Free LinkedIn Sourcing Webinar Wednesday November 20 @ 2PM ET

  When you search LinkedIn, are you finding top talent, or simply those people who are easiest to find? Would you know the difference? While some people firmly believe that LinkedIn is “over fished,” I can confidently tell you that nothing is further from the truth. In fact, what if I told you that you routinely find only a fraction … Read More

How LinkedIn Search Actually Works

If you’re in sourcing, recruiting or HR, you no doubt search LinkedIn from time to time or perhaps even every day. So why not gain a better understanding of how LinkedIn search actually works? And what better way to learn how LinkedIn search works than from the Heads of Search Relevance and Query Understanding at LinkedIn? Yes, you read that … Read More

LinkedIn’s Voltron Search: What’s New and What’s Missing

  In case you haven’t heard, LinkedIn is rolling out a new search interface globally over the next few weeks. If you’d like to read the official statements and press-friendly content about LinkedIn’s new search functionality, you can find read about the changes on LinkedIn’s blog, TechCrunch, Search Engine Land, Mashable, and PCMag.com. If you’re only going to read one – … Read More

Diversity Sourcing: Boolean Search Strings for LinkedIn

    Note: I’ve updated this post as of August, 2015 with even more inclusive and effective diversity searches for LinkedIn. When it comes to diversity sourcing and recruiting, the first thing that comes to mind for many people is posting jobs on diversity sites and in diverse groups. However, as I have written about many times, posting jobs is … 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

My SourceCon Presentation – LinkedIn: Beyond the Basics

  I was honored to be asked to present at the Dallas 2012 SourceCon event – which turned out to be the largest SourceCon event ever! When I was talking with Amybeth Hale back at the end of 2011 about what I’d like to present on, I asked if anyone had ever run a session solely dedicated to LinkedIn. Now, … Read More

8 Minute Video from my LinkedIn #InToronto Presentation

  I’ve had the distinct honor of speaking at every event that LinkedIn has put together in the U.S. and Canada, and I will also be speaking at the third Talent Connect event on October 10-12 in Las Vegas, where they expect well over 2,000 people to attend. I’ll be running 2 sessions on effectively searching LinkedIn (one basic and … Read More

Full Profiles of 3rd Degree LinkedIn Network No Longer Free?

  Do you use LinkedIn for free? Can you still view full profiles of your 3rd degree network? You may have read about some recent changes that have affected some LinkedIn users here and here with regard to 3rd degree profile visibility. Prior to both of those articles, I had a recruiter who I used to work with at a past company reach out … Read More

How Would You Search for these Positions on LinkedIn?

One of the things that has always struck me as extremely odd with regard to sourcing is the fact that there appears to be so little sharing of Boolean search strings. While one can find basic search string examples in training materials and in various sourcing groups online, I know plenty of sourcers and recruiters that have never seen another … 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

LinkedIn’s Undocumented Search Operator

Earlier this year, I wrote an article on how to use LinkedIn’s advanced search operators as search agents in which I briefly mentioned and demonstrated an undocumented LinkedIn search operator at the very end of the post. Did you catch it? If not, you’re in luck. Although it’s not an Earth-shattering discovery by any means, it is a discovery nonetheless, … 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 Search: Controlling Years of Experience & Compensation

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 … Read More

LinkedIn Sourcing Challenge – Can You Find Everyone?

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 … Read More

LinkedIn’s Dark Matter – Undiscovered Profiles

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 … Read More

LinkedIn Sourcing Challenge – Ruby

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 … 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

How to Use LinkedIn’s Advanced Operators as Search Agents

  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 … Read More