LinkedIn Notes by Kunal
Getting started:
Signup with site using your work email address. You can also add any past emails or personal emails within the Accounts & Settings tab (located at top of screen). Add your personal emails and work. When people first sign up for LinkedIN they search through their contacts file in their email to send out invites. Depending on your relationship with someone they might use your work email or your personal.
Be as descriptive as you can in building your profile. Just as you can search candidates/clients using keywords, so can they. Think of this as MySpace but for big kids. This is your chance to impress the ladies…….Just kidding! But it is your chance to show the business world your chops. Don’t make yourself look like a loser you will have more than enough opportunities to do that in real life!
Put up a picture! Having a name with the face is going to help you 10 fold. The internet is so anonomys having people actually be able to picture you with you’re your profile can only be good for business. Especially if you are good looking! I know for me I have posted my best picture in a very nice suit. I know when I got in the recruiting business I thought that a recruiter was just a glorified telemarketer. I pictured hunched over nerds with big square glasses reading off boring scripts. But that’s not us!
Even imputing the basics of a job order will help, for example. You want to show up in as many relevant searches as possible. Our business is construction so we want very descriptive positions that relate to construction so that every time someone puts in those words…our profile pops up.
Once you are set up, it is a good idea to hide your contacts. You can do this by clicking Accounts & Settings tab. Click on Connections Browse, the 2nd link below Privacy Settings. This will block other 1st contact users from being able to view your direct contacts (ie: other recruiters). Another reason is that a lot of hiring authorities will friends their recruiter on LinkedIN. The last thing you want is them checking out all your candidates. That’s yo money, check it.
Understanding LinkedIN:
You can only add a user if you have gone to school, worked with them, know them as a friend or have their email address. With over 20 million users, having their email address is the most likely option to grow your network.
It’s a cross between a popularity contest and a chain letter. The more users that you add to your network, to more user’s profiles that become available to you.
For example. Daniel and I are 1st degree contacts. Daniel is friends with Shelli. So, Shelli would be Dan’s 1st degree and my 2nd degree contact. Shelli and Shemeka are friends, making Shelli and Shemeka 1st degree’s, Dan and Shemeka 2nd degrees and Shemeka and I 3rd degrees. Any other contacts that Shemeka has, I will be unable to see; as they are outside my 3rd degree relationships. If I add Shelli as a contact, then I am able to search her thirds and Shemeka’s seconds; as those relationships become within my third degree. If I add Shemeka to my 1st degree, then I can work on down the line. If you have as many cousins as I do, that may help you to understand. Indian people got thousands! I know that this can sound confusing, below is another example.
Another example is that I have approx. 700 first degree contacts. My first degree contacts have 600k+ first degree contacts; making those 600k+ contacts my second degree contacts. My second degree contacts have over 9MM first degree contact; making those 9MM users my third degree contacts. Thus I am able to view over 9.5MM profiles that are on the site.
In order to uncover that ideal candidate from the site, you need to expand your network in the areas that you would find them. Both geographically and industry related. The reasoning is that people from Atlanta know other people in Atlanta and people in Insurance know other people in Insurance. Also, even if someone is in a completely different industry now, they may have gone to school with, previously worked with or are just common acquaintenances with others that are in your industry.
Expanding your Network:
There is no such thing as adding an irrelevant user! Add anyone you can, regardless of geography, industry or title. The more you add, the more you can search and identify that needle in the hay stack. A user could be overseas in a totally unrelated field; but there is still a chance that somewhere in their network of first and second degree contacts, there may be that placement that you have been unsuccessful locating with other search methods.
Industry related: Regardless where you are at in this site, the Toolbar feature is at the top of every page. To the right of the search field there is an Advanced Search link. You can select the industry or industries that you would like to search. The site will list from top to bottom, the most popular users within the site. There will be two blue icons, one that shows what degree they are to you and how popular they are from the ‘500+’ icon located to the right of that. The reason that these users have become popular are, the fact that they have been on the site for some time or they have their email address within their profile. Remember, you can send them an invitation to connect if you have their email … even if you do not know them.
Should you find an email address within a user’s profile, within their profile, just to the right of the Name and Occupation heading, you will see three links to either Send InMail, Get Introduced or Send Invitation. Click on Send Invitation. It will open a new window. I select Other and paste email address in that field and then click send. InMail’s are only available from the pay service and I found that Introductions both take too long and often are not successful.
A lot of times the Introductions don’t go through because the open networkers who friends everybody have mad connections…talking thousands. They often don’t see the Introduction.
Recruiters tend to be the most popular users within the site, but I have also found that they are more than willing to accept a ‘blind invite’. If you have hidden your contacts, then they will not be able to view your contacts anyway. So if they can’t see yours, but you can expand your network through them; then I don’t see the harm in adding them. But it is ultimately your call.
I find it helpful to connect with recruiters though for learning purposes. Even though I have in my mind that Im the best recruiter in the world and deserve to wear bright white silk robes, burning massive amounts of incense and have other recruiters feed me grapes and chant my name “kunal” “kunal” “kunal” , there is still things to be learned. You will find the top recruiters in the world and I have found that they are eager to communicate and share their knowledge.
Geographic search: With Advanced Search window, you can search by zip code as well. My network is predominately New York based as that is where the majority of my clients are located. Just last week, I received an email from them letting me know that they were forming a team in Houston and wanting me to locate candidates within that market. I ran a search on Houston zip code and added as many users in the Houston area, as they will know other people in Houston. After sending out a few dozen invites, I am now able to view 200k+ from adding these new contacts and have identified a dozen candidates to contact in Houston with the background my client is looking for.
LION’S and OPEN NETWORKERS: LION = Linked In Open Networker. There are users that want nothing more than to have access to just about every user within LinkedIN. These users identify themselves as LION’S and OPEN NETWORKERS. You can run any kind of search (Employer, Location, or Industry) and type LION or OPEN NETWORKER within quotes in the Keyword search field and the site will list these users. 90% they will have their email address within their profile, then just copy, add, paste and send invite. A fast way to find emails in a profile is to hit CTRL + F, once the Find opens put either “@” or “.com” and Find feature will locate where that is within the profile.
Toplinked.com. http://www.TopLinked.com is a list of the 50 most popular LinkedIN users, worldwide. These users all have their email addresses located in the profile, it is a fast and easy way to expand your network into the millions as they are connected to the most people within the site. Stay tuned….I will show you some more tricks.
EMAIL Search: The advanced search will locate any profile with the keywords you type in quotes. The LION’s and Open Networkers will almost always have their email addresses in their profiles. I have found that they typically do not put their work email on their profile, but rather free webmail accounts, so not to inundate their work email folder. “@gmail.com”, “@yahoo.com”, @msn.com” or “hotmail.com” are all free web mail searches. Once you have their email, go ahead and add them to your network. Also you can try Internet Service Providers like “@verizon.net” NEW CONNECTION SEARCH: On your home screen (click on HOME link with LinkedIN toolbar) about 2/3 of the way down on the screen, you will see how many people have been added to your network from a specific date. “444,444 in your network”. By clicking that link, the search results screen will open and it will be tapped out 500. You can refine that search and see new people in Geography, Employer, Industry, etc. You can also search for Lion’s and emails of these new users, should you find email address, add them and continue to expand your network. Make sure you do this once a week or so.
LinkedIN also pushes the contacts through your school. Everytime I get on there is a 100 more people from Michigan State. I’ve found that to be a complete waste of time. I can remember 10 people off the top of my head that went to Michigan State. There is a good chance you click someone they might think you are a creeper and hit the “I don’t know” button. Don’t know what a creeper is? Ask one of your daughters or nieces if weird dudes with moustaches ever try contacting them just wanting to be “friends”. If some one hits the “I don’t know” button a couple times then LinkedIN puts you in the badboy corner. When that happens you have to know the email address of everybody you try to connect with(big pain).
Second Degree Contacts: You can access your first degree connections two different ways. First from the Home Page, there is a graphic at the bottom of the screen with your 1st, 2nd and 3rd degree number of contacts. You can click on the 1st degree (as it is Hyperlinked*) users it will open Connections window. Second, there is My Contacts tab at the far right of the Toolbar. Once Connection’s window opens then you can view your connections first degree contacts by clicking on the blue circle Icon with number of contacts that is hyperlinked ( *blue and underlined, the finger appears when you scroll over it and not the pointer).
GROUPS: You may find the ideal candidate on a search, but have no way to contact them. Either they have left their past employer, no email in profile and you can’t find phone number on the internet. If you notice that they are a member of a group (there is a Group field within profile with Icon’s of their profile). Click on Group Icon and have yourself added to that group. Once you are a group member, you can contact any group member directly and free of charge
Groups are great. Easy way to contact somebody. If you need to see someones profile join a group! Is it weird for an Indian man to be in the “French Women Love Opera” club?? Yes! But at least you get to see the profile and potentially make friends with some very liberated women who love cheese! You can always leave the group after.
If they are not a group member or they do not have their up-to-date employer listed you are left with two options. You can either pay $20 or $50 a month and send them an InMail. Or, you can send an Introduction through one of your contacts that is the link to the candidate. Below is an example of an Introduction:
By policy though I am pretty much against paying LinkedIN all that money just to send a message. This aint the Soviet Union…..we shouldn’t have to pay a toll just to send a message. I would much rather use an introduction.
Stay tuned…..I will post on ways to search to fill assignments and also how to properly send Introductions.
Developing…………….
FREETOOLS/ Other Resources for Name Gathering, Internet Research and more!!!
www.searchexpo.com
www.zoominfo.com
www.mccabesbluebook.com
www.payscale.com
www.jobsandlogistics.com
www.gethuman.com - will give you a company by number where you will talk with an operator vs. answering system
www.gotonet.com a megacrawler that looks at all search engines
www.referenceusa.com
www.reference.com
www.wink.com
www.spoke.com
www.indeed.com- Searches all job ads on every career website, newspaper and company page!
www.page.com
www.changenotes.com
www.skype.com - can be used for interviews and often used for international www.watchthatpage.com
www.ladders.com
www.salesladders.com
www.execunet.com
www.thefeng.org
www.sherm.org - high level HR jobs
www.jigsaw.com
www.linkedin.com
www.myspace.com
www.wikepedia.com
www.multivista.com
www.craigslist.com
www.google.com- BEST TOOL EVER!
GOOGLE FOR RECRUITERS
How to Effectively Use Google for Sourcing Professionals
Keywords must be distinctive to the required skills. Make sure to put the most important keywords first. Use quotes for titles or keywords that have two words in it…EG., “Project Manager”, “Senior Estimator”, etc.
TYPE OF SEARCH COPY AND PASTE EVERYTHING AFTER THE >>: INTO GOOGLE - REPLACE UNDERLINED FIELDS WITH YOUR OWN TERMS
Resumes
· keyword keyword keyword (inurl:resume | intitle:resume)
· keyword keyword keyword ~resume (me | my) -~job
· keyword keyword keyword (ext:pdf | ext:doc | ext:rtf) ~resume -~jobs
· keyword keyword keyword ~resume -ext:htm -ext:html -~jobs
Personal Homepages
· keyword (intitle:favorites | intitle:bookmarks | inurl:favorites | inurl:bookmarks)
· keyword keyword site:members.aol.com resume
Replace members.aol.com with other personal page websites.
Employee Homepages
· site:members.aol.com @companydomain.com
· keyword keyword intext:CompanyDomain.com -site:CompanyDomain.com (me | my)
· keyword keyword intext:CompanyDomain.com contact=me
Association Membership
· AssociationName contact=me also try site:AssociationSite.org (chair | agenda | keynote)
· site:AssociationSite.org (filetype:doc | filetype:ppt | filetype:xls) ~contact
· AssociationName (~directory | ~contact) (inurl:member | intitle:member)
Alumni
· “CompanyName” keyword (directory | contact) (inurl:alumni | intitle:alumni)
· “CompanyName” worked contact=me also try intext:CompanyDomain.com my=job ~contact
· ~contact (@CompanyDomain.com | intext:CompanyDomain.com) (inurl:alumni | intitle:alumni)
Mailing Lists:
Archives
· keyword keyword archive (inurl:list | inurl:mail | intitle:list | intitle:mail)
· keyword keyword (index=*=mail | index=*=archive) also try keyword keyword thread index
· keyword keyword inurl:msgid also try keyword keyword +to +from subject date sender
· keyword keyword (outofoffice | out=*=office | out=*=*=office) (thread | list | index)
Website Content
· site:www.targetsite.com keyword [Searches all the content of that particular website]
· site:www.targetsite.com filetype:ppt [Reveals documents from the site. Also try xls, doc, pdf, etc.]
Google Groups · keyword insubject:RE group:*keyword* [finds discussion threads on your subject]
· keyword insubject:resume [finds actual resumes posted to Groups]
· keyword author:@CompanyDomain.com [finds messages posted from that company]
QUICK REFERENCE GUIDE
Wildcards: Used to extend results when current results are too narrow.
~ (the “tilda”) [Finds synonyms & related words,]
Ex: ~resume [Finds also resumes (plural), CV, Vitae, Curriculum Vitae and others]
Ex: -~job [Eliminates pages that don’t mention jobs, employment, career, etc.]
* (word wildcard) [Placeholder for any word. For proximity search use in multiples: * * * one word each]
=*= (wildcard phrase search) [Ex: software=*=engineer finds software design engineer, software test engineer… and so on]
NumRange: Used to find ranges of numbers in sequence, like serial numbers and zip codes
48322..48400 [Zip codes for MI: 48322= Farmington Hills, 48400 = Bloomfield areas]
Title / URL: Finds pages with specific words contained in the document name | address
intitle:resume [Finds the word “Resume” in the document name]
inurl:resume [Finds the word “Resume” in the address of the page]
Link: Finds websites that contain links to a relevant website. Could be home pages, biogs, associations, etc.
link:www.mit.edu [Finds people who have links to MIT on their pages like grads, employees, suppliers, etc.]
* Can’t be used with ANY Booleans or special commands
Site: Searches for content only within that target website.
site:www.anywebsite.com [Ex. “site:www.mit.edu ~resume” finds resumes at the MIT domain]
Definitions: Used to find out the meaning of a term | acronym
define:CDR [Displays various definitions for words and acronyms, i.e. Call Detail Records]
Groups Commands used with Groups.Google.com (a.k.a. Usenet, News Groups, or DejaNews)
insubject:resume [Displays news group messages with the subject “RESUME:”]
group: [Displays news group messages from a specific group]
author: [Displays news group messages from one particular author]
Ex: author:@somecompany.com = shows only messages posted by people at that company
TYPES OF FILES TO BE SEARCHED ON GOOGLE:
filetype:doc [Finds MS Word* Documents like resumes]
filetype:rtf [Finds MS Rich Text Documents, also a common resume format]
filetype:pdf [Finds Adobe PDF Documents like resumes, bios, white papers]
filetype:ppt [Finds MS PowerPoint* Presentations - may reveal org structures]
filetype:xls [Finds MS Excel* Documents like membership lists, directories]
filetype:txt [Finds Plain Text documents like resumes and email archives]
THIS INFORMATION WAS FOUND ONLINE AND I HAVE FOUND IT VERY USEFUL!
