Would you like to source like the best? Here are some habits that, I believe, best Sourcers demonstrate while performing their searches. (We teach these practices, along with numerous examples, in our Training Webinars.) Best Sourcers spend a good deal of time figuring out what to search for (for example, terminology, job titles, company competitors, target schools, certifications, etc.). (Ideally, they …
The Matter of Time in Alumni Search
It’s not surprising to discover that LinkedIn doesn’t do what we expect it to do in our search queries. This time it is about the study years, and it’s a mystery what is going on! While grading our Exams, David Galley and I ran into the following inconsistencies: 1. Search for graduation dates using operators (I am searching in “Alberta, …
Why Searching for URLs On Google Is a Thing To Do
One popular Sourcing “hacking” technique is by constructing or altering page URLs. Doing so can be useful when the site doesn’t have the search capabilities “officially” in its UI. This is the case with Facebook Graph Search, some LinkedIn “hack” searches, and more. How do we learn the way to construct the URLs, particularly search URLs, if they are not “official” …
Did You Know You Can Search Pipl by Social Profiles?
You probably know about the site Pipl, which allows searching for people by name and location, an email address, a phone number, or a social handle. But did you know that you can also search Pipl by social profile URLs, including LinkedIn profile URLs? Setting your expectations right is important. Given the nature of Pipl, you can expect some outdated or …
Quiz Answers and the Certification Exam Winner
Following up on the Sourcing Quiz, (that was quite popular!) I am posting the solutions and answers to the questions. Question 1: Find a LinkedIn member, living in the San Francisco Bay Area, whose headline is “Student at SDSU Executive MBA” and who started school in 2018. What is his last name? Solution 1: This search on LinkedIn finds …
Why Google Email?
I find it to be incredibly productive, as part of the sourcing process, to Google for email addresses (in the quotation marks). It’s particularly useful to Google an email address of someone whom you believe to be a fit for the opening you are trying to fill, an “ideal” candidate. Here is what we can achieve by searching for an …
Sourcing Quiz – Test Your Skills
Would you like to test your Sourcing Skills for 2019? Our quarterly Exam is coming up. You can get certified during the week of January 19-25, 2019. I want to invite you to test your skills with five questions below. (These questions are similar to those that we include in the Exam). I will publish the answers in one week. …
LinkedIn Operators: One More and a Tip Sheet
[Edited: please note, that, as of the end of April 2019, all operators have stopped working. They may come back, we’ll see!] Your new undocumented LinkedIn operator (in addition to the ones I covered in a few recent posts) is functions:, with the values from Job Function Codes. Example: functions:4 looks for people in Business Development. As with other operators, you can …
Oh, NOT!
Not only has LinkedIn restricted Boolean ANDs and ORs in its basic and premium accounts, but it has also now restricted the NOT operator as well. In the help document Boolean Query Limitations they are saying: “While we do limit the amount of AND or OR Boolean operators, we don’t limit the amount of NOT Boolean operators.” Well, the last part is …
Adventure Continues (Five New Undocumented Operators)
Adventure continues! By now, I have discovered five more undocumented LinkedIn search operators in addition to those covered in my recent posts Two Undocumented LinkedIn Search Operators and Three More Operators! So here are some other values you thought you couldn’t search for with a free or premium LinkedIn account – but in fact, you can! Let me introduce the additional operators. 1) …