In a previous article, and newsletter, I shared how to find passive candidates via researching authors. I forgot to add something so I am doing it now. I am presuming that you are already familiar with Google Books. In the search below, I was looking for people versed in python engineering. So, here we go…
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1. This is the screenshot of Google Books. On this page is the Author’s name and bio (A), and more books written by the author (B), and a get the book link (C) that is key to finding more passive candidates.
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2. On that page are links to online bookstores where you can buy the book from your Google Books search. I’m not familiar with the IndieBound store, so I decide to click on that one.
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3. Clicking that takes me to BookShop.org page where the book was not available, based on the ISBN number. Bummer. But I don’t really care about that. What catches my eye is the search box. For giggles, I type in “python engineering” to see what comes back.
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4. I get what I expected, several books on topic. By using the scientific method of eenie-meanine-minee-moe, I choose the book by Paul Crickard.
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5. I click on that book and scroll down to the “About the Author” section and get a bio of the author. Great! But how do I contact them? Are they on LinkedIn?
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6. Yup! Very cool. Now would this profile come up high in a LinkedIn search for python engineers? Not likely, for a variety of reasons, least of which the headline is “Government Technology” and Python does not appear in any of the past job titles.
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7. Now Let’s go back to the “Get the Book” link that was on Google Books. Notice in the “Borrow” section there is a link to WorldCat, a database of 540 million bibliographic records in 483 languages, representing over 3 billion physical and digital library assets. I may go into detail on what makes this resource so valuable in the future. For now, check it out for yourself and let me know your thoughts.
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