The #sourcecon 1st challenge is out. It’s time to figure out Google Custom Search Engines!

Here is a custom search engine I have just created:

Document Finder

(also posted on the Boolean Ning network)

It has refinements for eight kinds of files: Word, PDF, Text, PPT, and more. Check it out!

And here’s another new little search engine, perhaps useless for practical sourcing, but educational: Bingle 🙂

As promised, here’s an essay on variations in searching.

Suppose I am looking for Mobile Software Engineers in the San Francisco Bay Area. (As a matter of fact, I am!) Here are some ways I would be looking for my candidates on LinkedIn:

• In the Current Title, put Software (Developer OR Engineer OR Lead OR Architect OR Consultant) and in the keywords, put (Mobile OR Android OR iPhone OR iOS OR Blackberry) (and yes, I know that I will get some false positives with the word mobile but it’s not a problem) or
• In the keywords, put Software (Developer OR Engineer OR Lead OR Architect OR Consultant) (Android OR iPhone OR iOS OR Blackberry) and in the title put -Recruiter -Manager (etc), (see the “Just Say Not” post) or
• In the Current or Past Title, put Software (Developer OR Engineer OR Lead OR Architect OR Consultant) and/or
• In the Title add (Mobile OR Android OR iPhone OR iOS OR Blackberry) or
• In the keywords add (Mobile OR Android OR iPhone OR iOS OR Blackberry) and/or
• In the keywords add Resume and/or
• Set the “current companies” to <my list of target companies> by using the check-boxes or
• Set the current company field to <my list of target companies’ names, separated by OR > or
• Set the “past companies” to <my list of target companies> and/or
• Look for members of relevant groups (if you have a basic account, join the groups or use X-ray on Google or Bing) and/or
• In the search results, check only the first level connections and my group members – then I can send messages to all, – and
• Change the order of the search results displayed (relevance, connections, etc.) so that I’ll see different results on the first few pages, or
• Select a small radius around my zip code and do a loose search, or
• Select a larger radius around my zip code and do a tighter search, or
• Search using the Skills search, or
• X-ray LinkedIn on Google and on Bing (variations for that would be a subject for a whole separate blog post!) or
• Find prospects along with their email addresses elsewhere and cross-reference on LinkedIn, or
• Search on Google or Bing/Yahoo for blogs, twitter IDs, etc. that have my keywords and point to LinkedIn profiles

Some sourcers are a bit of “perfectionists“; they aim to craft the perfect searches. While (I admit!) I could enhance that side of my personality, I would like to offer some thoughts that may help you struggle less and feel more at ease while sourcing.

In our group and network discussions you may come across something like: “this Google search string brings non-resumes” or “your search didn’t bring some relevant LinkedIn profiles” as a criticism, or suggestion for improvement.

But is our goal to:

• create a search that would bring no false positives?
• create a search that would bring all of the right results?
• create “the” Boolean string that would do all the sourcing?

Of course not. The goal is to find most relevant results in a short time frame – and take action, such as get in touch with those relevant people and discuss business. So, I suggest to relax the rules:

• a few wrong results is OK if they don’t slow me down or take more screen space than is convenient;
• in most cases I will not find some relevant results;
• long and complex Boolean strings (or LinkedIn searches, or resume databases searches) are hard to use. What’s even more important, differently constructed searches may pick different results.

Search Engine Optimization is a tricky area. But it’s less tricky on LinkedIn than on Google and Bing. Here is a top hint on how to make your company profile be one of the first listed in a keyword search. Let’s look at what LinkedIn writes on their blog about their new company search algorithm:

“When searching for a company, we not only look across the words used to describe that company but also the words that the company’s employees use to describe themselves on their LinkedIn profiles.”

(That’s an interesting way to program the search. This means, by the way, that if one of your employees mentions, say, yoga or snowboarding, your company is likely to be shown in a search for these keywords as well. )

So, the bottom line is: ask your employees to add your target keywords to their profiles and see your company go up in the search results list.

As an example, below you see a screenshot listing UK companies that are found in the “SAP recruitment” search. If you belong to one of these companies, you can now try to get higher up in the list using the hint.

Keep in mind that LinkedIn doesn’t recognize variations of a word, so, say, sourcer, sourcers,and sourcing would be separate words to optimize for.

Please let me know how this works for you!

[The webinar is over. Please check the Downloads section for available training materials, or let me know if you’d want to arrange training on related topics.]

A joint UK / USA production !

Join us for some of the latest sourcing techniques in this 90 minute webinar that looks across LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook.

This online training session is hosted by Irina Shamaeva, Master Sourcer and SourcCon winner, expert on Internet search and sourcing tools and Martin Lee, veteran recruiter and sourcing techniques strategist.

We’ll discuss tips and tricks that enable you as a recruiter to find job seekers and passive candidates that others do not, and find the right people faster than your competition.

One month email support – with both of us! – and slide share is included.

Wednesday 11th May at 9.00 a.m PST, noon EST, 5 p.m. London time.

Price is $79 per participant  (once you register, you will be forwarded to the page).

We will bring you dozens of little-knows tips to take home and apply in your practice, along the lines of these topics:

• LinkedIn: Utilizing Signal, Company Search, Mass Messaging, Unlocking Hidden Info
• Facebook: Advanced Search, Messaging and Video-Messaging
• Twitter: Exploring Your Competition
• X-Raying LinkedIn Using Invisible Tags on Google and Yahoo/Bing
• People  Search Engines
• Excel in Sourcing

Reserve your Webinar seat now at:
[this webinar is over] Space is limited.

Title: ADVANCED SOURCING TECHNIQUES – POWERFUL, CREATIVE AND LITTLE KNOWN TRICKS AND TIPS
Date: Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Time: 5:00 PM GMT (noon EST; 9 AM PST). 90 minutes long.

It’s always a challenge to include a range of years of experience in a particular area when searching on the open web. With the  new LinkedIn Skills section – that shows up in public profiles by default – we now have a unique way to do that.

Check it out. The following string uses Google’s Numrange function, Google’s asterisk “*” that stands for a word or a few words, and the X-ray operator site:

Posting a paid job on LinkedIn could be well worth the money spent. A good reason for that is the job’s visibility, and not just on LinkedIn. Post a job, and Google picks it up in a matter of seconds. Set up a Google alert and you will see that. Jobs are also listed on your company page, making it more complete.

However, my current recommendation is to skip the extra pay for the “Unlock Matches”, where LinkedIn promises to automatically find candidates for you. As attractive as it may sound, the technology is just not there yet. I could write an article explaining why I think so, but I’d say our experience is what proves it best. (Of course, I might be wrong. If you are a recruiter with a positive experience finding candidates by auto-matching by any system – as opposed to a vendor of semantic search systems for candidates, – could you please leave a comment? I’d be very interested to hear from you.)

I suggest though that you take a closer look at the profiles LinkedIn picks when you post a job. Mouse over a profile and you will see plenty of info to locate the candidate yourself.

(By the way, if you do post a job for your company, I suggest asking a colleague who is new to LinkedIn.)

What has your experience been?

Here is our Super-Sourcing Quiz, also posted on the Ning network. You are all welcome to post your answers in reply to the post. The person who does best will be featured on the network. All members who correctly respond to the complete set of questions will get a guest pass to one of my webinars.

Ready?

1. If you search on Google using several keywords, and a page that comes up doesn’t have a keyword you had used in the search string, how can that happen? Please list a few possibilities.

2. The same on Twitter. If you search on Twitter using several keywords, and a tweet that comes up doesn’t have a keyword you had used in the search string, how can that happen?

3. The same for company search on LinkedIn. You search in the company search dialog using a keyword, click on a company that come up in the search, and the description doesn’t have this word; how can this happen?

4. How does Google rank tweets?

5. Is it possible for a public profile to show more information than a profile seen within LinkedIn?

6. Which posts from an open LinkedIn group can be found by Google/Bing? What about groups that are not open?

7. Can you search LinkedIn for profiles with resumes attached to them?

8. Is there a way to see a LinkedIn status update for someone outside your network?

9. What (if any) is the difference between the operator site: on Google and on Bing?

10. What are some ways to find an email address based on a LinkedIn profile?

We’ll run the quiz for a week. Have fun! 🙂