Some Very Interesting Google / LinkedIn X-Ray Search Results

  While I was writing last week’s post in which I explored using Google to X-Ray search within specific LinkedIn groups, I decided to perform some general X-Ray search syntax testing to challenge some assumptions, as well as to compare X-Ray results to LinkedIn Recruiter results. I notice quite a few folks seem to use the “people you know” phrase … Read More

Using Google to Search for People in Specific LinkedIn Groups

In this post, I am going to share with you the journey I took and the discoveries I made while investigating the answer to a Boolean search request for help I recently came across online about using -dir in a Google X-Ray search of LinkedIn. Some of you may enjoy and appreciate seeing my methodology, others will likely learn a thing or … Read More

100+ Free Sourcing & Recruiting Tools, Guides, and Resources

  It’s been a LONG time coming, but I finally got around to updating my free sourcing & recruiting tools, guides and resources page where I now keep a current list of the best of my work all in one place for easy bookmarking and reference. You can find it here on my main page:     Additionally, I thought … Read More

How to Find People to Recruit on Twitter with Google & Bing

  There are over 500 million Twitter accounts with over 200 million represent active users globally. I’d say that qualifies it as a solid source for finding and engaging talent for recruitment. Of course, you can’t engage someone you haven’t found in the first place, and it’s been far too long since I’ve posted an update to how to search … Read More

Google Plus Search Guide: How to Search & Find People on G+

  Do you want to know how to search for people on Google+ by title/skill, company, AND location? If so, you’ve come to the right place – I’m going to show you 3 different ways to find people on Google+, and only one of them allows you to reliably search for and find people based on where they live: Google+’s … Read More

What’s the most effective way to X-Ray search LinkedIn?

  I’ve recently come across some blog posts and some Boolean Strings discussions on LinkedIn that inspired me to go back and tinker with searching LinkedIn via Google and Bing. For example, I continue to see people talk about: Whether or not you should use “pub” and/or “in” (e.g. site:linkedin.com/in | site:linkedin.com/pub) Whether or not you should use -dir Using country … Read More

How to See Full Names of 3rd Degree Connections on LinkedIn

For a while, there was an interesting little method for revealing the full name of 3rd degree and group connections on LinkedIn. However, LinkedIn has changed the “get introduced” functionality and UI for most people and effectively eliminated that method (albeit unintentionally, IMO). Oh well – it was easy and fun while it lasted. Fortunately, I’ve recently become aware of … Read More

Bing’s Semantic Search, Phonetics and Undocumented Operator

I was recently performing some searches on Bing and came across something curious that I had never noticed before. I’m not exactly sure if what I found is new or simply something I’ve overlooked in the past. I updated Twitter with “Did you know that Bing supports the + query modifier?” on November 10th, wondering if it was something that other people … Read More

How I Search LinkedIn to Find and Identify Talent

Would you like to know how I search LinkedIn when sourcing for talent? I don’t have a premium LinkedIn account, so you may be surprised to learn that I don’t X-Ray search LinkedIn all that often. I’ll tell you why in a moment, but first I would like to share my inspiration for this post. I recently read a great … Read More

Update Your LinkedIn X-Ray Searches for Location Names

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 … Read More

LinkedIn Sourcing Challenge – X-Ray Location False Positives

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 … Read More

LinkedIn Makes Obvious Moves to Affect X-Ray Searching

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 … Read More

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

  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 … Read More

Bing Beats Google for the Best Way to X-Ray Search LinkedIn

11/13/11 Note: I’ve provided some updated LinkedIn X-Ray search string syntax examples at the end of this post. I recently received a message via LinkedIn from Gary Cozin, an accomplished, well known player and knowledge sharer in sourcing circles, asking me a question: “You know when we xray Google for LI profiles we can insert “current * financial advisor” in … Read More

Searching LinkedIn with Google and Yahoo for Free

When it comes to searching LinkedIn using Internet search engines such as Google or Yahoo, there are many different ways to construct your search string (“X-Ray” or otherwise) and get results. Ultimately, the goal of any good sourcer or recruiter is to find all of the best available potential candidates that a particular source has to offer. A short while … Read More

What to do if Google Thinks You’re Not Human

Have you ever been searching the Internet with Google to find resumes or LinkedIn profiles, and instead of getting your search results, you get a nice apology from Google saying that your computer or network might be sending automated queries and can’t process your request? In the past week alone I have received a number of inquiries from curious sourcers … Read More

LinkedIn X-Ray Search Results Change: Update Your Strings

The game is afoot. It appears that something’s happening behind the scenes at LinkedIn. Have you noticed anything odd when running a typical LinkedIn X-Ray search on Google and Yahoo? I have. For example – try running this search: site:linkedin.com (inurl:pub OR inurl:in) -intitle:directory (controller OR CFO) “Charlotte, North Carolina Area” You’ll get results that look like this:

LinkedIn Current Title Search: Internal vs. X-Ray Part II

In the original LinkedIn Current Title Search: Internal vs. X-Ray post, I found that there was a large disparity in results between identical internal and external (Google X-Ray) current title searches on LinkedIn.  At the end of the post I asked if anyone had any ideas as to where the missing 288 profiles were, why they weren’t returned using the basic Google X-Ray … Read More

LinkedIn Current Title Search: Internal vs. X-Ray

So you know how to X-Ray LinkedIn, and perhaps you even know how to target current titles with an X-Ray string. However, did you know that you’re not finding all of the available matches within LinkedIn using this technique? Did that get your attention? Would you like to know approximately how many people you might be missing when you run … Read More

Google Search: The Asterisk Wildcard and Punctuation

Think you know all there is to know about Google search? I was recently asked a question regarding the use of the asterisk when searching on Google, specifically in conjunction with certain punctuation. This person was under the impression that if you used the equal sign on either side of an asterisk when searching Google, it would function as a multiple word wildcard operator. For example, searching … Read More