This post originally appeared on SocialTalent.co.
Sometimes when you’re looking for really hard-to-find talent, the information you need just isn’t in the usual places. You’ve checked the social sites and your databases, but you just can’t find the right people or the right information on them. So do you do next?
Answer: you use x-ray sourcing techniques and a variety of advanced search operators to cleverly scour the web for the information you need, whether it be the names, phones numbers, email addresses or background information of people who attended a particular conference, who were mentioned at a certain event, who were tagged in photographs, or who included some information about themselves on a company site.
What is x-ray search? It’s the ability to use specific commands in search engines like Google and Bing to find particular information online. These specific terms are known as Advanced Search Operators, and by using them you can burrow down into the depths of the web to seek out EXACTLY the information you’re looking for.
In other words, knowledge and correct use of advanced search operators is what really sorts the Sourcing Ninjas from the rest of the recruiters in the world! And we have a fantastic (albeit slightly complicated) infographic to teach you each of the Advanced Search Operators associated with Google search and how to apply them to your own x-ray Google searches.
P.S. Pay particular attention to the information surrounding the following advanced search operators, as they are the most useful search operators for recruiters are:
- site:
- intitle:
- inurl:
- filetype:
Image courtesy: SEO Optimizers