Tag Archives: LinkedIn Search

Now Premium on LinkedIn: Full Names of 3rd level & Group Connections

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LinkedIn_Premium 2I had an associate with a free LinkedIn account contact me  late last week complaining about how he could no longer see the full names of his LinkedIn search results for 3rd degree connections – his results only showed the first initial of the last name. Furthermore, he claimed that LinkedIn had started charging for the ability to see the full names of 3rd degree connections in search results.

My first reaction was extreme confusion.

I hadn’t heard or seen anything to support his experience or claims. Had I missed a major announcement or blog post? Not one of the few thousand+ recruiters that I follow on Twitter had tweeted about it, at least not that I saw, but it’s safe to assume that if this person’s claims were accurate, news would spread like wildfire.

Interestingly, I just ran a search on Twitter (@4:00 EST 10/3/2010) for [LinkedIn last names] and only found 1 tweet that could be possibly referencing it. Certainly odd if this massive change from LinkedIn really was taking root. Continue reading →

LinkedIn Shows New Search Options, Some No Longer Free

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LinkedIn_P1LinkedIn now shows some new search functionality to the masses who use LinkedIn for free. Perhaps of greater interest, some previously free search options are now premium filters.

I first noticed the changes to LinkedIn’s advanced search page on Saturday, June 19th. Did they appear earlier and I just didn’t notice them? Perhaps I missed a press release?

For those of us without a premium LinkedIn account, the advanced people search interface used to look something like this:

LinkedIn_Dynamic_Search_Refinements 600 

Now it looks like this: Continue reading →

Searching LinkedIn with Google and Yahoo for Free

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LinkedIn_Why_Join_LinkedIn2 from www.linkedin.comWhen 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 ago, Gary Cozin sent me a link to an article recommending to “forget complex Boolean strings” when searching LinkedIn using Internet search engines.

I read the article and appreciated the advice to go with the easier, simpler, more elegant search solutions, as well as the suggestion to try “Public profile powered by.” I had never thought of taking that approach – but more on that later. Continue reading →

LinkedIn Sourcing Tip: Searching by Company? Beware!

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LinkedIn_Company_Search_Image_3aRecently, I wrote about the intrinsic issues associated with searching LinkedIn for potential candidates with specific industry experience, and how using the “Industry” field can actually prevent you from finding the people you’re looking for. 

A number of readers responded by suggesting a logical solution to the issue – searching by specific company name(s) instead of using LinkedIn’s “Industry” field.

It is a logical solution, but a potentially flawed one nonetheless.

I’m going to show you some reasons why, and if you read this post within the next 5 minutes, I’ll even throw in a LinkedIn  company search anomaly as an added bonus. Continue reading →

Exclusive Look at LinkedIn’s 4 New Dynamic Filters

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LinkedIn_Recruiter_Talent_AdvantageLinkedIn’s been busy.

I don’t know about you, but I have always wondered what LinkedIn was going to do with all of the deep/rich data they capture with every profile that is created on their site.

With the release of 4 new dynamic search refinements that are now available to users of LinkedIn’s Recruiter and Recruiter Professional Services, we gain some insight.

LinkedIn contacted me last week and gave me the honor of an exclusive sneak peek into what users of their 2 premium recruiter offerings will be able to take advantage of to quickly find more relevant candidate search results.

LinkedIn has definitely been busy, and they apparently appreciate the value of human capital data – maybe as much as I do. :-) Continue reading →

LinkedIn Search Results Sorting: Relevance or Keyword?

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Find_People_on_LinkedIn from www.linkedin.comWhen I deliver presentations on how to leverage LinkedIn to source candidates, I have the opportunity to get a sense of what most people seem to know about using LinkedIn.  Recently I have been making it a point to ask how people tend to sort their search results when searching LinkedIn, and the overwhelming majority leave their results sorting at the default value, which is “relevance.”

LI_Search_Sort6

I find this especially interesting, because most people do not seem to realize that when you sort your search results by “relevance” on LinkedIn, you are not getting results based solely on the search terms entered – you are getting results ordered by a combination of factors – including your “social graph.” 

LinkedIn’s definition of “relevance” is decidedly different than practically every other searchable source of potential candidates – Monster, Google, Applicant Tracking Systems, Twitter, etc. – and what LinkedIn *thinks* is relevant to you may actually not be based on what you are specifically looking for. Continue reading →

LinkedIn by the Numbers – Searching by Title and Clearance

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LinkedIn_Why_Join_LinkedIn2 from www.linkedin.comEver wonder how many executives are on LinkedIn?

How about accountants, software engineers, “Big 4” employees, or people with TS/SCI clearances? 

Well I did. So I decided to run a number of searches for common titles in information technology, finance and accounting, recruiting and human resources, business development, social media, and administrative support and publish the results for the world to see.  I also searched for “Big 4” employees, people that mention specific security clearances, and executives of all types to see how many results would be returned, and I broke the results down by global/U.S. totals.

Method

Unless otherwise noted, I searched specifically for current titles while using LinkedIn’s advanced search interface. When I created the searches below, I was not trying to be totally exhaustive – I chose to target a sample of some of the most common titles.  Continue reading →

LinkedIn Search: What it COULD and SHOULD be

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Did you know that LinkedIn currently has the ability to deliver incredibly powerful search functionality to its users – WELL beyond what we all have access to now?  What am I talking about?

I’m excited to tell you, but quite honestly, I actually can’t believe it’s taken me this long to put 2 and 2 together. Have you ever really watched the video clip below that you can find on  LinkedIn’s Learning Center as well as on YouTube?

If you ignore the information regarding the new features and pay close attention to the video, you can hear Esteban talk about how LinkedIn is always on the lookout for talented Lucene Open Source engineers and watch him search for them. Lucene is an open source text search engine that I’ve written about in multiple posts for its advanced search functionality, including extended Boolean.

LinkedIn uses Lucene as their Text Search Engine

When I first watched the video, I never gave the Lucene stuff a second thought because LinkedIn doesn’t actually offer any of Lucene’s truly advanced search functionality – LinkedIn doesn’t even support root-word/wildcard searching, let alone extended Boolean search. I figured if they were already using Lucene for their text search engine they would offer all of Lucene’s search functionality, which they don’t.

Then I watched the video again the other day (not exactly sure why) and I it made me curious. Had they already implemented Lucene, or were they looking to do so? I did some research to see if I could confirm a link between LinkedIn with Lucene (pun intended).  Although TechCrunch reported that LinkedIn upgraded its people search, they failed to mention the technology behind the upgrade. I was then able to dig up an article that verified that LinkedIn had implemented Lucene as their text search engine.

So What Can LinkedIn Do With Lucene?

I’m glad you asked – be prepared to be amazed!  Continue reading →

FREE LinkedIn Search: Internal vs. X-Ray

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While there is a growing number of recruiting professionals and organizations who pay for premium access to LinkedIn, there is still a large number of people who leverage LinkedIn with a free or “Personal” account.

If you’re on the fence about paying for increased access to LinkedIn, you’re reading the right post. I’m going to compare searching LinkedIn from the “inside” with a free “Personal” account using LinkedIn’s new people search interface with searching LinkedIn from the “outside” using Google and the x-ray technique.

If you are not familiar with the x-ray search technique, it will be covered in depth with examples later in this post.

I’ll also offer at least 3 different ways to create and automate LinkedIn searches outside of the LinkedIn search interface.

Free LinkedIn Search – From the “Inside”

There are actually a number of different ways and places to search for people on Linkedin. The more powerful methods involve #1 LinkedIn’s advanced search interface and  #2 “Hand-coding” search strings using LinkedIn’s advanced search operators.

Controlling Candidate Variables

Both of those methods allow you to control critical candidate variables such as current and/or past employer, current and/or past title, industry, and location via zip code radius search. During or after you configure your search, you also have the option to sort results by relevance, relationship, relationship + recommendations, and keyword match/count. Continue reading →