The Blue Dog Scientific Blog: sourcing

Showing posts with label sourcing. Show all posts

Free Contact Email Address Finder.

Here's a technique I created which uses Google Advanced Search as a tool. This method can help you find email addresses of business contacts quickly.

Here's how it works. Enter the name of the contact you are trying to find, e.g. "gary sharpe", enter the company name, e.g. "blue dog scientific", enter the generic part of the email address for the company, e.g. "bluedogscientific.com". You can leave any of these blank. Press the Search button.

This should hopefully open a new browser tab with the top 100 search results from Google.

Now search this new page using your browser's find text facility. Usually the page search box is opened by pressing Ctrl and the "f" (for find) buttons on your keyboard together.

Keep searching through the results for the symbol "@" by repeatedly hitting "return". Hopefully this will allow you to very quickly scan through. See if the search has come up with the email you are looking for. It's not foolproof but I have found this method very useful and a time saving device.

A quick tip. If you don't know the Company's generic email address, first perform the search leaving this blank. If you don't find the email of the person you are looking for this way, then often this first trawl will still throw up instances of the "info" or "contact us" type email address of the organization, e.g. "info@bluedogscientific.com". You can then copy the generic part after the "@" and paste this into "Generic Email" the above form and try again.

Sourcery: The Dark Art of Google Search.

Sourcing as Alchemy.

While the "Boolean" language of Google search appears, at first glance to be similar to the algorithmic syntax of computer code, internet sourcing via this technique is far from a formulaic or mathematical science.

It is more an like a magicians art, a witches brew of spells and incantations, of gleaned tricks and acquired arcane knowledge.

Each search presents its own unique challenge and the Sourcerer's job is to find the most pertinent results with as much information as efficiently as possible.

I believe that what many people miss is that a good Soucerer can cast their spells in such a way that they get their information without having to click thru to many search results at all. In other words, they use their crystal ball to see more than the mere mortal, without ever leaving their Wizard's Lair.

Let me give an example. There is a website called "duedil", which provides information about companies in the UK. This is a site which requires a paid account for full usage. Nevertheless, I have found that certain types of useful information can be gleaned for free from duedil via Google X-ray search.

Let's suppose we are looking into companies in the city of Sheffield. We could start off simply by casting the following runes into a google search:

site:duedil.com sheffield.

This tells google to search the entire duedil website for occurrences of the keyword sheffield. As well as company details, this also bring up extraneous search results such as generic reports about businesses in Sheffield. Our crystal ball has been clouded.

So after a little witchcraft with the website, we quickly work out that the individual company details themselves are listed under the page www.duedil.com/company. Our next incantation is

site:duedil.com/company sheffield.

This tells google to search only within the page www.duedil.com/company for occurrences of the keyword sheffield. Here's some examples of the type of results we get.


Example results of a Google X-ray Search of Duedil for Companies in Sheffield.

OK, so we have generated a big list of companies in Sheffield unpolluted by other information. But note that the snippet text of the search results give us no extra information at all! To find out anything more about each company, we would have to actually click thru to duedil for each and every entry of potential interest, take notes and bookmark the results of only the ones which fulfill our criteria. This is what apprentice Sourcerers might do.

The important thing to understand about Google search however, is that their is often much more information hidden within the snippet. The Wizardly Art of the Internet Search is therefore to work out exactly what level of detail the crystal ball is actually capable of showing and then to make the pertinent parts magically appear in the search results.

Returning to the duedil example, a bit of internet alchemy revealed to me that the hidden information contained in the search results includes financial information about some of the companies listed. I then set about working out how to optimally bring up that information within the search results themselves.

Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall, Tell Me, Who is the Richest of Them All.

site:duedil.com/company sheffield turnover k or m gbp

gives results like this:

Example of search results showing financial details.

I now have important financial details about the companies too. The Mirror tells True. This allows me, for example, to eliminate companies based on a criteria of turnover without having to click thru to duedil at all.

I hope this magic show helps recruiters and prospectors understand that the True Power of the X-Ray search.

All spells cast in this post are for illustration purposes only and are not representative of the inner secrets of the Sourcerer's Spellbook. Steps have been omitted and incantations simplified for a lay audience.

All-In-One X-Ray Search Toolbox for Social Media Posts.

All-in-one Social Media Search Toolbox.

Did you know that as well as their own internal search engines, social media platforms can be "X-rayed" using Advanced Google search? Why would you want to do this? Firstly, X-raying can search in different ways and in more controlled ways than the internal methods. Secondly, it allows you to search without being logged into your social media accounts and to search in private/incognito modes. Thirdly, it allows to search more than one platform at the same time. Here I am collecting a variety of X-ray search tools for social media posts for your convenience. Note these search results are in date order, the most recent first, as the default. Please do let me know if there are social platforms you would like to be added here.

Facebook Posts.
Examples:
cyberbullying - search Facebook posts which mention the word cyberbullying
"cyber bullying" - search Facebook posts which mention the exact two word key phrase cyber bullying.
cyberbullying OR "cyber bullying" - search Facebook posts which mention either cyberbullying or cyber bullying.

Twitter Tweets.
Examples:
#cyberbullying - search for Tweets that include the hashtag #cyberbullying
@DrGarySharpe - search for Tweets by or which mention DrGarySharpe
@DrGarySharpe #cyberbullying - search for Tweets by or which mention DrGarySharpe which include the hashtag #cyberbullying.

Google Plus Posts.
Examples:
#cyberbullying -twitter - search for G+ posts with the hashtag #cyberbullying, excluding any which mention the keyword twitter.

Pinterest Pins.
Examples:
#pinterest - search for Pins which include the hashtag #pinterest.
"pinterest tip" - search for Pins which mention the exact two word keyphrase pinterest tip.

Facebook, Google Plus Posts and Tweets.
Search for keywords in Facebook Posts, Google Plus Posts, Pins and Tweets.

X-Ray Toolbox for Searching LinkedIn.

A Compendium of LinkedIn X-Ray Search Shortcuts.

Using Google Search to interrogate LinkedIn's database is a powerful tool for businesses and recruiters. Here I have collected a series of custom search engines to help LinkedIn Users make the most of this resource, without having to know much about the in-and-outs of google search syntax and all in one place. If there is a particular or specific type of search you would like to see here, I will endeavour to add something suitable.

Search LinkedIn Profiles.
Examples:
"gary sharpe" - find profile lists containing the exact name phrase gary sharpe.
gary * sharpe - find profile lists containing the name phrase gary sharpe allowing for middle names and initials.

Search LinkedIn "Top 25" Profile Lists.
Examples:
research chemist - find profile lists containing the words research and chemist.
"research chemist" - find profile lists containing the exact phrase research chemist.

Search Public LinkedIn Groups.
Examples:
facebook - find groups discussions mentioning facebook.
facebook -"facebook page" -"facebook fan page" - find group discussions mentioning facebook, but exclude those mentioning facebook pages.

Search LinkedIn Pulse.
Examples:
"linkedin profile tips" - find pulse articles which mention the exact phrase "linkedin profile tips"
x-ray or advanced search - find pulse articles which contain the word search and either the words x-ray or advanced.

Sourcing via Google Searching of LinkedIn's Top 25 Lists.

X-ray Searching LinkedIn's "Top 25" Lists.

When I began researching methods combining text browsers, powerful auto-editing tools and Google Advanced (X-ray) searching, I asked my friend +Angus Grady, a practitioner of the art of Sourcing, for a real world example to work with.

At the time, Angus was searching for people with specific job titles and experience. In looking at ways to tackle such problems efficiently with my methods, I stumbled on something interesting, which I have just been reminded of via a discussion with +Irina Shamaeva in the Boolean Strings LinkedIn Group, where it came up in another context.

Did you know that LinkedIn lists "Top 25" profiles of people under virtually any criteria you can think of?

Now, if you are a LinkedIn User, you have to do the search in a Private Browsing window (or "incognito mode" with Chrome) otherwise you will see something different (and it might also effect your LinkedIn Advanced "commercial limit" +Irina Shamaeva?). Private searching can be important factor for internet sourcing and recruiting anyway, which makes this method even more important.

Let's say, for the sake of argument, that Angus was searching for "Research Chemists". Here's what I found. Try entering this into Google search, in a private browsing window:

site:linkedin.com/title "Research Chemist"

I think that even the first page of results will speak for itself. Here's a snapshot of what I got at the time of writing this:

There are many advantages and benefits to getting information on not just one prospect, but 25 at a time, especially with semi-automated scripting, which I won't go into here, but clearly, the applications for Competitor Analysis are also large.

Of course, the real world application of this comes into play when using more complex search logic than just a job title, but I hope this demonstrates there is real power in X-Ray searching of LinkedIn.

Sourcing and Recruiting with Text Based Browsers.

Text Based Browsers and Internet Sourcing.

This is the third post in a series on using internet searching for sourcing and recruiting, which began with Sourcing with MosaicHub: Another Way to Search For People on LinkedIn and Sourcing LinkedIn via Google Search.

In this new post we consider the question "what is the best browser for internet searching?"

Internet Explorer? Firefox? Chrome?

My answer may surprise you. In my view, it is none of the above. The best browsers are ones you probably have never heard of. They are class of browsers which are driven at the command line and are purely text based.

Let's illustrate by example. Let's search LinkedIn for my profile using Google X-ray search. First using Firefox.

Graphical vs Text Browser for Internet Sourcing.

Results of Google search with Firefox.

Fine, so we've found my profile. In this particular search it is the second entry. There are many more search results too, not shown (in fact, I appear on lot's of other people's profiles, under "Viewers of this profile also viewed..." section and this search brings up all of them too!)

So what do we do with the result? We could save the results by bookmarking the page.We could copy-paste by hand the URL of my profile into a database.

However, a more realistic search would include looking for the profiles from a long lists of people or a search for the profiles of all people who fulfill specific criteria. So, in most cases, internet sourcing requires multiple searches or results in multiple "finds" which one wishes to save and/or sort/prioritize. Automating the multiple searches is not so straight forward with a standard browser, while storing and automated prioritization of multiple results is also problematic.

Now let's consider text browsers. Firstly, with such programs, one can call the search non-interactively. This means that a search becomes an instruction or command rather than something one does by filling in forms on webpages. Essentially, we can create scripts/computer programs which automate any searches to be done. The computer does the browsing, not the human. Secondly, these also allow us to write the output of the search directly to text files. Here's the result of the same example search performed above, but using a text browser.

Results of Google Search with Text Browser.

So what have we achieved? Firstly, as the results are now plain text, we can use powerful text editing software to interrogate, reformat or extract things from the text. For example, we might want to extract the URL of all profiles found, say for inclusion in CRM databases. With text browsers, it is possible to configure things such that the URLs of all links in the page are explicitly included in the results file. In my example, you will note the citation numbers next to every link, e.g. [20], and at the end of the file from which the above graphic was extracted, all these links are given. In other words, by searching with a text browser, I have automatically generated a useful list of URLs of potential candidates. No copy-pasting required.

Without going into details, what this means is that it's not only possible to perform lists of searches automatically, but also to write "simple" computer programs that will extract and format, from the results, lists of relevant web addresses. Moreover, the computer program can then automatically text browse every one of these web pages too...

As an example, it is perfectly possible to search for profiles based on given criteria and then browse and interrogate the profiles of every candidate found, perhaps to find and save any contact details listed on the profile, say. All at the push of a button. We could even take it one step further. Search for candidates, find any Company Websites listed on profiles, find "contact us" pages on those websites, browse these contact pages and save any telephone numbers found to a file.

Sourcing with MosaicHub: Another Way to Search For People on LinkedIn.

Internet Sourcing of People on mosaicHUB.

In this post, I bring three recent threads of this blog together. Alternative websites to LinkedIn for business. Google Advanced Searching. Sourcing and Recruiting via LinkedIn.

One of the alternative websites I've found is called MosaicHub, which I losely describe as a "business orientated, professional networking version of Quora". I really like it actually as the place to go for business Q&A and in my opinion it now outperforms and is more trustworthy than LinkedIn in terms of "knowledge and insights".

In investigating search techniques for internet sourcing of LinkedIn, I wondered if one could search MosaicHub in a similar fashion. Indeed it can be searched via it's Experts Directory. But I also found MosiacHub is "X-ray searchable" with Google. That is, we can find people and resources on MosiacHub through sophisticated Advanced Search techniques, just like we can with LinkedIn.

So it's another searchable database, like LinkedIn, but not LinkedIn. Now you might say most MosaicHub members are likely to be on LinkedIn, anyway. Yes, that is probably true, especially since they have made it very easy to update your MosaicHub profile directly from your LinkedIn one. But there is more to a MosaicHub profile than just this.

MosaicHub: Alternative to LinkedIn?

Firstly, you are much more likely to find the links to professional's social media profiles and pages here. This allows you to contact people a lot more easily via the most suitable media and as well being able to find out more information on a person easily. Indeed, MosaicHub allow members to include their social feeds embedded in the profile, which is great and is something LinkedIn will probably never allow. On my MosaicHub profile, I've got my Twitter and Pinterest feeds, for example.

Secondly, there are additional sections on a MosiacHub profile compared to what's on LinkedIn and moreover members are encouraged to include these additional elements via a rewards system called "Badges". Badges also get displayed on the profile and in themselves give further insight into the person. These rewards work because they make participation more fun and engaging.

So one could think of searching MosaicHub as another way to search for people on LinkedIn, but where you might glean more information at a glance than you might get from a LinkedIn profile view alone.

Oh and they also have a handy little widget builder to add your profile link to blogs too.

Sourcing LinkedIn with Google Search.

Sourcing LinkedIn with Google Advanced Search.

Recently, I've been looking into using LinkedIn as a quick and powerful way to directly source information. "Sourcing" here refers not only to using LinkedIn as a database for recruitment, jobs searching and finding potential customers but also finding information, local businesses, contact details, websites, etc. Indeed, LinkedIn searching can be used like a quick look-up "Yellow Pages" to find service providers, knowledge resources and help, as well as for lead generation and sales.

So I thought I would write a few posts passing on some of the insights I gained in looking into this, in particular when using Google as the search engine to find what you are looking for on LinkedIn (this has been termed "X-ray" searching in the sourcing community).

Firstly, a tip about Google searching in itself. When we enter a search into Google, it actually generates a URL or web address which contains the results of the search. One of the main insights I gleaned is that typing in the right URL at the outset is a much more powerful way to use Google for X-ray searching LinkedIn than entering search terms into the search box. This is because there are a number of "modifiers" which appear in a Google search result's URL which can be tweaked to improve outcomes. Some of these modifiers are not part of the search itself but change the search settings. The real power of using Google is not in knowing the language of advanced search, but in the language of the URL construction!

I will try to illustrate this by example. Let's say we wanted to search LinkedIn for information on Gary Sharpe. Normally, we would type something like

site: linkedin.com "gary sharpe"

into the Google search box. Here, the "site:" bit tells Google we only want to search for results from the LinkedIn website, while the inverted comma's tell Google that we are looking for the exact name, since

site:linkedin.com gary sharpe

would search and find all and any results where gary and sharpe appear but not necessarily together or connected.

How would I construct the basic result URL version of this search as if we entered this into the Google search box as normal? I would just use

https://www.google.com/search?q=site:linkedin.com+"gary+sharpe"

Here the

https://www.google.com/search?q=

part is the basic building block of Google Search result URL's, while the

site:linkedin.com+"gary+sharpe"

bits are just the search terms (note the + replacing the spaces is the only difference between this and what we would have typed into the search box).

Perhaps you are asking why on Earth you would want to do this this way? Firstly, because I could make the URL above into a live hyperlink, i.e. make it a clickable search that you could follow and check out the results for yourself. To do it the standard way, I would have to provide you with search terms

site: linkedin.com "gary sharpe"

which you would have to copy, go to google search and paste it. So the first advantage is that it's easier to share searches and results with others.

Secondly, we can now modify the search by tweaking the basic URL in ways which we couldn't do with search terms alone. And we can make those searches into shareable links too.

As a simple example, the standard search will show 20 results per page. You can change this temporarily or dynamically within each search. As seen above, Google search results typically produce a URL which starts with

www.google.com/search?q=...

We can modify how many results we get per page by inserting a "num=...&" into the URL. So to see 100 results on the first page we modify the address to look like this:

www.google.com/search?num=100&q=....

This can be useful, because often the standard 20 results isn't enough for efficient searching.

There are many other modifiers we can include in the search by directly creating the search URL in this way and skipping the step where we enter terms into the search box. While this way of thinking about searching might seem quite unfamiliar and strange, it is essentially like writing short computer programs. This means that it is a matter of learning the "language" of the how Google constructs its searches. Is it worth learning this language? Probably not unless you are doing a lot of serious sourcing, in which case the search URL is where the real power of Google Search lies.

Public LinkedIn Profile Viewing and Searching.

Public LinkedIn Profiles.

Your LinkedIn Profile can appear very different to different viewers. The default "Edit Profile" view you have of your own profile is not quite what connections see, while LinkedIn users who are not Connections will see something else again and the general public (viewers who are not logged on to LinkedIn) will see something else entirely.

To configure how this public profile looks, you can click the little cog just to the right of the public profile URL which appears under your photo.

You can also choose to customize this URL of your publicly viewable profile.

Public versions of LinkedIn Profiles are Google searchable. Using Google search instead of LinkedIn's inbuilt search is sometimes called "X-ray" searching.

Unfortunately, the custom URL option creates a bit of headache for those of us who use X-ray search for sourcing and recruiting - there are then two seperate places where profiles are stored. Some public profiles can be found under linkedin.com/in and some are under linkedin.com/pub. Even more irritating, there is also a subdirectory linkedin.com/pub/dir where names are also stored without the profile, which tend to come up unwanted in simple searches.

So if you were google searching for my profile, say, in order to make sure you find it, the Google search syntax would be

site:linkedin.com/in OR site:linkedin.com/pub -pub/dir gary sharpe

Yuk! The -pub/dir bit excludes anything in the "useless" subdirectory mentioned above, by the way.