X-RAY SEARCHING FUNDAMENTALS FOR RECRUITERS

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1 X-RAY SEARCHING FUNDAMENTALS FOR RECRUITERS X-RAY SEARCHING OVERVIEW X-ray searching enables users to instruct internet search engines to search specific domains or even pages within a domain using Query Modifiers. Let s be clear most tech recruiters are already using X-ray but those outside of tech quite possibly aren t. X-ray searching is incredibly helpful but on sites like Linkedin it is always best to start there and use X-ray to fill in the blanks. If you are working in a new industry or location then building your network is crucial, but whilst you do that X-ray can provide a great work around. USING X-RAY FOR RECRUITMENT For recruiters X-ray searching can provide several key benefits, including: Reducing the amount of time spent searching irrelevant data Finding data that may not be available once logged into a site Searching sites that don t have in-built search tools Increasing results Accessing additional search filters GOOGLE VS EVERYTHING ELSE There are lots of different search engines available but in reality users generally either use Microsoft Bing or Google. Whilst X-ray experts all have their opinions on which is best, most people use Google. The difference in results in marginal, so we have focused on Google for the purposes of this guide. Unique search parameters that are specific to Google: 32 search term limit 1000 search results limit SEARCH QUERY MODIFIERS There are three core Search Query Modifiers, link, related and site, whichever you are using always ensure that the URL is next to the Modifier not separated by a space: site:forbes.com site: forbes.com X link: Used to show all websites that actively link into a website. For recruiters it doesn t offer much value.

2 related: This Modifier tells Google to find sites that it believes are similar to the original domain. It is a powerful Modifier that can be very helpful for recruiters starting out in a new industry or location. The only proviso is that a related search definitely isn t exhaustive, often it only works on larger sites and omits obvious results. EXAMPLE - related:ere.net Results that include: soucecon.com, fistfuloftalent.com, recruiter.com, onrec.com, recruitmentblogs.com site: For recruiters this Modifier is the most powerful of the three, it targets the search engine on a specific URL or Top Level Domain. EXAMPLE 1 - site:linkedin.com Results will be limited to those contained within the linkedin.com URL EXAMPLE 2 - site:.uk Results will be limited to all websites that end in the.uk top level operator, generally sites from the United Kingdom SUPPLEMENTARY MODIFIERS Google filters results in a number of different ways, including relevance, popularity and inbound links. In general it can be assumed that it prioritises keywords in the URL first, then title, then text. To target results from one of these, Supplementary Modifiers are used. These three Modifiers can be used independently but for recruiters they are more powerful if used in conjunction with the Site Modifier. Inurl: Searches for a word that is contained within the webpages URL. EXAMPLE 1 - site:linkedin.com inurl:pub OR inurl:in Will narrow the search to show results that are from linkedin.com but also contain pub or in within the URL. One or other of [pub] and [in] are in the URL link when looking at a people profile from Google, removing results from other areas of the site such as jobs and company pages. EXAMPLE 2 - site:linkedin.com inurldir inurltitle inurljobs inurljobs2 This search will remove all references to [job], [jobs2], [title] and [dir] within the URL, all of which generally don t contain individual profiles. intitle: searches for a specific word within the title of the webpage. It can be used to find resumes but is not overly relevant for recruiters unless you are searching for a specific document or blog, in which case it can be useful. EXAMPLE - intitle:resume -job -jobs -example -template -how Sydney java

3 This is a good search to look for resumes online, it would produce results that contain resume Sydney and java but removes terms that could relate to job advertisements. intext: similar to intitle, instead focusing on the text within the webpage PRACTICAL RECRUITER SEARCHES The searches below are the recommended recruiter basics, fields in blue can be altered to adjust the search results plus you can further modify the strings if you wish to add or remove specific words. Finding Contact Details For any recruiters finding the candidate is only stage one, it is then important to make contact with the potential candidate. Online media is a goldmine of publically available contact details and X-ray searching is a great tool for finding them. It should be noted that it is nearly always quickest to speak with reception and ask to be put through to that person or to ask for a contact number rather than searching. If this doesn t work then try the following: site:[url] ( Meet The Team OR About) EXAMPLE - site:litmus.com ( Meet The Team OR About) site:[url] [Full Name] EXAMPLE site:litmus.com "David Smalley" ( EXAMPLE ( Use Rapportive Watch this video from distilled.net for more information Facebook Facebook is very hard to search using X-ray techniques, part of the problem is that the available data is very shallow. The only professional options available are job title, employer and location. With the introduction of Graph Search it is now far easier to search Facebook internally. Twitter Twitter search and advanced search only search tweet contents. Most sourcing experts agree that Followerwonk is the best way to search Twitter Bios but according to Boolean Expert Glenn Cathy X-ray produces slightly more results, his search stream is below: site:twitter.com tweets -inurl:(search favorites status statuses jobs) - intitle:(job jobs) -recruiter -HR -careers job [Location] [Key Skill] -[Unwanted Skill] EXAMPLE - site:twitter.com -inurl:(search favorites status statuses jobs) - intitle:(job jobs) -recruiter -HR -careers "java" "auckland"-.net

4 Google+ site:plus.google.com [Job Title] "lives * [Location] inurl:about EXAMPLE - site:plus.google.com "software+developer" "lives * auckland" inurl:about Linkedin When searching Linkedin, it is helpful to put the country code at the beginning of the search stream, limiting results to those from that specific country. 92% of Linkedin Profiles are publicly visible, so can therefore be found using X-ray Search. X-ray searches show a range of information, but at a minimum have to show the person s name, industry, location and number of recommendations To find someone s full name using X-ray search based on their job title and first name: site:nz.linkedin.com -inurl:dir -inurl:title -inurl:jobs2 [First Name] [Job Title] EXAMPLE - site:nz.linkedin.com -inurl:dir -inurl:title -inurl:jobs2 matthew "construction project manager" To find people with a specific job title, working in a defined industry and location site:uk.linkedin.com -inurl:dir -inurl:title -inurl:jobs2 [Industry] [Job Title] [Location] EXAMPLE - site:uk.linkedin.com -inurl:dir -inurl:title -inurl:jobs2 construction Project Manager London To find someone with a specific current job title site:linkedin.com current * [Job Title] EXAMPLE - site:au.linkedin.com current * Project Manager Linked Premium account holders are able to search profiles by their join or registration date. To do this from Google run your X-ray search and then use Google Search Tools to select the most recently amended or added profiles.

5 Others StackOverFlow site:stackoverflow.com/users [Key Skill] [Location] intext:"website * (com net me)"- "0 reputation" EXAMPLE - site:stackoverflow.com/users java Auckland intext:"website * (com net me)"-"0 reputation" GitHub site:github.com "joined on"-intitle: at master" -inurl:tab -inurl:jobs. -inurl:articles java auckland EXAMPLE - site:github.com "joined on"-intitle:"at master" -inurl:tab -inurl:jobs. - inurl:articles java auckland FOR AGENCY RECRUITERS Searching Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) Rather than going into each companies ATS system, you can simply search across all organisations that use one specific ATS or even multiple systems. site:[url] [Job Title] [Keywords] EXAMPLE 1 - site:taleo.net intitle:careers Estimator New York EXAMPLE 2 - site:icims.com/jobs "Project Manager" Houston Searching for Jobs on Careers Pages Job aggregators such as Indeed and SimplyHired have made searching the internet for jobs a relatively easy process. If you can t find what you are looking for this search string could provide a few additional results. EXAMPLE - site: inurl:careers inurl:"project manager" -inurl:indeed -inurl:linkedin - inurl:seek Software Sydney OTHER ADVICE If X-ray searching still goes over your head you could try the Google Advanced Search function or this great X-ray Search Boolean Generator from Recruitin Good luck and please feel free to contact us with any questions. Prominence Image Credit - Google