Why Search #LinkedIn from #Google?

booleanstringsUncategorized 7 Comments

The number of  “search facets” on LinkedIn’s advanced people search dialog goes up with the level of the account. But even “LinkedIn Recruiter” subscribers – those who have the maximum search power within LinkedIn – can’t search for some profile data.

For data that can only be viewed by LinkedIn members, like files attached to profiles or a Twitter ID, we are all out of luck and can’t search for it, period. However, some of the non-searchable data is on the open web… and this provides the answer to the question #1 on the Sourcing Quiz:

Any profile data that:

  • cannot be searched inside LinkedIn
  • is available on the open web

can be searched using Google.

Here’s an example of a very useful search, locating profiles with a link to a resume (also suggested in a reply to the quiz):

site:www.linkedin.com “location * san francisco bay area” java sql “websites * * * resume”

Here are a few more examples.

We can search for people who have worked at their current job for 2-10 years:

site:www.linkedin.com java developer “location * san francisco bay area”  “present 2..10 years” ,

people who have worked at two (or more) given companies:

site:www.linkedin.com “at google” “at facebook”  marketing director  “location * san francisco bay area” -inurl:dir,

people who stopped working in 2011:

site:www.linkedin.com inurl:in OR inurl:pub “product manager” “2011 * years OR months” -present “location * san francisco bay area” -inurl:dir

There are some useful searches on Bing as well.

There’s more. Using Google’s asterisk in searching for phrases is one other area that we can explore (next time).

Of course, these searches will only find LinkedIn members with public profiles that show more than just the basic data.

Comments 7

  1. Irina,
    Great article, and very helpful. Is it always better to search LinkedIn via Google, or are there times when using LinkedIn’s own search function makes more sense?
    Also, do you see any risk of LinkedIn eventually making it so that user profiles are NOT searchable via Google, i.e. to make it so users could only use LinkedIn’s search tool?

    Thanks a lot!
    -Keegan

    1. Thanks for the comment! In many cases internal LI search is superior because it’s structured.
      LinkedIn already took some steps to make the profiles less visible on Google. I don’t think they will take them away completely though.

      1. Thanks for the input! Is there a way to tell when one would work better than the other, or should I just try both consistently? So far, I’ve typically found more candidates via Google, but that could be because I’m not searching LinkedIn as effectively as I could be (I’m still learning sourcing, and it’s really fun! I love discovering new ways to find people.)

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