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X-RAY SEARCHING – FUNDAMENTALS FOR RECRUITERS

X-RAY SEARCHING OVERVIEW

X-ray searching enables users to instruct internetsearch engines to search specific domains oreven pages within a domain using QueryModifiers. Let’s be clear most tech recruiters arealready using X-ray but those outside of techquite possibly aren’t. X-ray searching isincredibly helpful but on sites like Linkedin it isalways best to start there and use X-ray to fill inthe blanks. If you are working in a new industryor location then building your network is crucial, but whilst you do that X-ray can provide agreat 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 useMicrosoft 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 thisGoogle 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 usingalways 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’toffer much value.

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related: This Modifier tells Google to find sites that is believes are similar to the originaldomain. It is a powerful Modifier that can be very helpful for recruiters starting out in anew industry or location. The only proviso is that a related search definitely isn’texhaustive, often it only works on larger sites and emits obvious results.EXAMPLE - related:ere.netResults 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 searchengine on a specific URL or Top Level Domain.EXAMPLE 1 - site:linkedin.comResults will be limited to those contained within the linkedin.com URLEXAMPLE 2 - site:.ukResults will be limited to all websites that end in the .uk top level operator, generallysites from the United Kingdom

SUPPLEMENTARY MODIFIERSGoogle filters results in a number of different ways, including relevance, popularity and in-bound links. In general it can be assumed that it prioritises keywords in the URL first, thentitle, 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 powerfulif 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:inWill narrow the search to show results that are from linkedin.com but also contain pubor in within the URL. One or other of [pub] and [in] are in the URL link when looking at apeople profile from Google, removing results from other areas of the site such as jobsand company pages.

EXAMPLE 2 - site:linkedin.com –inurldir –inurltitle –inurljobs –inurljobs2This search will remove all references to [job], [jobs2], [title] and [dir] within the URL, allof which generally don’t contain individual profiles.

intitle: searches for a specific word within the title of the webpage. It can be used to findresumes but is not overly relevant for recruiters unless you are searching for a specificdocument or blog, in which case it can be useful.EXAMPLE - intitle:resume -job -jobs -example -template -how Sydney java

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This is a good search to look for resumes online, it would produce results that containresume 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 toadjust the search results plus you can further modify the strings if you wish to add orremove specific words.

Finding Contact Details

For any recruiters finding the candidate is only stage one, it is then important to makecontact with the potential candidate. Online media is a goldmine of publically availablecontact details and X-ray searching is a great tool for finding them. It should be noted thatit is nearly always quickest to speak with reception and ask to be put through to thatperson or to ask for a contact number rather than searching. If this doesn’t work then trythe 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"

(email * @URL) EXAMPLE (email * @dell.com) 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 theavailable 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 searchFacebook internally.

Twitter

Twitter search and advanced search only search tweet contents. Most sourcing expertsagree that Followerwonk is the best way to search Twitter Bios but according to BooleanExpert 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

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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 thesearch stream, limiting results to those from that specific country.

92% of Linkedin Profiles are publicly visible, so can therefore be found using X-raySearch.

X-ray searches show a range of information, but at a minimum have to show theperson’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 registrationdate. To do this from Google run your X-ray search and then use Google Search Tools toselect the most recently amended or added profiles.

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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 javaauckland

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 allorganisations 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 forjobs a relatively easy process. If you can’t find what you are looking for this search stringcould 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 Searchfunction or this great X-ray Search Boolean Generator from Recruitin

Good luck and please feel free to contact us with any questions.

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Image Credit - Google