Sourcing Tricks you really should know. Part 2

So, it has been a while since I wrote a blog, or a training guide. I would like to say I don't have time, but mainly because I can't be bothered. I tend to write all my blogs on a whim, with very little planning, hence the atrocious spelling, generally awful grammar, overuse of 'So' and recently I have just not found something to write about... Until now.

Over the last few months I have found myself thrust back into External Recruitment, and have gone from little old balding me with a few jobs, to a team of 3 with more jobs than we can shake a stick at. So, this has required me to dust off my training boots and instill a love of X-Ray searching into these rambunctious youths who sit aside me. I started using some of my old guides and realised a lot was outdated, and frankly I do my searches a lot differently these days, so I ended up just starting from scratch... This is what I have been teaching them.

X-Ray Searching - New shizzle.

Country Sourcing:

Look I am not going to rehash X-Ray searching for dummies. If you don't know what it is, go read one of my other guides or google it. This says Part 2 for a reason, you wouldn't watch Nutty Professor 2 before you watched the Original Nutty Professor?

So, let's start off with building our search:

site:uk.linkedin.com/in/ OR site:uk.linkedin.com/pub/ -intitle:"profiles" -inurl:"dir/ “

You will all have seen this before, this is how we start our search... But is it perfect? Well not if you are sourcing internationally. You see every country has their own version of LinkedIn, and depending on what country you login, that's what you will be on for X-Ray.

So, say we do a search on the above for "location * brussels" with a bit of Java... What do we get?

Hmm, apparently only 684 people in Brussels with Java. Now let's try it with the correct country code:

site:be.linkedin.com/in/ OR site:be.linkedin.com/pub/ -intitle:"profiles" -inurl:"dir/ “ "location * brussels" java

13,200, now that's a better return, right? So always make sure you are using the correct country code for the location you are searching.

You can find a full list of all the Country Codes for LinkedIn below:

https://developer.linkedin.com/docs/reference/country-codes#

Intitle Searching:

Now this is one everyone seems to forget and it's probably one of the most powerful options for X-Ray with the changes over the years. Back in the dark days, when LinkedIn was new, and people could hide their surnames. When you ran a google search the Title of their profile was purely their full name. That was it. Now LinkedIn have made our life easier, they have added Job Title, Current Employer and any notes they wish to add.

So, this has allowed us to do so much more with intitle, let's go back to that Java Search again, and let's say we need people who are immediately available:

site:uk.linkedin.com/in/ OR site:uk.linkedin.com/pub/ -intitle:"profiles" -inurl:"dir/ “ "location * london" java intitle:available|immediate|looking -recruiter -recruitment

What we are doing above is looking for people in London with Java knowledge (yeh basic I know just showing an example...) We are then using intitle: to look for people who have set themselves as "available", "immediate" or "looking."

Oh, and I added a few minuses in as well -Recruiter -Recruitment... I dont want any pesky recruiters showing up in my search "Big Dave IS LOOKING FOR JAVA DEVELOPERS." Yep, no thanks.

On the left we can see 47 people are looking for work in London. We can then refine that search down. But if you are looking for something sharpish, its a quick way to see in seconds if someone is on the market looking.

What else can we do with intitle? Lets say you want to actually look for Java Developers in London with that exact title:

site:uk.linkedin.com/in/ OR site:uk.linkedin.com/pub/ -intitle:"profiles" -inurl:"dir/ “ "location * london" intitle:"java developer"

503 people in London who are titled Java Developer. Not bad. Obviously its just a title, but lets say we want to cut this down further. We don't have the money for a Senior Developer, so lets take those out of the search with a sneaky minus or two.

site:uk.linkedin.com/in/ OR site:uk.linkedin.com/pub/ -intitle:"profiles" -inurl:"dir/ “ "location * london" intitle:"java developer" -intitle:senior -intitle:freelance|contract

So, we have got rid of the senior java developers with an -intitle:senior, plus add in an -intitle for freelancers and contractors. Because everyone wants Perm, am I right? Seriously someone send me some contract... Anyone.

Now are left with 288 people who might be perm, definitely are not senior java developers. So how can we try to narrow down who might be open to a new job, people who have been in the job for a while. Not so long that they are furniture and can't be bothered to move their Pension. But, a timeframe that makes them unlikely to be contracting? Well now we use another little trick I may have created, or someone else did. Who knows, I think I created it, so in my eyes I am a genius... And Modest.

"present (2 years"

Yes, this little thing is the key, you see if you look at anyone's LinkedIn profile it says how long they have been in there current job...

Lets build out that search again and look for people who have been in there current role for 2,3 and 4 years:

site:uk.linkedin.com/in/ OR site:uk.linkedin.com/pub/ -intitle:"profiles" -inurl:"dir/ “ "location * london" intitle:"java developer" -intitle:senior -intitle:freelance|contract ("present (2 years"|"present (3 years"|"present (4 years")

Now we have 117 Java Developers, not contractors, based in London, been in their current job between 2-5 years, who are not called Senior. That is a smaller subset to work with, right?

LinkedIn Groups - X-Ray:

Ok so your locked out of the cool groups as your a recruiter. So how do you find the people in that group... Well really easy actually:

I want to search through these guys and see who is in Belgium and part of this group, as I want F5 Certified people:

site:be.linkedin.com/in/ OR site:be.linkedin.com/pub/ -intitle:"profiles" -inurl:"dir/ “ "F5 Certified! Professionals"

Just put the group name in brackets... Job done.

That's it for today folks, next week I will bring you Part 3, a guide on Slack, what it is, how it works, and how you can use Javascript to scrape for emails. Simples.

Tim Chattaway - Recruiter - Never did get invited back to a Recruitment Awards