Linkedin is a disruptive recruitment tool. The two employees who resigned from Clear Books in 2012 were both headhunted on Linkedin. I posted about them resigning in this article, A surprising opportunity hidden in key employees resigning.

Recruitment consultants have their pick of potential candidates on Linkedin with the option to view full CV profiles immediately. It’s annoying as an employer!

Karma works both ways. Here is how I have used Linkedin to find and hire three new recruits using the following simple technique.

 

Step 1: Search in Google
Assuming you are looking for a web developer, type into Google the following:

site:uk.linkedin.com “web developer” -dir -title

Or click this link to save you some time.

Let me break down what this search is doing.

site:uk.linkedin.com
Tells Google to only search the UK linkedin website (assuming you are searching for UK candidates).

“web developer”
Tells Google to search for the specific keyword “web developer”. You can change this for any keywords important to your hiring requirements e.g. “marketing executive” or ”accounting oxford university”.

-dir -title
Tells Google to exclude directory listings and title listings on Linkedin. i.e. we only want results that are candidate profiles.

 

Step 2: Review in Linkedin
In new tabs open up all the Linkedin profiles that Google finds and contact the profiles you like.

Posted by Tim Fouracre

Tim founded Clear Books in 2008. Like many small business owners he worked from home for 15 months to get his startup off the ground. Today Tim enjoys helping Clear Books, its customers and its growing team innovate and achieve. Tim did his GCE O Levels in Ghana.

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One Comment

  1. Tim Fouracre 31st January 2013 at 3:19 pm

    Hi Alistair, here’s a good tutorial from Google on using some of those hidden search features: http://www.powersearchingwithgoogle.com/course/ps/course.html

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