3 Reasons It's Time To Practice X-Ray Searching on LinkedIn

As a recruiter, you are well accustomed to the LinkedIn search bar at this stage. It’s been your partner in crime for many years. Sure, you two went through a bit of a rough patch when LinkedIn started to roll out its new user interface at the start of the year BUT you managed to get back on track and recover your Ninja sourcing powers.

Now it’s time to level up your search game once more. X-Ray searching is when you use a search like Google or Bing to find a specific combination of keywords for on web pages.

Why Search LinkedIn Through Google?

1. All Access Information

Some of the information within a person’s LinkedIn profile is not searchable on LinkedIn itself. For example, you cannot search for employment dates or employment location on LinkedIn even though the information is freely available on people’s profiles. By using a secondary search engine you can get crafty with your keywords and really hone in on the specific details that help you frame the perfect candidate.

2. Account Restrictions

Depending on which LinkedIn account you are using (Basic or Premium etc) some information may be withheld when you are searching for perfect candidates on LinkedIn. You may not be able to see people’s full names or all of their profile details which can really slow down your search process. Regardless of what LinkedIn account you have access to, if you can develop some skills that give you access to even more information you can edge out your competitors and start creating a talent pool that will feed into your future recruitment processes.

3. Limited Profile Views

If you are using a free account on LinkedIn you may be limited to viewing only a certain number of results. This can be damaging to your recruitment process as, obviously, you want to find top quality candidates to wow your hiring managers. Imagine if the perfect candidate was hiding from you, simply because of some tiresome limitation? No thanks! Top recruiters can use x-ray searching to navigate this problem and gain access to some stellar candidate profiles .

X-ray Isn’t Always The Best Way

While x-ray searching LinkedIn through Google can circumnavigate the problems mentioned above there are still some obstacles that we must take into account. Knowing how to use a stealthy x-ray search is super valuable for recruiters but it’s best used as a booster skill. Searching directly within LinkedIn is still the more successful way for several reasons. Some LinkedIn members do not allow their profile to be indexed by search engines like Google or Bing and others only allow parts of their profiles to be shown. This means you could still be missing some key information when searching.

Google search functions in the same way as a broad keyword search- you can’t narrow down specific fields. Google also restricts your search to 32 words. When searching within LinkedIn itself you have almost unlimited possibilities when it comes to the number of keywords you can input when searching.

So now you now exactly why you should be able to x-ray search LinkedIn- but how can you do it most effectively? Check out our Internet Recruitment learning platform and learn all these skills and more from the industry experets at Social Talent.

https://youtu.be/TXp8iNlngas