Update Your LinkedIn X-Ray Searches for Location Names

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A couple of weeks ago I stumbled across something on LinkedIn that I am surprised I never noticed before – I’m not even certain if/when LinkedIn made the change.

Finally sitting down to write about it, I highly doubted that I could be the only person to have discovered this interesting little find, so I did some quick research and found that Gary Cozin and Cathy Ou recently noticed it as well.

What am I talking about?

I’m talking about the fact that LinkedIn has alternate location names for certain postal codes.

While some locations only have one location phrase, I’ve found many have two and some have as many as nine! If you use Internet search engines to “X-Ray” LinkedIn for public profiles and you only use one location phrase, you may be unknowingly excluding people you actually want to find! Continue reading →

The Future of Sourcing and Talent Identification

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If you listen to certain people in the recruiting industry, you’d think that being able to leverage information systems for talent discovery and identification will be an obsolete skill for recruiters and that sourcers will have to find another profession in the near future.

According to these folks, people with sourcing skills won’t be necessary because the future of sourcing will lie in total automation – they believe that applications that employ semantic search, AI and NLP (Natural Language Processing) will be able to perform the entire candidate matching process for you.

However, neither Watson, Artificial Intelligence, Natural Language Processing nor semantic search will be putting any sourcer or recruiter out of a job anytime soon unless all they’re doing is basic keyword and title searching. Continue reading →

The #1 Mistake in Corporate Recruiting

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While no company has a flawless recruiting system, process or solution, there is a glaring problem shared by many corporate recruiting functions from which the Fortune 500 and the Big 4 are not immune.

As some of the most respected companies in the world invest quite a bit of time, energy and money into social recruiting efforts, interactive recruiting solutions, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and career site optimization, one critical piece of the recruiting puzzle seems to be all but completely overlooked.

Before you read any further – do you believe you have an idea of what I might be talking about?

From the conversations I’ve had over the years with many corporate recruiters and recruiting leaders from small companies all the way to the Fortune 500 and the Big 4, as well as the contract recruiters who are hired to help these companies source and recruit talent, I believe that the #1 mistake in corporate recruiting is the failure to fully realize and take appropriate action on the value of the human capital data they already possess. Continue reading →

LinkedIn Search: Controlling Years of Experience & Compensation

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When searching any source for potential candidates, the ability to search by years of experience can be especially helpful in that years of experience can be correlated to current/desired compensation.

If you are recruiting for a position that pays a maximum of $85,000 annually, being able to first source people who are highly likely to be qualified for the role and willing to accept that compensation is certainly more efficient than sourcing and talking to a number of people who don’t have enough experience or for whom that compensation is unacceptable.

If you know that people with 5 to 7 years of overall professional experience in a certain role with specific skills in a given industry are generally in the $70,000 to $90,000 range for annual compensation, you would simply be working smart to try and first narrow your search results down to people who have that range of years of experience if that is what the position you are recruiting for pays.

As I’ve written and spoken about many times – appropriately deep and searchable human capital data can afford sourcers and recruiters the advantage of more control over critical candidate qualification variables than any other form of candidate identification, including referrals and job postings (social or otherwise), which offer very little-to-no control over any candidate variables (years of experience, education, specific responsibilities, industry experience, etc.).

With the ability to control candidate qualification variables such as years of experience and/or likely desired compensation, sourcers and recruiters can work more efficiently with less waste, more quickly identifying and contacting prospective candidates who have a high probability of not only being qualified, but also “recruitable,” and one of the critical aspects of a “recruitable” candidate is the probability of accepting an offer at a specific compensation level.

So let’s take a quick look at how you might be able to exert some degree of control over years of experience and thus current/desired candidate compensation when searching LinkedIn for talent using LinkedIn’s filters as well as using Google and Bing to X-Ray search into LinkedIn for those of you who do not have a premium LinkedIn account. Continue reading →

Sourcing is an Investigative and Iterative Process

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When I see a strong interest in a “Top 10” or “Top 25” list of Boolean search strings, it becomes clear to me that a disconnect can exist between wanting something that solves a problem (a search string to find candidates) and the ability to create something that solves a problem.

While there is undoubtedly value in a list of pre-constructed search strings, specifically Internet queries designed to target event/conference attendee lists, employee directories, resumes, press releases, patents, white papers, etc., the real “magic” of information retrieval does not lie in Boolean operators and query modifiers.

The real “magic” and work of sourcing talent is via human capital data is the iterative, intelligent, and cognitively challenging process of selecting a combination of words and phrases, and in some cases strategically excluding others, analyzing the results returned, making changes to the query based on observed relevance, and repeating the process until an acceptable quantity of highly qualified and well-matched candidates are identified.

The Answer vs. How to Solve the Riddle

When people ask me for a specific search string, they may not realize it, but in effect, they are asking for the answer to a problem.

In some respects, a specific search string can be compared to the answer to a specific math problem or riddle. Unfortunately, once you change the facts, figures and variables of the problem or riddle, the answer will also change.

Similarly – if you change anything about your hiring need, the most effective queries to find qualified candidates will also change, and rarely are two hiring needs are perfectly identical in every way.

When I started my career in recruiting, perhaps I was fortunate to not have anyone to give me any “answers” (search strings), because I had to figure out how to find top talent in our 80,000 resume Lotus Notes database on my own. Throughout my career, sourcing candidates has never been about the searches themselves, but rather the process of finding the best candidates.

Going back to my math analogy, once you’ve mastered calculus, you can solve any calculus problem. Similarly, once you master the process of sourcing, you can solve any hiring problem.  And I do mean any.

If you are interested in leveraging information systems for talent discovery and identification, you should be more concerned with learning the “why” and “how” of good talent sourcing practices and processes, and less so in specific search strings. Rather than (or at least in addition to) asking for a search string, ask the person providing the search string how and why they specifically arrived upon the search they’re providing you.

Take a fish from someone and you are fed for a day. Learn how to fish and you are fed for a lifetime. Continue reading →

Beyond Boolean: Human Capital Information Retrieval

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When I recently spoke at SourceCon in New York, I showed an example Boolean search string that could be used as a challenge or an evaluation of a person’s knowledge and ability.

The search string looked something like this:

(Director or “Project Manage*” or “Program Manage*” or PM*) w/250 xfirstword and (truck* or ship* or rail* or transport* or logistic* or “supply chain*”) w/10 (manag* or project)* and (Deloitte or Ernst or “E&Y” or KPMG or PwC or PricewaterhouseCoopers or “Price Waterhouse*”)

During the presentation, an audience member asked me why there wasn’t any use of site:, inurl:, intitle:, etc. I responded by acknowledging that for many, sourcing and Boolean search seems to be synonymous with Internet search – however, this is definitely not the case. Continue reading →

Are You Fluent in the Language of Information Systems?

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If you traveled to a foreign country where you don’t speak the local language, you would find yourself in a situation where there are questions you would want to ask people and things you’ll need to know, and nearly everyone you run into would be able to help you – but because you can’t articulate in a manner that the locals understand, they can’t assist you and provide you with what you need.

Most people would be rightfully frustrated in this kind of scenario – knowing that nearly everyone you run into can help you with the answers or the information you need, but you just can’t express yourself in a way anyone can understand.

Some people respond to this by speaking more slowly or more loudly (or both!) – but of course this does not help one bit.  In fact, it may simply annoy the locals and make them less likely to want to try and help you.

Others might try and get a phrase or translation book to try and communicate.  Have you ever had to try and communicate with someone who does this?  It’s painful, but it’s a step better than gesticulating wildly and speaking in a different language slowly and loudly.

If you were fluent in the local language – none of this would be an issue. You’d be able to communicate quickly and effectively with nearly anyone you come into contact with and get the answers you seek or the information you need.

Working with computerized systems is no different.

Every day, most people interface with information systems of some kind – computers (tablets, laptops, smart phones, etc.), the Internet (search engines, web sites/apps, social media), and databases.

Yet most people don’t speak the “native language” of computerized systems. If you don’t speak the local language, why would you assume that the locals automatically “know” what you’re looking for and that you should be able to get you precisely the information you need?

So – what’s the “local language” of computerized systems?

Boolean.

Continue reading →

LinkedIn Sourcing Challenge – Can You Find Everyone?

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So far, I’ve launched 2 LinkedIn sourcing challenges – Ruby and X-Ray Location False Positives.

The former had very strong participation as it was a little on the easier side (for some!). The latter had fewer participants, perhaps because it was more technical – but those who did participate did so heavily.

For my 3rd Linkedin Sourcing Challenge, I think I have one that is universally appealing because it requires no technical or advanced sourcing experience to participate, nor to win the challenge!

Continue reading →

How to Find The Total Number of LinkedIn Members

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On March 22nd, LinkedIn announced that they had officially crossed the 100 Million member mark.

However, they might have actually crossed the 100 Million member milestone back in January.

How would I know?

I started seriously exploring LinkedIn Ads ever since they announced that they emerged from beta on 1/26/2011, and I noticed that once you configure an ad, LinkedIn displays the total estimated audience based on your targeting, including geography, company, job title, group, gender and age.

When I first looked into LinkedIn Ads, I noticed that the total target audience was somewhere over 99,000,000 when I did not make any targeting selections. I figured this was representative of the total estimated number of LinkedIn profiles worldwide.

Because the figure was so close to 100,000,000, I made a mental note to come back and check in to see if and when the estimated audience crossed the 100M mark.

Back on January 30th, I took a screenshot of a targeted audience of 101,382,559. Continue reading →

Sourcers and Recruiters – Don’t Fear Watson or Semantic Search

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I’ve read a few articles recently talking about IBM’s Watson and how the technology they developed may be the harbinger of unemployment for people in many professions.

Here’s one from Fortune magazine, asking if IBM’s Watson will put your job in jeopardy.

Here’s another suggesting that those who train others in Internet, social media, ATS, and resume database sourcing techniques and strategies will be eventually eliminated by semantic search solutions.

Watson Winning at Jeopardy isn’t Surprising

First, let’s first recognize that it’s an apples to oranges comparison between Jeopardy and sourcing/recruiting. Continue reading →

LinkedIn’s Dark Matter – Undiscovered Profiles

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Sourcing has a fundamental problem: All searches return results.

Yes, that is actually a problem.

Why? Because everyone’s a winner.

Type in a few keywords and BAM! – you get some good looking results. Hey, this sourcing stuff isn’t so hard!

If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times – sourcing is easy. In fact, it’s ridiculously easy to find some people.

So if you and your company are happy with finding some people and not necessarily the best people available to be found, then you can stop reading now and go back to finding some people.

For everyone who’s still reading this, try answering these questions:

  1. Can you ever be sure you’re finding everyone there is to be found?
  2. How do you know you’ve found the best people available?
  3. How do you know you’ve found all of the best people?
  4. Are there people on LinkedIn, in your ATS, in job board resume databases that are never found?
  5. How can you be aware of social media profiles and resumes that your searches can’t return in results – but are there?

Sourcing is easy, but it’s not easy to get to the point where you are sure you have found all of the best available results, nor is it easy to specifically target and find people others cannot and do not.

Most people use relatively basic, straight forward/direct keyword and title searches. There’s nothing wrong with that – they clearly “work” – anyone running those kinds of searches will find results.

However, they will also find exactly what everyone else finds when searching for the same types of people, which yields zero competitive advantage.

The fact that all searches produce results is a problem because it lulls people into thinking that sourcing is easy, and at least on the subconscious level – it leads people to believe that the results that are returned from searches represent all available matching and relevant results.

However, it is a fact that no single search can find all of the people you’re looking for, and there are many social media profiles and resumes that are never found.

Let me introduce you to the concept of Dark Matter. Continue reading →

LinkedIn Sourcing Challenge – X-Ray Location False Positives

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I was extremely pleased to receive many responses/solutions to the Ruby LinkedIn Sourcing Challenge I posted recently, including some from well-known online sourcing heavyweights, as well as a number from other talented folks who came out of the Internet ether from several continents to show off their skills and take a crack at solving the challenge.

Kudos to those who successfully found people on LinkedIn who have experience with Ruby but do not make explicit mention of it on their profile!

I sincerely hope everyone appreciated seeing the various approaches and methods people utilized to solve the first LinkedIn Sourcing Challenge – that was my primary motivator in posting it.

One thing I noticed from some of the responses is that for a few people, the challenge seemed too easy.

So – if you’re up for another LinkedIn Sourcing Challenge, take a crack at this one – it’s at least a degree more difficult than the last. :-) Continue reading →

LinkedIn Makes Obvious Moves to Affect X-Ray Searching

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If you happen to do quite a bit of LinkedIn X-Ray searching, you might be noticing that some people are taking control of how they appear in public search results.

Or maybe you aren’t noticing it, because you can’t.

Confused?

Read on to learn more.

LinkedIn Profile Changes

I’m not exactly sure when this change was introduced (anyone?), but I recently noticed that LinkedIn is taking very obvious efforts to bring the editing/control of the public profile to the attention of users.

They’re obvious to me at least. :-)

When you look over to the right side of your profile, you will notice “Change Public Profile Settings:”

When you click that, you get this huge blue call-out:

Continue reading →

LinkedIn Sourcing Challenge – Ruby

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During my SourceCon NYC session, I gave an example of a sourcing challenge that can verify one’s “capacity to think logically and solve problems in novel situations, independent of acquired knowledge. It is the ability to analyze novel problems, identify patterns and relationships that underpin these problems and the extrapolation of these using logic.”

This capacity is otherwise know as fluid intelligence or fluid reasoning .

The LinkedIn Sourcing Challenge

If you and/or your team are up for a test of your fluid reasoning and sourcing capability, try solving this challenge:

  • Find a LinkedIn profile of someone who has Ruby on Rails experience, but does not mention Ruby, Ruby on Rails, Rails, or RoR in their profile, and show with a link or other evidence exactly how you are certain they have Ruby experience.

There is no single correct answer – there are many different approaches to solving this challenge.

I’m going to recognize Jeremy Langhans once again for being able to solve that challenge in about 15 minutes before I even finished my presentation, using only his iPhone. To this date, no one else has even tried to take a crack at it.

The gauntlet has been thrown down. I hope at least a few people are up to the challenge! Continue reading →

#TRU London 3 Recruiting Unconference Review

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I was invited to attend TRU London 2 in 2010, but I unfortunately had a scheduling conflict and was unable to make it.

So when Bill Boorman, conference disorganizer extraordinaire, asked if I could make it out for TRU London 3, I blocked out my calendar as I was determined not to miss this event.

Unconference?

I had been warned by attendees of previous TRU London events that I would be entering a chaotic atmosphere with a lack of organization.

In fact, I was advised it would likely be best if I didn’t have any expectations at all.

However, I must say that I felt that TRU London was quite organized.

I hope Bill isn’t offended by that observation, because I know he takes pride in his unconference experience which is specifically designed to deviate from the standard conference format where a bunch of people listen to one presenter for an hour at a time.

It’s obvious that a different format from the recruiting conference norm does not necessarily lead to a poor experience. Although there were some track, track leader and schedule changes, I did not find them to be an issue, disruptive, or to lessen the impact of the event at all. Continue reading →

Update Your Bing X-Ray Searches of LinkedIn to Target Profiles

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Beginning early last week, I’ve had a few people reach out to me and ask about some changes LinkedIn is apparently making to the public profile listings.

In the past, I’ve written about how Bing is easier and more effective at searching LinkedIn profiles than Google.

One of my suggestions for targeting profiles an avoiding directory and job results was to search for the word “powered,” because public profiles on LinkedIn have the phrase “Public profile powered by,” and the word “powered” seemed to be unique only to profiles.

LinkedIn is Tinkering

While you can still search LinkedIn via Bing using +powered and find results, the only reason it seems to work is due to the fact that Bing has taken “snapshots” of the old LinkedIn profiles the last time Bing’s crawlers have visited them. The original (non-cached) search results don’t mention “powered.”

I’ve found that many (all?) public LinkedIn profiles no longer mention the phrase “Public profile powered by,” so adding +powered to your LinkedIn X-Ray searches via Bing will prevent some public LinkedIn profiles from being returned in your searches – and you won’t even know it.

But now you do. Continue reading →

How to Use LinkedIn’s Advanced Operators as Search Agents

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In January 2009, I wrote a feature about LinkedIn’s advanced operators. Two years later, I am still surprised that remarkably few people leverage the ability to bypass LinkedIn’s advanced search interface and “hand-code” search strings.

Before I demonstrate how you can use LinkedIn’s advanced operators as search agents, here is a quick refresher detailing the all of the advanced search operators:

 

You can use these operators in conjunction with standard keyword search terms in the people search box.

In this quick example, I am targeting profiles with a current title of engineer and a current company of Google: Continue reading →

Creating or Selecting Effective Sourcing Training: SourceCon NYC

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Have you received any formal training on how to source candidates?

If yes – what kind of training was it? What was the format? What was the focus – syntax, techniques, sites? Who delivered it – a third party trainer or an internal resource? How was the content delivered? Was it effective? Were you tested or certified?

If you’ve never received any formal training on candidate sourcing – you’re not alone. When I asked the SourceCon attendees the aforementioned question during my presentation on the topic of creating or selecting effective sourcing training, by a show of hands, the majority had not received any formal sourcing training.

I’ve never had any formal sourcing training either – everything I know I learned the hard way, through trial and error and a simple determination to not fail and to get results.

Although certainly not ideal, figuring out how to do something by yourself isn’t actually the worst way to learn something. Aristotle (384-322 BC) once mused that “For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them.”

Before I delve into the training methods that have the highest amount of knowledge transfer, it is important to take a look at why it tends to be so difficult to effectively train sourcers. Continue reading →

What is Lean Just-in-Time Recruiting?

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JIT identification BW

The process of identifying an organization’s talent needs and identifying, acquiring, and retaining talent for those needs is essentially human capital supply chain management.

A supply chain is a system of organizations, people, technology, activities, information and resources involved in moving something of value (a product, a service, or a person) from a source to a customer/consumer.

Conventional supply chain activities transform natural resources, raw materials and components into a finished product that is delivered to the end customer.

In recruiting, human capital supply chain activities transform relationships and data (ad responses, resumes, social networking profiles, etc.) into candidates that are delivered to hiring managers.

So why is it that there is quite a bit of resistance to applying proven supply chain management principles and practices to human resources and recruiting functions?

Let’s take a look at how Lean principles and Just-in-Time concepts can and should be applied to recruiting. I’ll be covering this topic at TruLondon 3– so if you will be in attendance (live or virtually), this will be an excellent prep for you. Continue reading →

18 LinkedIn Apps, Tools, and Resources

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I tweeted the other day about LinkedIn’s Resume Builder and I got a number of surprising responses from people I would have assumed would already know that LinkedIn had a resume builder.

LinkedIn has been cranking out new features and tools, and I realize that it’s too easy for me to assume that everyone else knows what I know, so I’m compiling all of the interesting offerings LinkedIn has released in 1 place for easy consumption.

While you may be familiar with some of them, I can almost guarantee you aren’t familiar with ALL of them.

I’ll start with LinkedIn Labs offerings and then cover Outlook, Jobs Insider, Internet Explorer, Firefox and Google toolbars, LinkedIn mobile solutions, the Lotus Notes widget, sharing bookmarklets, emails signatures, the Mac search widget, and LinkedIn Ads.

Resume Builder

I’ve been waiting for this for a LONG time, and I wasn’t surprised to see LinkedIn create a resume builder that allows people to turn their LinkedIn profiles into Word and PDF resumes.

It’s as easy as  picking a template, editing and arranging the information, and exporting and printing or sharing via email, LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter. Continue reading →