LinkedIn Shows New Search Options, Some No Longer Free
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:
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Why is Google Missing Available Search Results?
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.
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Searching LinkedIn with Google and Yahoo for Free
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.
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Free Sourcing and Recruiting Resources
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!
What to do if Google Thinks You’re Not Human
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!
What if You Only Had One Source to Find Candidates?
Imagine that you were just assigned a position to recruit for and that you needed to present 2 fully screened, highly qualified and well matched candidates within 5 business days.
Your manager/client is requesting candidates with:
- 3-5 years of related work experience (your choice – something not too vanilla/easy/common, but not ”purple squirrel” either)
- Experience in a specific industry, and experience working in a similar environment (size/scale/team/software, etc.) to the manager’s/client’s
- Bachelor’s degree in a related discipline
Furthermore, let’s say that you don’t have any qualified candidates in your pipeline, so you are essentially starting from scratch.
Under those conditions and assumptions, if you were limited to only 1 method/specific source for identifying candidates to contact, engage and recruit, which would you choose, and why?
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Passive Recruiting Doesn’t Exist!
When most people talk about “passive recruiting,” they’re referring to the practice of targeting and recruiting so-called “passive candidates” – people who are not actively looking to make a move from their current employer.
If you accept that notion – what would be the opposite?
Active recruiting?
Think about it for a moment. Neither phrase even makes sense grammatically. The “passive” in “passive recruiting” isn’t being used to describe the type of recruiting being performed – it’s being used to describe the type of candidates being recruited.
In this article, I challenge the notion of “passive recruiting,” implore you to retire the phrase, and introduce the concepts of active and passive sourcing.
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The 5 Levels of Talent Mining and Candidate Sourcing
There are individuals in the HR/recruiting industry who believe that searching databases, the Internet, and social networking sites to source talent is relatively easy and that it can be automated through the use of technology.
I am happy to say that unfortunately for them, it’s not that simple.
While anyone can run a basic search and find some people, there are actually many different levels of talent mining – which I define as leveraging human capital data (in the form of resumes, social media profiles, etc.) for talent discovery and identification.
In this article, I am going to explain how there are at least 5 distinct levels of candidate sourcing – most of which cannot be replicated by software solutions and require a person with specific skills and abilities.
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LinkedIn X-Ray Search Results Change: Update Your Strings
The game is afoot.
It appears that something’s happening behind the scenes at LinkedIn. Have you noticed anything odd when running a typical LinkedIn X-Ray search on Google and Yahoo?
I have. For example – try running this search:
You’ll get results that look like this:
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Sourcing: Separate Role or Integrated Function?
Whatever your thoughts may be regarding the sourcing role, companies and their HR/staffing organizations have at least 2 ways of handling the talent discovery/identification function: 1) Simply allow full life cycle recruiters to handle the sourcing role as an integrated function, or 2) Separate out the sourcing function and assign the work to people who are solely responsible for talent identification.
So which is the superior model?
Unfortunately, there is no easy answer here, as I do not believe that either way of handling the sourcing function is intrinsically “better” than the other. However, as someone who has always personally performed his own sourcing and as someone who trains dedicated sourcers whose sole purpose is to identify potential candidates, I can share my insights with you.
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