Web Scraping tools are rapidly gaining popularity among Sourcers and Recruiters. They are an essential part of a productive Sourcer’s toolbox.
Here is an example of how scraping may help your work. Suppose you see a webpage like this (listing some promising prospects):
If you wanted to examine and save the records, this format is quite inconvenient. Without tools, you’d be endlessly copying and pasting “by hand.”
But, take a scraper like Instant Data Scraper, and in seconds you will get an Excel file with parsed information:
Clearly, this format is easier to work with. You can search, sort, and filter columns, add info to records, upload to other systems, and use this data in combination with other data.
As an example, if you have a LinkedIn Recruiter account, you can upload the file using Talent Pipeline. Uploading will combine the scraped data with LinkedIn’s, and you can then search within the “enriched” LIR records.
While some scraping techniques require coding, for the majority of our tasks, we can get results with simple-to-use tools like Instant Data Scraper, Data Miner, and Phantombuster. Outwit Hub is a more sophisticated tool, but it can do simple things simply and “knows” how to extract contact information.
Join us for the first-ever class “Web Scraping for Recruiters” on Tuesday, July 30 at 9 am PDT, with an optional workshop on Wednesday, July 31st, to learn all about non-technical scraping for Sourcers and Recruiters, and start using this technique.
[Edited] Repeating the sold-out webinar on August 6th, 2019! Register here: https://sourcingcertification.com/webscraping/.
Comments 2
Hi
I have a LinkedIn recruiter account – how do I upload the file via Talent Pipeline ?
Author
Hi Lisa,
The “Talent Pipeline” function needs to be activated by your LinkedIn Recruiter admin. It’s a powerful feature.
Check out our recorded class Mastering LinkedIn Recruiter, where we explain its usage in detail.
-Irina