to LinkedIn or social media in general – this phenomenon also occurs in job board resume databases and corporate ATS/CRM systems with similar functionality.

Is There a Better Way to Search for Industry-Specific Experience?

Let’s say you are in need of finding people with SAP experience who have worked in the Food Production industry. If this were something you were asked to do on a regular basis, you’d probably have a list of companies that you typically target for these folks. However, even if you didn’t you can easily create one.

Using LinkedIn’s company search functionality, you can browse for your industry and make appropriate selections amongst the various search options to end up with a list of companies that fit your criteria.

In the example, I refined the search down to 116 companies. Most sourcers and recruiters only search for a handful of companies at a time (or at all), typically due to the limitations of most search interfaces/engines.

However, because a basic LinkedIn account has for all intents and purposes “bottomless” search fields, we can take those 116 companies and, through some creative use of Excel, Word and find and replace, create a 350 word OR statement that we can put in the Company field:

Try doing that with a job board database, an Internet search engine, or your ATS/CRM.

If you take a look at all of the industries in the search results, you’ll see that most of the people who have worked for one of the 116 Food Production companies we searched for did not choose “Food Production” – only about 18% of the results from the top 10 industries represented in the results come from “Food Production” (572 out of 3,181).

If someone was searching for people who mention SAP on their LinkedIn profile and who selected the Food Production industry, they would only be finding a small fraction of the total available and relevant results!

Thank You LinkedIn!

The ability to search for large volumes of companies in a particular industry (I’ve had no issues with 300+!) gives you a more exhaustive and complete method of identifying potential talent with specific industry experience, regardless of which industry the potential candidates selected when creating/updating their profile. 

Of course, when crafting company searches, you’ll have to keep in mind that there are often many ways that people will write company names – you can only find exactly what you search for in most cases.

Happy hunting!

I feel a moral obligation to weigh in on “social recruiting” again.

I’m not trying to be a buzzkill – but with the continuing swell of momentum and hype that social recruiting is building up, someone has to play the devil’s advocate, refuse to become a victim of BSO (Bright Shiny Object) syndrome, and jump off of the bandwagon to be the voice of objective reason amidst the din of social recruiting cheerleading.

From the many blog posts I am seeing on the subject to the webinars I see popping up frequently, it’s clear that many people see social recruiting as a branding and/or money making opportunity for them.

On the flip side of the coin, there are many people who seem ready to view social recruiting as “the next big thing” and are eager to absorb (and pay for) the message that if you’re not performing “social recruiting” you’re behind the curve, you’ll be left behind, your competitors will laugh at your antiquated recruiting methods, and you’ll never make another hire.

Okay, maybe I’m getting a little dramatic with the last part(s).

But you get the point.

While social media/networking has undeniably added a new dimension to recruiting, it’s important to know that the emergence and evolution of LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and other sites have not changed many fundamental aspects of recruiting.

First, You Should Know That…

I use social media – I blog, use LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook, and I’ve made and facilitated hires using them. I train recruiters on how to successfully recruit using every tool and resource available to them – including social media. I work with many recruiters who regularly use LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook to identify, engage, and recruit candidates – and yes…get results. One recruiter recently made 3 placements in a month using Facebook. 

So I am no stranger to “social recruiting.” I just don’t like to call it that.

What Social Networks HAVE Changed In Recruiting

Access and Engagement

It’s never been easier in the history of recruiting to find and communicate with potential candidates and we’ve never had such easy access to them. The “Big 3″ social networks afford recruiters with unfettered access to 10’s to 100’s of millions of people that they can find, communicate with, engage, and build relationships with. 

For free. That’s a BIG deal.

Listening

Social media allows recruiters the unprecedented ability to listen to/observe their target talent pool prior to making contact or engaging them.

Marketing

While social networks give companies fantastic new opportunities and mediums for employer branding – that’s social media marketing - NOT social recruiting, as far as I am concerned. Although marketing and recruiting often go hand in hand, they are two very separate and distinct concepts.

Talent Communities

LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and other online social networks can easily and effectively be used to create and/or tap into talent communities of like-skilled/minded professionals.

However, one could easily argue that this isn’t a new concept at all (let’s not forget about BBS’s) – but social networks such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and others definitely put a sexier spin on it along with more functionality. 

What Social Networks Have NOT Changed In Recruiting

Job Posting

Yes – you have many options for posting jobs today aside from the job boards (which are supposed to be dying or dead, just as job boards were supposed to have killed recruiting agencies and executive search 10+ years ago).

You can post jobs on Facebook (manually, through services, and apps), on LinkedIn (paid or free in groups and status updates), and Twitter (manually, automatically through feeds, and through services).

So who cares?

Yes – you should be posting your jobs wherever they can be potentially seen by your target talent population.

However, posting jobs is posting jobs, regardless of where or how they are posted.

As I have written before, posting jobs is a passive and reactive talent acquisition strategy, affords no control over candidate qualifications, attracts active and casual job seekers only (the minority of all people), and is ineffective at snagging passive and non-job seekers.

Plus, posting jobs to social networks via social media is not ”social recruiting,” it’s social job posting.

Would you even say that job posting is really “recruiting” anyway?

Engagement

While social media and social networks do give recruiters a new medium through which they can engage and interact with potential candidates, communicating electronically/digitally is not revolutionary and is definitely not limited to social networks. 

Is an InMail, Twitter DM, or Facebook message any more “social” and engaging than an email? And where do most of those social media messages end up? In the person’s email inbox.

Which would you say is more engaging – a Twitter conversation, or a phone conversation?

You Still Have to Talk to People

Social media gives recruiters and employers one more medium through which they can interact with potential candidates. However, social networking sites such as LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook are neither replacements nor prerequisites for telephonic or in-person communication.

Just because you can, is it really necessary to use a social network to message or interact with a potential candidate before speaking with them over the phone?

Social

Recruiting has always been social – social networks did NOT put the “social” into recruiting.

Which is more “social” – having an exchange via Facebook/LinkedIn group or Twitter chat, or talking to someone on the phone or in person?

Talent Identification

While LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and other social networking/media sites afford sourcers, recruiters and employers with unprecedented access to millions of potential candidates, some sites aren’t very searchable and most social profiles are very shallow sources of professional information.

Facebook is well-nigh unsearchable, for all practical intents and purposes (at least for anything more specific than a keyword or phrase), and very few people list employers, titles, and other information that would give you any sense of what a person does, how much experience they have, and what they are capable of doing.

Twitter has 160 character bios where some people will give away clues as to what they do professionally, but many don’t. Also, a great many people simply don’t tweet about what they do for a living. 

Categorized as the most “professional” social network, while some LinkedIn profiles are fleshed out nearly as well as a typical resume, most contain employers and titles and little-to-nothing else. While that level of information can certainly be used for some degree of talent identification, it’s not as effective, efficient, nor as accurate as using deeper sources of data such as resumes (like the ones in your ATS/CRM – you know, the ones from people who at some point expressed interest in your company?).

While social networks have given recruiters unprecedented access to more people than ever in the history of recruitment – simply having access does not grant the ability to find and identify the right (and best!) people easily, quickly, or at all. If anything, having more access to more potential candidates only stresses the importance of good search skills.

Point to ponder – just because a recruiter uses a social network to find a potential candidate, does that mean they are performing “social recruiting?” For example, if you search LinkedIn, find a potential candidate, join a group they are in and send them a message – is that any more “social recruiting” than searching your ATS/CRM or an online resume database and emailing the candidate? 

What if you find someone on LinkedIn and you research the main number for the company listed as their current employer and give them a call – is that any more “social recruiting” than searching your ATS/CRM or an online resume database and calling a candidate?

Is one of those methods more effective than the other?

Final Thoughts

Social media and social networks that enable and facilitate social interaction have unquestionably given recruiters unprecedented access to and the ability communicate with large populations of potential candidates where they live online, but social media is no more “social” than attending a user group/networking event or simply picking up the phone and speaking with a potential candidate.

The “human element” of recruiting – effectively communicating and building relationships with candidates, understanding candidate motivators, consultative selling, etc. – none of these have been changed or altered by the emergence of social media.

I fear that “Social Recruiting” has become it’s own box that recruiters and employers need to think outside of.

Hasn’t recruiting always been social?

Do you really need to use Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn to be a “social recruiter?”

I say that recruiting is recruiting – by any means available, applicable, and necessary, no matter how it is accomplished (ethically, professionally, and respectably – of course) or through which tool/medium. I don’t see how anything is gained by slapping another label on it.

If you ever have a need to perform diversity sourcing, I’m going to show you a trick on LinkedIn that goes beyond the obvious and “everyone’s doing it” methods of searching for fraternities, sororities, specific universities, and of course groups, societies and associations.

Let’s say you were in need of identifying people with specific skills and experience that are also women (software engineers, CFO’s, etc.), and you’ve already tried the standard methods of identifying them. One tactic some people and organizations utlize is searching for common first names for women. However, with most search engines, you’re limited in the size of the search string you can run (sometimes as few as 100 characters!), so you can’t search for many names with a single search. Plus, limiting yourself to only the most common first names is, well…limiting.

While I’ve written about the fact that LinkedIn’s search fields appear bottomless (I have yet to find a limit to the number of characters/terms that can be entered and searched for), I don’t know of many people who try and take advantage of LinkedIn’s limitless search fields.

See where I might be going here?

Imagine if you could search for a large number of names at once – not just common names, but practicaly all names.

You could go to a baby names website (or any names website – take your pick, there are MANY), look up girl names, and build huge OR strings.

For example, here is a search for 385 girl names starting with C:

(Cade OR Cadee OR Cadence OR Cadrian OR Caelyn OR Cai OR Cailey OR Cailin OR Caimile OR Cairine OR Cairistiona OR Cait OR Caitlin OR Caitlyn OR Caitrin OR Caja OR Cala OR Calandra OR Calantha OR Caledonia OR Calendre OR Caley OR Calida OR Calista OR Calix OR Calixte OR Calla OR Callan OR Callia OR Callidora OR Calliope OR Callista OR Callisto OR Caltha OR Calypso OR Cambria OR Camelai OR Camellia OR Cameo OR Camilla OR Camille OR Camira OR Canace OR Candace OR Candice OR Candida OR Candide OR Candie OR Candra OR Candy OR Cantara OR Caoimhe OR Capri OR Caprice OR Cara OR Caragh OR Carajean OR Caralee OR Caralyn OR Cardinia OR Caren OR Carensa OR Carenza OR Caresse OR Carew OR Carey OR Carha OR Cari OR Carin OR Carina OR Carine OR Carissa OR Carla OR Carleigh OR Carlen OR Carley OR Carlie OR Carlin OR Carlina OR Carling OR Carlota OR Carlotta OR Carly OR Carmel OR Carmela OR Carmelita OR Carmen OR Carmine OR Carmita OR Carna OR Carnation OR Carnelian OR Carol OR Carolena OR Caroline OR Carolyn OR Caron OR Carreen OR Carrie OR Carrieann OR Carrigan OR Carrington OR Carryl OR Cary OR Caryn OR Carys OR Cascadia OR Casey OR Casilda OR Casondra OR Cassandra OR Cassia OR Cassiel OR Casta OR Castalia OR Catalin OR Catalina OR Catalonia OR Catarina OR Catava OR Caterina OR Cathay OR Cathee OR Catherine OR Cathie OR Cathleen OR Cathlene OR Cathy OR Catrin OR Catriona OR Cauvery OR Cayla OR Cayleigh OR Ceana OR Cecania OR Cecia OR Cecile OR Cecilia OR Cecily OR Ceinwen OR Celandia OR Celandine OR Celena OR Celene OR Celeste OR Celestyn OR Celia OR Celie OR Celina OR Celine OR Cerdwin OR Cerelia OR Ceres OR Ceridwen OR Cerise OR Chaitaly OR Chaitra OR Chalsie OR Chana OR Chanah OR Chance OR Chandani OR Chandi OR Chane OR Chanel OR Chantal OR Chantel OR Charis OR Charisma OR Charissa OR Charisse OR Charity OR Charla OR Charlee OR Charleen OR Charleigh OR Charlene OR Charline OR Charlot OR Charlotte OR Charmaine OR Charmian OR Charo OR Charu OR Chastity OR Chavi OR Chay OR Chaya OR Chaylen OR Chelle OR Chelsa OR Chelsea OR Chelsi OR Chelsia OR Chenoa OR Cher OR Cheri OR Cherie OR Cherilyn OR Cherise OR Cherish OR Cherlin OR Cherry OR Cheryl OR Chesna OR Chevonne OR Chhavvi OR Chhaya OR Chiara OR Chika OR Chilali OR Chimalis OR Chipo OR Chiquita OR Chitra OR Chitrangda OR Chizu OR Chloe OR Chloris OR Cho OR Choden OR Chow OR Chrissy OR Christa OR Christabel OR Christal OR Christea OR Christel OR Christelle OR Christian OR Christiana OR Christie OR Christina OR Christine OR Christmas OR Christy OR Chruse OR Chrysantha OR Chrysilla OR Chyou OR Ciannait OR Ciar OR Ciara OR Cicely OR Cicily OR Cilla OR Cinderella OR Cindy OR Cindylou OR Cinnabar OR Cinnamon OR Circe OR Cirea OR Cissy OR Claiborne OR Claire OR Clara OR Clarabelle OR Clare OR Clarice OR Clarinda OR Clarine OR Clarissa OR Claudia OR Clematis OR Clemence OR Clementine OR Cleo OR Cleomenes OR Cleopatra OR Cleta OR Cleva OR Cliantha OR Clio OR Clodagh OR Clodia OR Clorinda OR Cloris OR Clotilda OR Clove OR Clover OR Clymene OR Cochiti OR Cody OR Colenso OR Colette OR Colleen OR Colletta OR Collette OR Columba OR Columbia OR Columbine OR Concepcion OR Concordia OR Conncetta OR Connie OR Constance OR Consuela OR Consuelo OR Coorah OR Cora OR Corabelle OR Coral OR Coralia OR Coralie OR Corazon OR Corbin OR Cordelia OR Coreen OR Corentine OR Corey OR Corin OR Corina OR Corinda OR Corine OR Corinna OR Corinne OR Corliss OR Cornelia OR Cornelian OR Corona OR Corowa OR Corrine OR Cory OR Cosette OR Cosima OR Cossette OR Courtney OR Crescent OR Cressida OR Crisiant OR Crispina OR Cristin OR Cristina OR Cristine OR Cristiona OR Cristy OR Crystal OR Curissa OR Cuyler OR Cybele OR Cybil OR Cybill OR Cynara OR Cyndi OR Cynere OR Cynthia OR Cypriana OR Cyprien OR Cyrena OR Cyrene OR Cyrilla OR Cytheria OR Cyzarine)

Yes, LinkedIn can handle that 3800+ character (incl. spaces) search if you cram all of it into the First Name field:

All is Not Perfect

When you couple a first name search string of that size with a keyword and/or title search, I’ve found I sometimes get whitescreens – no results, but no errors either. I’ve also found that sometimes I get names that I definitely didn’t search for, such as “Chris,” when using the first name string I listed above combined with a keyword search. I’m not exactly certain what’s going on there (but I do have my theories…).

Although the huge first name searches definitely work (the size of the search string doesn’t prevent search execution), it seems to help to chop up the names searches somewhat when combining names searches with keywords and titles. Not only does it help with search performance, it also seems to help with relevance (less/no results creep into names not searched for). 

For example, here is a combination of 112 first names beginning with C and a keyword of “Java:”

One Step Further

Although the site I pulled the first names beginning with “C” from was somewhat of a mixture of nationality/ethnicity, you can certainly search for names from specific countries/ethnicities – Hispanic, Indian, Chinese – whatever suits your particular need.

Limitations

Sourcing by name can and will yield some false positives – it would be impossible to be guaranteed to only be returning results of a specific gender or ethnicity. It’s also quite challenging to compile a 100% complete list of names – can you ever be certain you’re searching for them all? I think not.

However, given LinkedIn’s ability to process very long search strings, it is quite easy to search by large collections of first names that have a high probability of returning results of a specific gender and/or ethnicity/nationality.

One Last Trick

When searching LinkedIn for any combination of keywords and/or title, if you were in need of targeting gender – you can add (she OR “she’s” OR her OR herself) to your keyword string. 

While the keywords won’t highlight in your search results – they are most certainly there, and they are pulled from hits in the LinkedIn profile and the recommendations as well, where they are especially telling.

Of course, this technique is even more limiting than searching by first name and only finds a fraction of the total available results, but it can be used as a quick “first pass,” and it does have a high degree of specificity.

Happy hunting!

LinkedIn now shows some new search functionality to the masses who use LinkedIn for free. Perhaps of greater interest, some previously free search options are now premium filters.

I first noticed the changes to LinkedIn’s advanced search page on Saturday, June 19th. Did they appear earlier and I just didn’t notice them? Perhaps I missed a press release?

For those of us without a premium LinkedIn account, the advanced people search interface used to look something like this:

Now it looks like this:

What’s New

While premium account holders have had access to these filters for some time now, the new search options visible to everyone now include sorting results by Function, Seniority Level, and Fortune (50 to 1000).

You can also sort by Company Size:

You won’t be able to take advantage of those search options without upgrading your LinkedIn account.

What’s No Longer Free

Previously, you did not need an upgraded account to search for people and choose to filter your results by Group and “Interested In.” 

If you don’t currently pay for LinkedIn and you click on these search filters from the advanced search interface, you’ll get a pop up window like this:

Although previously free, they are now premium filters, so you have to pay to play with them. 

Or do you?

After you execute a search, if you expand the Groups search filter, you will notice that you can type in the “Enter group name” field. 

 If you begin typing, LinkedIn will show you available options, and you can in fact use the filter to sort by group.

Interesting, yes? Give it a try.

You can also search within LinkedIn Groups the old-fashioned way – by going to Groups, selecting one, and searching within it. You can even click “Advanced Search” and the group you’re searching will be highlighted in the Groups list of the Advanced Search Interface.

As for filtering results by “Interested In,” I’d like to remind you about LinkedIn’s Advanced Search operators. I wrote about them in January 2009, but I don’t know many people who make use of them. However, if you want to be able to sort your search results by “Interested In” without upgrading your account, you’ll want to get to know them.

You can use the interest: operator to search LinkedIn and find people who have specified a particular interest – at least 1 of the 6 listed in this chart:

If you expand LinkedIn’s “Interested In” filter on the left rail, you’ll notice a total of 8 interests (see below), whereas the LinkedIn Advanced Search Operator Chart above only lists 6. 

While it wasn’t difficult to figure out that r = Reconnect, I haven’t yet figured out what = Reference check (if anything). Let me know if you do.

You can run a simple search such as this one using the interest: operator and successfully return results with the specified interest:

ccompany:cisco ctitle:engineer interest:p

If you mouse over the search results, you can see the interest is configured into the search:

You can also see that it works by looking on the left rail:

What the Future Holds

LinkedIn’s new filters are handy – they can definitely help a person quickly and easily refine their search results. I’m sure that more people and organizations will gladly pay to be able to utilize these search features, especially now that they are dangled in front of everyone who is currently using LinkedIn for free.

Charging for more advanced search options makes sense - LinkedIn is a business and they need to make money. I just hope that LinkedIn doesn’t continue the trend of taking free search options and converting them to premium filters.

I’m pretty sure some folks at LinkedIn will end up seeing this post, so don’t expect the Group and “Interested In” search tricks I revealed to last very long.

LinkedIn – you’re welcome for the free user/functionality testing. Can I at least get some LinkedIn schwag, or an honorary upgraded account? 

When you’re searching the Internet for potential candidates, it’s quite common (and practical) to search for resumes of  people who are likely to be local to your opportunity. The two main ways of doing this are searching by area code and searching by zip code range.

While there are limitations of both approaches (not everyone includes a phone number or address), in this post I want to explore an interesting phenomenon that was brought to my attention not too long ago which clearly demonstrates that even when people DO provide a phone number or address, you may not be able to find them by searching for that information.

Yes, you read that right.

Recently I had a recruiter in my network ask me why he could find a specific resume online using Google, but when he added the area code (which was clearly on the resume) to the search string – the search result disappeared.

When he sent me the screen shots, I investigated – and sure enough, he was right.

What I find especially interesting is the fact that he found the resume at all, because he wasn’t using any location criteria in his search to try and find local people. If his initial searches tried to target local people using an area code or zip code range, he would have never found the resume in the first place.

Moreover – he would never know of it’s existence.

Click on the image below to watch a short video clip of the Google resume search phenomenon:

Fascinating and Frightening

Seeing something like this makes me wonder how many people have resumes and other information online that are indexed by search engines, but are never found due to the search criteria used.

My instincts tell me there are many – but the insidious nature of searching is that all searches “work.” In other words – you get results from your searches, which gives you a false sense of security (and perhaps accomplishment), but you’re not aware of available results that your searches simply didn’t return. You can’t be.

In fact, it never occurs to most people to even wonder about available results they have access to, but are never retrieved.

However, just because you don’t find something – does that mean it doesn’t exist?

Why Does Google Fail to “Find” the Search Result?

I have my ideas as to why that specific resume cannot be found when adding the area code to the search, but I am curious to know your thoughts.

Multiple Search Engines

Of course, you should always employ difference search engines, as they don’t all index the exact same pages/sites. And even of they did index the same pages/sites, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they would return the exact same results for any particular search.

For example, while Google, Bing and Yahoo can find the same result without the area code, only Bing and Yahoo find the result that Google fails to return when adding the area code to the search string.

Beware!

I bring this example to your attention because you should always be aware of the fact that you may have access to people that you simply cannot find using certain search criteria, and it’s not limited only to location searching. Searching by skill, title, company, industry, etc., can be similarly affected.

It’s often simply impractical to NOT search with some location criteria – few people have the time to sort through and review results from all over the world that they cannot use. And location-focused searching doesn’t just apply to resume search, but also for any kind of searching in which you are trying to find people that live relatively close to where the opportunity you are sourcing/recruiting for is located.

Hopefully this post makes you think twice about your strategy and tactics to try and identify local people and helps you uncover previously “unfindable” results.

When it comes to searching LinkedIn using Internet search engines such as Google or Yahoo, there are many different ways to construct your search string (”X-Ray” or otherwise) and get results.

Ultimately, the goal of any good sourcer or recruiter is to find all of the best available potential candidates that a particular source has to offer.

A short while ago, Gary Cozin sent me a link to an article recommending to “forget complex Boolean strings” when searching LinkedIn using Internet search engines.

I read the article and appreciated the advice to go with the easier, simpler, more elegant search solutions, as well as the suggestion to try “Public profile powered by.” I had never thought of taking that approach – but more on that later.

First, a Little X-Ray History

If you do some research online, you’ll find that the LinkedIn X-Ray search strings that experts in the industry were recommending for years looked something like this:

site:www.linkedin.com intitle:linkedin “current * test manager” -intitle:answers -intitle:updated -intitle:blog -intitle:directory -inurl:jobs -inurl:megite.com -intitle:profile -inurl:jobid

That string has 8 exclusions – effective, but far from simple and elegant.

A while ago, I came up with and recommended a simpler, more elegant approach to the LinkedIn X-Ray search that focused on inclusion rather than a long list of exclusions by specifically targeting profiles using (inurl:in OR inurl:pub), which allowed me to get away with only using 1 exclusion: -intitle:directory.

This approach yielded a simple, short and effective “core” X-Ray syntax of:

site:linkedin.com (inurl:in OR inurl:pub) -intitle:directory

Short and sexy, right?

And Then….

Sometime in April, many people (including myself) noticed that when running a “standard” LinkedIn X-Ray string with Google, that rather than returning the familiar results of individual LinkedIn profiles, results would come back organized by first or last name. Additionally, many noticed that jobs would come up at the top of the results.

I checked into the matter and suggested to add a couple of exclusions, in the form of -inurl:dir -inurl:jobs to get back to the desired results of individual LinkedIn profiles.

That worked, but my simple, short and effective “core” X-Ray syntax of site:linkedin.com (inurl:in OR inurl:pub) -intitle:directory got a little longer and uglier with the addition of -inurl:dir -inurl:jobs. I wasn’t particularly happy about that, but it seemed the only way to get rid of the new garbage, non-individual profile, results.

However, it’s still shorter and more elegant than the X-Rays of yore with massive multiple exclusions.

A New Approach

Going back to the idea of using “Public profile powered by” when using an Internet search engine to look for public LinkedIn profiles – I was intrigued by the concept of dropping the X-Ray string altogether and targeting a phrase that is found on every public LinkedIn profile.

It simply never occurred to me to try it, and I sincerely appreciate the novel approach.

Gary Cozin asked me what I thought of the idea. My first impression was that I found it interesting and I respected the mini-breakthrough in thought that produced it, but I told Gary that I needed to do some testing to be able to tell if it is as effective as other methods of searching for LinkedIn profiles on the web.

So I Performed Some Tests

First – remember that when doing any comparison testing of Internet searches , you have to configure them so that they return a manageable number of results – ideally a few hundred or less. Anything higher than that, and you can get into “estimate” territory.

Here is a simple comparison of the “Public profile powered by” vs. a “standard” X-Ray search on Google.

First up – the “Public profile powered by:”

Microsoft “Public profile powered by” “greater atlanta area” “software engineer” java

That yields 7 results. You have to click on “repeat the search with the omitted results included” to get to 103 results. If you click through to page 10 of the results, for some reason there are only really 100. But you get the point.

Next we have a “standard” X-Ray search with the same criteria:

site:linkedin.com (inurl:in OR inurl:pub) -intitle:directory -inurl:dir -inurl:jobs “greater atlanta area” Microsoft “software engineer” java

That yields 287 results. But not really (thanks Google!). If you click through the results pages, you’ll be stopped on page 24 for a total of 232 results.

In that one search comparison, there is a difference of over 100 results, and I didn’t see any duplicates or bad results from my sampling with the “standard” X-Ray.

As a side note, searching for the word “Microsoft” using Google to search LinkedIn will get you many results with hits of common Microsoft software (e.g., Office), as well as the abbreviation “MS,” which even gets hits of Master’s degrees (I found at least 1 instance of this). If you want to force Google to only return the word “Microsoft,” you have to use quotes or the plus (+) sign.

So What Causes the Difference in Results?

That’s a great question. The phrase “Public profile powered by” does seem to be on every public LinkedIn profile, so why would searching for it find fewer results, let alone produce any difference?

Honestly, I am not really sure. Irina Shamaeva has some ideas as to what could cause the difference in search results.

Maybe some people at Google could shed some light on the matter? <not holding my breath>

The Bottom Line

Regardless of why Google isn’t finding all of the available public LinkedIn profiles by searching for “Public profile powered by,” the bottom line is that the “standard” (inelegant and longer) X-Ray string finds more.

Even if the results gap wasn’t as dramatically large as I found in that one test scenario (I did find some larger and smaller results variations), the fact that the results are different AT ALL is what makes me concerned. I don’t like to miss any results.

To make sure you don’t miss any available search results, I strongly encourage you to do your own testing of the various ways to search LinkedIn using an Internet search engine using relevant search terms for whatever you typically look for.

While I love the simplicity and appreciate the approach of searching for public LinkedIn profiles by not having to use the lengthy site:linkedin.com (inurl:in OR inurl:pub) -intitle:directory -inurl:dir -inurl:jobs, I would never abandon the uglier, longer string at the expense of missing any available search results (not even 1!).

Some More Google Fun

Taking the approach of targeting a phrase common to every public LinkedIn profile a step further, I also experimented with searching for the phrases “Create a public profile” and “professionals already on LinkedIn.”

Here’s a comparison:

Microsoft “Public profile powered by” “greater atlanta area” “software engineer” java

Microsoft “Create a public profile” “greater atlanta area” “software engineer” java

Microsoft “professionals already on LinkedIn” “greater atlanta area” “software engineer” java

Approximately 103, 124, and 150 results respectively.

Did that get your attention?

Why are they different at all, when all three phrases appear on all public LinkedIn profiles? I don’t have the answer.

If Google allows you to click on a cached result without apologizing for thinking you’re not human (am I bitter?), you can clearly see Google indexes the other phrases:

So What about Yahoo and Bing?

Everyone has their search engine preferences, and my first choice has always been Google. However, with the recent changes in LinkedIn X-Ray search results as well as the issue of Google thinking everyone has suddenly become a malicious bot sending automated queries to their servers, I’m looking more at Yahoo and Bing.

Interestingly though, as Irina reminded me recently, Yahoo is giving up their search technology and in the near future will be using Microsoft’s. So technically – Yahoo search may not yield any different results than Bing in the future. Enjoy the results while you can.

Anyhoo…Yahoo does currently seem to do a much better job of searching public LinkedIn profiles with the phrase of “Public profile powered by:”

Microsoft “Public profile powered by” “greater atlanta area” “software engineer” java

416 results! But don’t get too excited – if you click through to the end/last page (to keep Yahoo honest), you end up with 208.

Which is less than the 232 we found using a “standard” X-Ray string on Google.

Interestingly, Yahoo also does a better job of getting consistent results when using other phrases such as “professionals already on LinkedIn” (210 results, if you were curious).

What about Bing? Bing apparently doesn’t like searches like Microsoft “Public profile powered by” “greater atlanta area” “software engineer” java.

Final Thoughts

There is always more than one way to run a search, and there is no single “right way” to find people. Use multiple approaches, and always test them to understand and appreciate differences.

When searching any source, your goal as a sourcer or recruiter is to find all of the best candidates the source has to offer. Finding some people isn’t enough.

Regarding search string length when X-Ray searching LinkedIn – if you’re worried about the 32 word search limit that Google imposes, I’d argue you’re not taking into account that a large percentage of people with LinkedIn profiles don’t even flesh them out with (m)any keywords.

Always appreciate, understand and respect how the non-sourcer / recruiter / HR professional uses LinkedIn…most don’t use it as a full-blown resume.

So if you’re loading up your Google/LinkedIn strings with anywhere close to 32 words (e.g., site:linkedin.com (inurl:in OR inurl:pub) -intitle:directory -inurl:dir -inurl:jobs “greater atlanta area” “software engineer” java unix oracle linux application design develop C++ MySql J2EE Lead Senior SQL data javascript hibernate blah blah blah…), you are actually making it impossible to find all of the qualified candidates on LinkedIn.

Contemplate this on the tree of woe.

I just updated my free sourcing and recruiting resources page!

You can always navigate to the free resources page at any time by using the top nav bar which will escort you to a library of nearly 50 knowledge-laden links!

All in one page you can find a collection of articles related to sourcing and recruiting, including the 5 levels of talent mining/candidate sourcing, candidate sourcing best practices and mistakes, social recruiting, how to search LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Spoke, ZoomInfo and Jigsaw for free, Boolean logic, semantic search, Lean / Just-In-Time sourcing and recruiting, and automated candidate sourcing and matching solutions.

Click the image below to be taken to the free sourcing and recruiting resources page:

Be sure to bookmark or tag this page as I will continue to add more free sourcing and recruiting resources. Also – please “pay it forward” – share this page with anyone who might benefit!

Thanks!

Have you ever been searching the Internet with Google to find resumes or LinkedIn profiles, and instead of getting your search results, you get a nice apology from Google saying that your computer or network might be sending automated queries and can’t process your request?

In the past week alone I have received a number of inquiries from curious sourcers and recruiters as to what to do about this.

Typically, this notice is accompanied by a CAPTCHA that will allow you to enter some characters to prove that you’re human.

You are human, right?

Performing a lot of X-Ray searches of LinkedIn profiles seems to trigger Google to ask me for proof of humanity.

However, just the other day I was searching for resumes online, and when I clicked to see the “cached” version of a search result, I got a different Google apology. This one didn’t even allow me to prove my humanity. Dang!

If you choose to click on “Google Help“, you’ll see that they advise you to #1 Check for malware on your computer, #2 Contact your network administrator, and #3 If the problem persists, have your network administrator contact Google.

Apparently, sending automated queries of any sort to Google is against their Terms of Service, which states that among other things, it is unacceptable to use software to Google to determine how a website or webpage ranks on Google for various queries, ‘Meta-searching’ Google, and performing ‘offline’ searches on Google.

Last time I checked, manually searching for resumes and LinkedIn profiles isn’t any of the above.

What To Do

Because I get stopped by Google’s CAPTCHA quite frequently, I did actually contact Google, inasmuch as you can contact Google by filling out their form. Not sure if anything came of that as I have never heard back (not that I was expecting to).

However, what I have found is that simply clearing my browser’s cookies gets this annoying search result interruption to go away, at least for a while. You can be selective in clearing specific cookies or you can delete them all – which will remove your saved settings for sites you’ve previously visited. Small price to pay in order to get your search results from Google.

I hope that helps you if you ever got blocked by Google. Let me know if you have any other suggestions/fixes for this issue.

Thanks!