5 Tips on How to Search LinkedIn Like a Pro
As LinkedIn has been growing at an incredible pace, we've been actively using the platform ourselves to find great people to fill our open roles. For example, we've been actively hiring developers with strong backgrounds in Java-based web development. (See here for the open job listings at LinkedIn).
One of the most powerful things about the LinkedIn platform is its search capability, although it takes many people a while to discover the power of people search. This seemed like a perfect opportunity to share some of the less obvious features of LinkedIn search, which when mastered can take your efforts to a whole new level.
The following tips are pretty technical. However, I'm sharing them because I have found them immensely useful in the past few weeks, and hopefully some of you are interested in becoming power users of LinkedIn search.
So, using the example of a search for Java engineers for LinkedIn, here are five tips on how to search LinkedIn like a pro:
- Jump right into advanced search. One of the biggest advantages of the LinkedIn platform is that the data about people is in a structured format. This means that you don't have to combine everything into a generic keyword query - you can actually specify query terms for specific fields. For example, if I'm looking for people who currently work at Oracle, I could just search for the keyword. Unfortunately, that will match everyone who has "Oracle" on their resume, either from a former job, or just to say that they know how to work with Oracle databases.
Instead, using advanced search, you can specify "Oracle" in the field directly for positions, even specifying the "current position only" check box. That will give you a tight search that only returns people who currently have Oracle in their current role.
You can access advanced search by clicking the link next to the search bar on the header of the LinkedIn website.
You can also find many of the advanced search tools just by clicking "Refine Search" on any LinkedIn search results page.
- The Magic of Boolean Search: OR. People use different words to describe similar concepts on their
profiles. For example, a Java engineer might have "Java" on their
profile. However, they might also have "J2EE" or "JSP". LinkedIn
search supports the concept of OR, which means that you can have LinkedIn return people who have any one of those terms in their profiles. (Please note, the "OR" has to be in capital letters)
So, in our search for a Java engineer, we might do a search for:
Java OR J2EE OR JSP
This search will return people in your network who have any one of those terms in their profile. - The Magic of Boolean Search: AND. If you thought OR was fun, get ready for a real party when you add AND to the mix. AND allows you to insist that a person have both terms in their profile.
So, if you want someone who has both Java and Engineer in their profile, you would type:
Java AND Engineer
This becomes incredibly powerful when you combine it with OR. For example, if I am looking for a good Java engineer, I might split each term into several possible words:
(Java OR J2EE OR JSP) AND (Engineer OR Architect OR Lead)
Note the use of parentheses to group the OR terms together, so the AND will apply correctly to any of the words in each group of terms. - The Magic of Boolean Search: NOT. The last function in the Boolean search trio is NOT, and it is a tricky but powerful operator. It can't be used alone, but in conjunction with other terms it will exclude people from your search who have that term in their profile.
So, for example, when I run the search above in my network, a lot of the engineers closest to me who fit that description are actually already at LinkedIn! That's no good for a recruiting search. NOT is here to the rescue. With the following search:
(Java OR J2EE OR JSP) AND (Engineer OR Architect OR Lead) AND NOT LinkedIn
You will get back every person who matches the original query, but without people who have LinkedIn on their profile. - Leverage the sorting functions. By default, LinkedIn sorts your search results by keyword relevance. In many cases, this is the best option, because it will prioritize results based on the keyword matches from your search. However, LinkedIn does offer other options.
For example, LinkedIn has the ability to sort search results by number of degrees from you, which is particularly useful if you are trying to find people closest to you in your network.
To use the sorts, just click "Refine Search" on the header of any search results page.
It may take a bit of practice at first, but it is amazing how quickly the above tips can really take the effectiveness of your searches to a whole new level. It is very easy to do a quick search on LinkedIn, and then, using Refine Search, constantly optimize the results with the techniques here to get to a very rich and accurate set of profiles.
I hope these tips prove useful to you. I'll be back again with more tips and tricks on how to make use of both existing and new features.
Jorge Jul 16, 2007
Hope this is of use. Do you know or more robust or similar information re. LinkedIn usage in the US or Europe?
Regards
http://www.latinocean.com/blog/2007/07/02/linkedin-usage-in-australia/
Fernando Aramburu Jul 16, 2007
Hi Adam,
Great article on how to search. I think users will benefit from this if advanced search is more user friendly like for example search options in Gmail.
Also, I think users could get better search results if linkedin implements a tagging system. I wrote some ideas of what do I mean with tagging in Linkedin at my blog: http://sociallinkedin.wordpress.com/ Hope you can read my ideas. :)
Bye
Fernando Aramburu
Anamika Jul 16, 2007
Hi Adam,
Thanks for that update on how to browse better! But as a layman, I was wondering how do you show the names of people I know on my profile home page? Is it extracted from my address book depending upon the email I use?
Another thing, I guess it won't make much business sense to you, but is it possible to have a one year trial period for using the facility to contact people directly?!?! Just a query.
Thank you.
Ciao,
Anamika
Jasper de Valk Jul 17, 2007
Hi Adam, i have to agree with u that the search option is a very powerful one. Hence i believe it should be an option easy to use for all LinkedIn members, however as u stated it's quite technical. Why not make it more easier for the (novice) users and provide the Boolean options in a pulldown or something. That way the users can perform a search more or less with natural language.
Jasper
Jasper de Valk Jul 17, 2007
And I'd like to suggest to make people search not only on School name, but also on Field(s) of Study. This way it would be alot easier to search for old classmates, as universities tend to be quite large..
Angela Garry Jul 18, 2007
I notice from your screen dump of the Advanced Search page that you have a box whereby you can choose the value that determines the radius of your zip code search (e.g. 25 miles, 50 miles, 100 miles, etc).
This box is not available in the Advance Search page that I see here in the UK..... searches performed in the UK are by '100 mile radius' of postcode only. Will further options be added so that all of use see (and can use) the same box as on your screen dump?
Angela
Aurobindo Banerjee Jul 18, 2007
Adam,
Fantastic technology and many thanks to you for bringing this in front of us
It would have been a waste if inspite of LinkedIN having such a beautiful feature we would have been unable to use it
Thanks a Ton!!
--Auro
Saurabh Banerjee Jul 18, 2007
Hello Adam,
Thanks a lot to make this blog!!! Its really useful and very simple
-Best Wishes
SB
Arun Kumar V. Jul 18, 2007
Good stuff, Adam! Appreciate the communication and everything that you guys do behind the scenes to keep everyone else in front, happy and all linked in.
Cheers!
Arun
henry briggs Jul 18, 2007
i found this session very enlightened. it helped me a great deal and i look forward to more useful advice.
Atil Parikh Jul 20, 2007
Thanks... man ... its really helpful me...
Atil
http://weindia.50webs.com
Tom Schmidt Aug 11, 2007
I want to find all of my 2nd connections, sorted by the greatest number of connections through my first connections. This will give me the 2nd connections who I am most likely to know, so I can invite them to connect.
How can I do that?
Dave Martin Aug 23, 2007
What I Miss:
..is a way for contacts to simply extract and neatly print out my CV (which I have on Linkedin)
Every time one of my contacts says ' send me your CV' I have to dig it out and email it. All the info is on Linkedin already, but it cant be extracted.
If one of my contacts thinks, hey thats perfect for Dave, they should be able to push a button to get a Word or HTML copy of my CV and email it to the manager concerned.
I can see there might be concerns if this wasnt limited/protected in some way, so that woud need to be taken care of, but for me, and other people who just want to get their name out there, this would help a lot.
Aaron Sep 11, 2007
Quick question on this: are you only able to conduct a search for people in your network or can you return results for all of LinkedIn?
Adam Nash Sep 14, 2007
Hi Aaron,
You will only see results for people within your network. These results differ for each member, since each member has a unique network.
Adam
Christine Sep 27, 2007
Is there a way to save a search so it doesn't have to be retyped each time you want to use the same filter?
Thanks!
C. Carr
Nawal Kumar Roongta Oct 2, 2007
I am a database researcher and having 37 years research work done on the subject "Business and Social networking".
I wish to work for linkedin.
How, where and to whom should I contact ?
More info about me and my research is available at :
www.internetgod.org/research.htm
Arnnei Speiser Oct 27, 2007
One more way for searching LinkedIn is using the LICM system for searching between your contacts.
With an easy to use GUI LICM lets the regular user to make extended selections of his contacts. It also enables you to perform advanced SQL selections on LinkedIn data and allows you to select by Country & Area & City rather then Country and Post Code.
Geoff Langdale Nov 8, 2007
No amount of search tips can fix LinkedIn search if your network is broken, and practically everyone's network is. By 'broken', I mean that one or more people in your network have 500+ meaningless connections - these people suck in hundreds of random people into your 3rd level connections, even if you never link to one directly.
I would dearly love the ability to rank by 'quality of connection'. Someone with a CS background would understand the notion of doing a breadth-first-search and propagating 'weight of connection' through some sort of algorithm (perhaps the weights would be constant for people with up to 10-20 connections, then fall off thereafter; I'm not sure that someone with 3 connections has connections that are 10x more valuable than someone with 30, even if I feel that someone with 500 connections has connections that are 10x less valuable than someone with 50).
So, say I have 50 connections. Take the example of two of them, 'A' has 10 connections, 'B' has 1000. An algorithm like this (using strictly linear weights) might assign a value of 1/50*1/10=1/500 to each of A's connections and 1/50*1/1000 = 1/50000 to each of B's connections. Of course, I might reach some 2nd level or 3rd level connection through multiple paths; in that case, they get the sum of all the path values.
This should at least be an option in search. This ranking would make the results of Linked In searches far more meaningful, rather than being choked with random people who are linked through me via a friend who linked to a recruiter or real estate agent.
Dan Nicollet Jan 30, 2008
Hello Adam,
Thanks for this in depth presentation of the search features. It's too bad however that linkedin doesn't include a fault-tolerance on the current search configuration or a "did you mean" type search suggest on results pages. When you search for someone, you don't always know the exact spelling of their name or their company's name.
Would it be possible to implement something like an interactive search suggest tool which would allow for instant suggestions before you even submit a query.
Other question : can third party apps submit search queries and receive results through some sort of API with linkedin?
Regards
Dan
Adam Nash Jan 30, 2008
Hi Dan,
Yes, we are definitely working on enhancements to our search engine and front end features.
As you mention, search is definitely one of the APIs that we make available to development partners.
Take care.
Adam
Art Mar 7, 2008
Where can one go to receive more detailed info on performing more complicated searches at LinkedIn?
Adam Lowe Mar 26, 2008
Hi Adam,
I have come across a problem when submitting a search for "C++" or "C#" which is unusual. LinkedIn has been able to generate a good return until recently however, the search no longer works if you select only 1 of the technologies. I can get results if I search "C OR C++" or if I search "C# OR C++" so I was hoping that you could explain why it no longer works when I submit a single technology?
Regards
Adam
Adam Nash Mar 26, 2008
Hi Adam,
I just checked with our search team, and it looks like we currently have an issue where we strip out single character queries (ignoring symbols) from name searches because they are typically middle initials that can lead searchers to null results,
The team is working on a better solution, but I think this is why you see queries like "C#" not work, but "C# OR C++" do.
Adam
Yegor Kuznetsov Jul 2, 2008
Hi Adam,
I've just read your response to Dan Nicollet about the fault-tolerant or "fuzzy" search. One way to handle this is to avoid the keyword-based search altogether - no longer you will need complex dictionaries, lists of of possible typos or taxonomies.
For example, Brainware’s Globalbrain (recently found by Redmond magazine to be superior to Google and Microsoft desktop search offerings) differs from many other search products on the market in that it does not make use of keyword search.
Rather, it searches are natural language based, using a patented n-gram approach. When indexing a word, the word is parsed into three parts and then a vector is created.
For example, the word sample would be parsed as sam, amp, mpl, etc. The capability provided by Brainware lets users search not simply on key words, but on whole paragraphs. Since Brainware doesn't index words, its very fault-tolerant.
If you have time, we would very much like to brief you on Brainware and its search offerings.