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

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

How to View Full Profiles of Your 3rd Degree LinkedIn Network

  Just a short while ago I posted a piece on how some people are no longer able to view full profiles of their 3rd degree LinkedIn connections when logged in and searching withing LinkedIn. At the time of the article, I had not been affected, and I kept checking daily to see if and when I would be. Alas, the … 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

Top 15 Common Talent Sourcing Mistakes

Practically everything I have learned about sourcing and recruiting didn’t come from a mentor or any formal training. Instead, I learned how to become a top performing recruiter “the hard way.” What that really means is that when it came to finding top talent, I tried a lot of things that didn’t work, and because I refuse to make excuses, … Read More

How to Effectively Source Talent via Social Media & Networks

Sourcing talent via social media requires an entirely different mindset than sourcing with other forms of human capital data, such as resumes/CV’s, employee directories, conference attendee lists, etc. Back in early 2009, one of only 2 guest posts ever co-written on my site was published on the topic of non-standard descriptors and the role they play in social media. Valerie Scarsellato … 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

What is Your Talent Sourcing ROI?

Anything worth doing is worth measuring, and sourcing isn’t exempt from this. If you want to know which method of sourcing has the highest ROI in terms of enabling a person to find more of the right people more quickly, then you’re in luck – because that’s what this post is about. Human capital data comes in many forms – … 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

A Better Way to Search LinkedIn for Industry Experience

Sourcers and recruiters are often tasked with finding candidates that have experience in a specific industry. I’m sure that such a thing seems easy to the hiring managers and clients making the request, but it’s actually not an easily accomplished feat to perform exhaustively. Sure, finding some people who work in a specific industry is easy – simply target one or a … 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 Sourcing Tip: Searching by Company? Beware!

Recently, 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 … Read More

LinkedIn Sourcing Tip: Industry Search Issue

Do you ever use social networks to such as LinkedIn to search for people with experience in a specific industry? If you do, I can almost guarantee you that you are not finding everyone you’re looking for. How? There are intrinsic issues associated with any user generated content, especially when it comes to how users of social media identify themselves, and they can actually … Read More

LinkedIn Search Results Sorting: Relevance or Keyword?

When 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 … Read More