LinkedIn Recruiter: More Confusion

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Remember, LinkedIn Recruiter finds more results when we enter a company name vs. point to a company object? We discussed this in LinkedIn Recruiter: Not WYSIWYG.

Well, it turns out that, when searching for job titles, it is the opposite: selecting a value (Software Engineer, in the screenshot) brings many more results than entering the same words in quotation marks – or even writing Software AND Developer.

So what is going on here, why is there such a difference?

The answer to that is: in the first case, LinkedIn Recruiter also brings synonyms of the job title (the way it guesses them). By using the quotes or the operator AND, we eliminate any such guessing and Recruiter brings only the results for members whose title is Software Engineer (or, perhaps, Senior Software Engineer).

How well does LinkedIn identify synonymical job titles? Sorry to say, not so well. Here are some job titles that came up as synonyms for Software Engineer. Only some are correct – others are not:

  • SDE
  • Architect/Programmer
  • Java Developer
  • SAS Programmer
  • Quality Control Inspector/ CMM Programmer/Operator
  • Recruiting Coordinator – SWE (OOPS…)

To avoid getting these false positives in your results, it’s best to use the Boolean search syntax for job titles, i.e. add the quotation marks, AND, OR, or NOT. Or simply add a space at the end of Software Engineer.

Recruiter Lite has the same deficiency.

LinkedIn interpretation of its data can be improved.

P.S. The Mastering LinkedIn Recruiter class on March 7th will cover these and other recent LinkedIn Recruiter changes and challenges. Check it out and register soon, seating is limited.

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