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Advance Sourcing Tool for Passive Candidates - "X-RAY Search Process for Talent Acquisition or Head Hunting" (Advance Recruitment or Head Hunting Techniques - X-RAY SEARCH).

(1) What is X-Ray Search? X-ray search is targeting a site (like Linkedin) with a search engine (like google/bing/yahoo) using the ‘site:’ search operator. Ex: site: linkedin.com
(2) How is X-Ray Searching LinkedIn useful?

• Unlimited profile views i.e. you can view more than 100 profiles – FREE! (Remember, LinkedIn only allows 100 profiles free for view),
• Around 85% of all LinkedIn profiles are publicly accessible through search engines, meaning there is no restriction on viewing profiles through Google,
• Full names are visible for any degree of contacts,

• View out of network connections (Remember, LinkedIn does not allow viewing out of network connection)
(3) Anatomy of LinkedIn’s URL There are two types of URLs that are allocated by LinkedIn;
• Default URL
• Customized / Personalized URL
(4) Anatomy of LinkedIn’s URL Default URL:
• When you create your LinkedIn profile, LinkedIn allocates a default URL something like the one shown below; Note:
• The above URL has the keyword ‘pub’ before the name and some numbers after the name.
(5) Anatomy of LinkedIn’s URL Customized/ Personalized URL:
• LinkedIn allows you to customize/ personalize your profile’s default URL as shown below; Note:
• The above URL has the keyword ‘in’ before the name now and not ‘pub’.
• Also, it has no numbers after the name and it allowed me to give a name of my choice - maleks.
• The personalized URL looks polished than the default one and something that people can easily remember.
(6) Anatomy of LinkedIn’s URL
• Observation: Personalized URLs have the keyword ‘in’ in the middle while non-personalized URLs have the keyword ‘pub’ in the middle
• Hence, the default URL will be http://www.linkedin.com/pub/ followed by default string, whereas the personalized URL will be http://www.linkedin.com/in/ followed by the user defined name,
• Now that we know which two URLs we are targeting let’s go over the anatomy of a Google search string
(7) Anatomy of Google Search String Here is a Google search string template;
• site: www.linkedin.com/in/ OR site: www.linkedin.com/pub/ "Job Title1" "Job Title2" "Industry" "Location" "Keyword1" "Keyword2”intitle:"profiles" -inurl:"dir/" Let’s understand the above string;
• Site: We are using the site: operator of Google to screen LinkedIn. Note we are targeting both the URLs (default and customized) of LinkedIn here using the OR operator. (i.e. site: www.linkedin.com/in/ OR site: www.linkedin.com/pub/) For Canada, the LinkedIn URL will be site: ca.linkedin.com/in/ OR site: ca.linkedin.com/pub/
(8) Anatomy of Google Search String template
• Job Title: You can put as many alternate job titles you want (ex. “Food Scientist” “Food Technologist” “R&D Manager”)
• Industry: It can be “Food” or “Beverage” or “Food & Beverages” or “Food Production”, or any other relevant industry from LinkedIn’s industry list

• Keyword: These could be any specific keyword required by client. You can put as many alternate keywords you want to make a bull’s eye query ex. "Aseptic”, etc.
• Location: To target our search location wise, I have put area as listed in LinkedIn’s location list - “Greater Chicago Area”. A little homework is needed here as LinkedIn will only recognize areas it has listed in its Location list.
(9) Anatomy of Google Search String template
• Google will also return some directories of profiles. These URLs will usually have “dir” in them somewhere. Ex: Therefore, to remove these directories of profiles we use the minus operator ex. -inurl:“dir/” -intitle:“profiles”. If you see jobs pages appearing in your search results then you can append -inurl:“jobs/” to the string as well.
(10) Low Hanging Fruits
• For finding active candidates, you can use keywords like “Looking” or “Seeking” or “2013” or - “Present” etc.
• Looking: Some mention “looking for a new opportunity” on their profile and we can target those profiles with this keyword. • 2013: Those who have recently left their job and updated their profile will have 2013 on their profile. However, this will also include those who have started a new job in 2013.
• Present: Notice I’m using Present with the minus operator. The reason for doing this is those candidates who have left in 2013 and have joined another company will have Present on their profile (ex. 2013 - Present), whereas those who have not joined and are unemployed will not have Present (ex. 2012 - 2013). Hence, use of Present with minus operator will get us only unemployed candidates.
(11) Go Live! • Let’s put actual values in the template string now and see. We’ll search – Scientists in beverage industry in Chicago. site: www.linkedin.com/in/ OR site:www.linkedin.com/pub/ "Food Scientist" "Beverage" "Aseptic" "Greater Chicago Area“ -intitle:"profiles“ -inurl:"dir/"
(12) Go Live! • About 18 results found. All local, beverage industry, Scientists and all have “Aseptic” keyword on their profile. Not bad! Bull’s Eye Query! • Now, try the query without the keyword “Aseptic” and we get about 432 results. All local, beverage industry and Scientists! All these 432 profiles can be viewed free unlike through LinkedIn which will allow only 100 profiles to be viewed free. • Try your queries and go for that hard-to-find talent! • Happy Hunting!!
(13) Some more sites we can tap… X-Ray Searching Job Board - Indeed.com: • The format of the query will remain the same, just a few changes; site: indeed.com/r “Food Scientist” Illinois
• Indeed does not categories industries or location like LinkedIn does; hence you need to put all the relevant keywords in the string to make a bull’s eye query.
• Food for thought: Can we x-ray search Monster and CareerBuilder??
(14) Some more sites we can tap… X-Ray Searching Social Media site – Twitter.com:
• The format of the query will remain the same, just a few changes; site: twitter.com “Food Scientist” Illinois
• Be more creative while trying to search twitter as we get a lot of profiles we don’t want.
(15) Tips! • While you try this x-ray search, stay logged out of your LinkedIn account, so you can get full view of 3rd degree contact profiles as well. If you are logged in, LinkedIn can identify if a contact is 1st degree, 2nd degree or 3rd degree, but it can’t tell if you are not logged in.
• Try this search on different search engines – Bing and Yahoo. You’ll be surprised to see different results.
• When sending an invite on LinkedIn – do *NOT* send the default LinkedIn invite. For a better acceptance ratio, customize your invites according to job search and send.



Blog 2

How to Select the Best Manpower Staffing Services Partner for your Organization
The field of Human Resource Development revolves around several responsibilities within an organization starting from Hiring, Training, Appraisals, Payroll management and motivation, recreational aspects of employee development.
In the last 7-8 years, more than 60% Fortune 500 companies’ use HR outsourcing out of which 11% consist of financial services, 28% belonged to Information Technology, 14% belonged to Sales & Marketing and 11% belonged to Human Resources.

Aspiring HR professionals might want to focus more on Benefits Administration and Compliance issues than developing employee engagement activities. But, it is always good to remember that they are focusing on the most asset of the company – Employees.
There are below mention top 5 trends that top 500 global companies follow as a general thumb rule for outsourcing HR Consultantsaccording to The Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM) and these are:
(1) More than 26% companies want to save money – a primary reason for outsourcing.
(2) More than 23% companies want to rebuild their existing strategies and outsourcing talented Executive Search Consultants can help them save a lot of time!
(3) More than 22% companies need to maintain compliance at all times and find it easier to keep the track of risks in check with outsourcing.
(4) More than 18% companies need to fill the discrepancies of internal structuring in check. Knowing their weak spots let them work better.
(5) More than 18% companies want to advance with technological solutions like tackling strategic analytics, managing big data etc. with HR outsourcing.


As we can see from the survey, the reason behind hiring best executive search consultants can vary from one reason to another. But mostly, it revolves around internal administration and people management. Another question asked by SHRM was the ‘functionality’ of such support or if we can put it as ‘what are the HR functions that the companies are looking for?’
The answer wasn’t unknown as more than 84% outsourced for administration followed by counselling, temporary staffing, pension & retirement planning, etc. For small companies, expertise is required to recruit cost-effective candidates who are modest and sincere in their career planning. For larger firms, legal and compliance departments require risk mitigation that must be dealt with professionally. And if we talk about Govt. Firms, compliance issues might turn into lawsuit, penalties and fines in no time. Hence, outsourcing Executive Search Consultants from a Top HR Consulting Service Provider is a must.
It is not always the fact that only companies look for outsourcing solutions, but aspiring candidates in all designations require a good placement for their career. In this 21st century, HR Recruitment Firms who are enthusiastic to provide counselling, analysis of portfolio and grooming for effective recruitment are the most preferred. Chalking out outsourcing companies from the internet and then knowing their Market value is very important before commencing on a project together.
Innovative Professional Services & Company provides Manpower Staffing & Outsourcing Solutions in all HRD related realms to leading companies of India.