I'm working, but I'll be checking my mail less frequently through January 3, 2011.
Cheers,
Kay Kelison
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Monday, December 27, 2010
My Change…My Reflection….My Passion….My Outlook
I’ve thought a lot recently about how my outlook and my process of self-identification have changed but I’m not sure how to explain it with any confidence. I’d like to think they’ve changed as a result of my own internal reflections and directed inner growth but an equally likely explanation could be the new environment I find myself in as a member of the diversity staffing team at Microsoft. Anyone who has been reading my posts for any length of time knows diversity is a subject I love and have a great deal of passion for especially when it comes to enhancing the diversity of perspectives, experiences and input in our company. The global high tech industry is inherently a highly diverse one and as access to technology grows around the world that fact will only become more pronounced and relevant. As I’ve grown in my role at Microsoft it’s become clear that one key to success for any global business is to cherish a perspective that honors and builds a mutual respect for people from a myriad of backgrounds and experiences. One question I consistently ask myself is ‘how do we ensure that we build a broad understanding and universal acceptance of this fact?’ The clichéd answer, that it’s just a matter of education, falls short I think. Education can just as easily reinforce biases as tear them down while enforced education may increase barriers to acceptance all the more. On this I don't have a clear answer, but it is undoubtedly among the most important issues of this century.
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Hacked Again!
It’s just a reality for all of us who use social networking -- it's not a matter of IF your Twitter or Facebook account will be hacked, but simply WHEN. I've heard from my friends whose accounts have been hacked. The message typically compliments me on being a great friend or requests me to click on a link to view a video of myself. Also, there are usually a number of misspellings in the message.
Be very careful when you get those kinds of messages, even when they are coming from trusted friends who would normally not engage in this type of behavior. Many of the messages are linked to a virus or some type of malware that either infects your computer or will gain access to your account and send all of your friends and followers spammie messages, yes this has happened to me (grr). If you do slip and click on one of these links, pay attention to what your virus scanning software tells you, especially if you get a security warning about a site don’t just click the “close” because it’s a pop-up, it shows up for a reason! So while doing research on how to prevent or protect us from happening again, I have collected a step by step instructions on what to do.
Twitter Accounts
1. Log out of Twitter
2. Visit twitter help center on “My Account Has Been Compromised”.
3. As always “Clear Your Browser Cache” (your browsing history and cookies and private info) and close
down your browser. Doing a weekly sweep would be good.
4. Open a new browser window, log into Twitter, and change your password. You can also use the
Twitter password reset feature to set a new password before logging in again. Wanting to know how
often you should change your password click here
5. Visit your settings page and check your Connections. Revoke access for any third-party application
that you don't recognize.
6. Submit a support request to let them know you have taken all of the proper steps to reset your
account and request that your direct messaging capability be restored.
7. Update your password in all of your third party applications as well. If a third party application (like
Tweetdeck, Hootesuite, Twitterrific, Twhirl, etc.) is trying to use your old password to access your
tweets, it will lock you out of your account.
Facebook Accounts
1. Visit Facebook's information for resolution.
2. If you are still able to access your login email address, then use the "Forgot your password" link to
prompt an email from Facebook with a password reset code.
3. Clear your browser cache (your browsing history and cookies and private info) and close down your
browser as described above. (using the same steps above)
4. Your account could also have been phished/hacked by a phishing web site, worm, or malicious
software. To ensure that all is safe again, refer to the "Warnings" section on Facebook.
Like Oprah says “trust your intuition, and if something doesn't look or feel right, delete it before clicking on it” well sort of J. You will have probably saved yourself hours or headache in trying to restore a hacked account as well as “hey, I keep on getting these emails from you, why is that?”
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
College Students AND Those Who Just Graduated Here Are Some Twittering Tips When Seeking A Job
Ok, so you’re a student in a college or you have just graduated and through your conversations with recruiters, friends and colleagues, you’ve created a Twitter account like everybody else in these social networking worlds. However, Twitter is so much different than Facebook and LinkedIn. It’s more of a water cooler-type setting between humans. In fact, a friend of mine didn’t believe it either, that was until she secured a very desirable internship in the engineering field last summer at Apple because of Twitter. So the question you should be asking yourself is this “how do I use Twitter to feel personal and professionally? Simple, begin with these basic steps and you will expand naturally.
Step A) Start searching and following twitter accounts that post internships and jobs. Some twitter accounts I would suggest following: @internships @sweetcareers or @internmatch they are among many that have a ton of internships which each post, along with tips for finding ones.
Step B) Search and follow twitter accounts by respected members of that field, as well as companies, and business groups. For example, if you’re interested in working for Bing follow twitter @Bingjobs, Microsoft_Jobs @microsoft_jobs or XBOX360 follow @xbox360careers follow people you want to engage with. I would also follow individuals who could help you.
Step C) Clean up your tweets, no more “Going to get drunk and stupid tonight, PARTY!” Please tweet intelligently, yes you can have humor, fun, real however if you are using it as a possible finding a job, start posting interesting articles that you find online, and ADD YOUR OWN INSIGHT TO THEM. Re-tweet interesting posts the professionals you follow, post or add your own insight to them. Replay to Direct Messages, engage in conversations. The main issue of importance here is to be engaged and interact on a PROFESSIONAL LEVEL with these people you now follow. Remember, these people are full of connections, and that is what Twitter is about! Try to make actual connections with these people. See if there are Facebook fanpages that can allow you to post your blog reviews on article’s, etc. a great way to show your involvement within the social networking
Step D) Keep your eye out for job and internship posts. The above mentions are just some I mentioned, but Twitter is becoming an awesome place to connect and be informed about opportunities! Don’t be afraid to engage with a professional (through direct messages or reply to their tweets) for suggestions on how to get in touch with an industry/company you’re interested in. Most fellow tweeters are people who want to help others, if you genuinely ask for help, someone will answer the call.
Honestly, Twitter is just a tool and it won’t get a job for you, however it’s really what you do with this and other tools to find possibilities! Use these tools to find your voice, connect with others it’s really that simple! Final thought, Twitter is an extension of you, and it can be used for giving as well as getting to meet people while making connections that would otherwise be impossible
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
A Helpful Search Tip: Using Bing Search Preferences by Kay Kelison
Using Bing Search Preferences
Bing, is a solid tool for searching the web, as a principal sourcer for Bing/Microsoft I thought I would help users be more productive and effective in their searches. Bing provides users a customizable Search Preferences as an easy way to do basic personalization of how your search engine results are displayed. By using Bing search preferences you can customize settings such as the display language, default geographic location, number of search results to display per page, etc
Many of the Bing search preferences settings are similar to the Google. To access the Bing search preferences click on the Extras link in the top right-hand corner.
A drop down list will appear where you can click on the Preferences link that will lead to a page that is divided into two sections General Settings and Web Settings
.
General Settings – Bing Search Preferences
1. Safe Search: there are three levels for filtering web content and potentially blocking or allowing sexually explicit content. The three settings available are: No filtering of sexually explicit content; Moderate filtering (sexually explicit images and videos); and Strict filtering (sexually explicit text, images and videos). Each is followed by an explanation of what is filtered. You can also report offensive links that the filters might miss by clicking on the “filtering offensive sites” link below the buttons. Bing search preferences for Safe Search are shown below.
Bing Search Preferences - Safe Search
2. Location: by entering a city and state or a Zip Code you can help Bing present results that are the most relevant for searches related to geography. Geographically related search examples might be shopping, maps, or other results where the physical location is important. You can also leave this blank if you prefer no geographic affiliation. Bing search preferences for Location are shown below.
Bing Search Preferences - Location
3. Display: this option allows you to choose a specific language for the display and layout in Bing. Changing this option does not affect the language of the actual search results. Click the drop down arrow to select a different language Bing search preferences for Display are shown below.
Bing Search Preferences - Display Language
4. Results: This option can be quite useful in boosting search productivity as it directly controls how your results are displayed. The drop down arrow next to show allows you to select how many search results are displayed on each search results pages. The default is ten results (or links) per results page with the options available ranging from 10 to 50 results per page.
Web Settings – Bing Search Preferences - these settings apply only to your Web search results
The check box allows you to tell Bing whether to open new page or to use your current page when you click on a link in the search results. By checking this box when you click on a link in the search results that Bing has displayed Bing will keep your current search page open and open the link you clicked on in a new page or tab. If you leave this unchecked Bing will replace the search results page with the page from the link you clicked on. Highly suggest that you check this box. Bing search preferences for Results are shown below.
Bing Search Preferences - Results Options
5. Search suggestions: This option allows Bing to display suggestion as you enter text into the search box. With this search preference checked Bing will offer possible suggestions to complete the word or phrase as you type. This can be a big help in decreasing the amount of typing you need to do as Bing completes the word or phrase for you. It can also be very helpful if you are not sure of the correct spelling of a word or phrase as Bing will offer suggestions with the correct spelling. The only real downside of turning Search Suggestions on is that it can sometimes be distracting. Bing search preferences for Search Suggestions are shown below.
Bing Search Preferences - Search Suggestions
6. Search Language: this option allows you to limit your searches to content written in a specific language. In setting a language it is generally best to search in any language and only select a specific language if you are looking for content only in that specific language. The image below is only a partial view of the languages available. An example of some of the languages available in Bing search preferences are shown below.
Bing Search Preferences - Search Language
7. Important: Remember to click on the “Save Settings” button at the bottom of the screen to save your new settings or they will not be saved.
Customizing search preferences can be a real productivity booster regardless of the search engine you are using. Mine… of course is Bing J
What Are You Thankful For This Year?
Happy Thanksgiving 2010!
Here we are again, celebrating another Thanksgiving. What a blessing it is been for me to be a part of an awesome team, Online Service Division/BING. Thank you all for the experience I take with me as I move into my new role as a Program Manager for the Microsoft Diversity Recruiting Team/DRIVE.
I strive to remember every day of the year how lucky I am, and each year as Thanksgiving approaches I make a special effort to say THANK YOU not only for my blessings, but for the blessings of my friends (work and non-work folks) and family.
While many of us will be sitting down to tables laden with all manner of great foods, try to remember that some people are not that fortunate. Some will be standing in soup lines; some will have to wait for someone to bring them a meal, and sadly, some will go to bed hungry too. With that said, let's try to be more thankful for all the fortunes we have AND let's remember to give something back, even if it’s a dollar or two.
Thursday, November 11, 2010
If A Link Is On Your Resume, Employers Will Click On It
Hiring managers as well as Recruiters will almost always click on the provided links to look at your web site if it's listed. We will would try to find out as much about the candidate as we can, including looking up the person online. Even if it's not on your resume, if your blog, or profile contains information on your real identity, the people you least expect, and those that you certainly don't want reading it, may find it. Like your boss or prospective employers, but, also your customers, colleagues and coworkers.
So Here’s My Do's and Don'ts Advice
Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Web Sites, and Blogs
· Don't include a link on your resume to any site which may have inappropriate content that is not appropriate for a business audience.
· Do be very careful what you put online. If you have a MySpace or Facebook account, people you won't want to be reading your profile may be able to access it, even if you think nobody will read it. Make your account private, so only your friends can access it. Be extra careful, and don't post anything that you don't want a prospective employer (or your mom!) to read.
Facebook Privacy Settings or MySpace Privacy Settings
· Do consider creating a personal web site, if you're unemployed, specifically related to your job search including your resume, samples, your portfolio, and certifications. Include only professional and academic information. Or use your profile on sites like LinkedIn to promote your experience.
· Don't list your blog on your resume unless it's relevant to the career field / position that you are interviewing for.
· Do consider starting a blog related to your career interests. If you, for example: consider blogging about industry trends, news and related topics.
· Do create a job search blog. There's a trend toward job seekers blogging to target their job search and market their skills. A job search blog can help with your job search and give you exposure, but, again, remember who might be reading it
· Do be careful what you blog/post. Keep in mind that just about anything that is online can be read by everyone. If you don't want the world to read what you've posted, make sure they can't.
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Free Advice From A Recruiter
Please consider your online presence! Which means those pictures of you doing a wet t-shirt contest should be removed on Facebook. I have a friend who has a job interview this week and she just emailed me to remove a ton of pictures I have of her up on Flickr, a social site where people look for you, too. While you may have went and made them all private, Bing and other search engines still have cached images of those photos. I had emailed her ages ago when I first posted those pictures, to let me know if anything should be removed. No response. Now, when it is already cached, she wants to do something about it. So I guess this is more like “start considering your online presence way before you apply for a job” - because some things will come back to haunt you. As a recruiter, I think it’s important to start a conversation on this topic. I also don’t suggest removing everything about you off of the channels. To me it looks odd and just looks sketchy. If I search for someone and find nothing, I know that the channels have been sanitized, and this person has something to hide. Or, even worse, they don’t realize what a powerful communication channel these channels are, and haven’t figured out how to positively leverage the “internets.”
Kay Kelison CIR, ACIR, CDR | Talent Sourcer
Advertiser and Publisher Solutions Group (APS)
kaykel@microsoft.com| advertising.microsoft.com
Want to learn more about Microsoft Bing jobs? Join the Microsoft Bing Talent Community!
Click here to learn about open positions, what it's like to work on Bing and to receive updates as frequently or as infrequently as you'd like.
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Sunday, September 19, 2010
Web Designer or Developer Needed
I have a friend who is looking for a Web Designer or Developer Needed – If interested, please reach out to Karen directly her contact is listed at the end of post.
We are looking for a talented developer to join our early stage startup and to round out our development team. We have created an on demand education website with a focus on the employment industry. We will be working with the Government Agencies providing mandatory training -We have developed a strong list of trainers and supporters for the affiliate site, now we just need to get that page going with your help and input! The Beta Site is already launched with a strong following and consistent traffic and we have a Database of over 180K members. But we need someone that can help us succeed to take it to a higher level, beyond where it is today. We also need someone who can help us with the Minor Tweaks, helping get the bugs out – Helping with updates and downloads when necessary! And minor programming. With an addition of a few other components that will help enhance the user experience
Responsibilities
This is not a job offering or an internship! You will be an official co-founder With responsibility in return for tiered equity compensation. You will not be expected to work daily, or even monthly. You will not even be expected to help with continual maintenance of the site.. This will be an as needed opportunity with light programming. Seeking strong experience in the following areas: online customer acquisition, search engine marketing, search engine optimization, social media marketing and customer acquisition. Service positioning, website usability, user-generated content applications, and top-notch social web applications, applications/sites with personalization features. Less than a couple hours a month
Skills
Crazy good programming skills
An entrepreneurial spirit
Experience with open-source CMS, especially Joomla
PHP
FLASH
CSS
HTML
JAVA
.NET
JOOMLA
OScommerce
1-3 years of web development experience
1-3 years programming experience.
Entrepreneurial spirit.
Motivation to make an impact immediately.
If you are interested please
(a) Please email me your resume or pointer to your bio/profile along with relevant examples of your work.
(b) let us know why this opportunity interests you
Compensation will be an early stake equity position.
Warmest Regards
Karen
TEL 858-668-3111
Web: www.hirecentrix.com
Email: karenm@hirecentrix.com
http://twitter.com/hirecentrix
http://www.linkedin.com/in/hirecentrix
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Faster Doesn’t Always Equal Smarter – Kay Kelison
Google rolled out a new search enhancement that shows results when you type, called Google Instant. While it’s true that this feature is innovative, one should question whether innovation equates to more relevant search results. In truth, there is no correlation between speed either quality or relevance of results. So, when you get the 10 blue links does the fact you got them faster mean the search and results were smarter? After all, Aesop warned us of the folly of relying purely on speed. Last year Bing’s search engine was tweaked to produce Real Live Search, which loaded full results pages as users typed. Stefan Weitz, Bing’s director, is featured in USA Today were he talks about how Bing is trying to do search smarter, and that faster doesn’t always equal smarter. He continues to explain that it’s a good thing to produce search results quickly, but that doesn’t always mean it is going to be the type of results that users are looking for thus not really saving them any time. Combining with Yahoo is helping them not only gain access to more information, but with the increase of information Bing can bring users more relevant results faster. “When you think about state-of-the-art searching, it should be less about searching and more about finding” says Weitz.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Bing Beats Google for the Best Way to X-Ray Search LinkedIn
I am really excited to be featuring one of my favorite bloggers for this month Guest Blogger:
Glen Cathy who is the author/creator of Boolean Black Belt His blog is focused on Talent Mining via Boolean logic, offering expert-level search insight for recruiters and sourcers. It’s serves as a resource for sourcers and recruiters who leverage information systems for talent identification and acquisition.
A huge thank you for allowing me to cross post! - Kay
I recently received a message via LinkedIn from Gary Cozin, an accomplished, well known player and knowledge sharer in sourcing circles, asking me a question:
“You know when we x-ray Google for LI profiles we can insert “current * financial advisor” in our string to bring back ‘current’ job titles we want. Do you know how would that be done in Bing?
Now, I have been a long-time user of Google for X-Ray searching LinkedIn. However, Google’s recently made some changes to the way LinkedIn X-Ray search results are returned that has made sourcers and recruiters add additional terms to X-Ray strings to an already lengthy search string to return only profiles (e.g., -inurl:dir, -inurl:jobs…).
Not long after Google made those changes, Shally Steckerl posted an article detailing a novel approach to X-Ray searching LinkedIn using the phrase “Public profile powered by,” which seemed to allow searchers to not have to resort to the cumbersome (inurl:in OR inurl:pub) -intitle:directory -inurl:dir -inurl:jobs, etc. search syntax.
While that approach definitely works, Irina Shamaeva and I have found it doesn’t seem to find and return all available results. Even so, there is no denying that it is a much simpler (and shorter!) method for finding LinkedIn profiles via Internet search engines. Why unnecessarily over-complicate search strings?
So, with Google’s recent changes coupled with their annoyingly overzealous blocking of more complex searches (in some cases you don’t even get a chance to use a CAPTCHA to prove you’re human!), I was happy and curious to see if there was in fact a way to accomplish what Gary was looking to do using a search engine other than Google.
My First Bing Current Title X-Ray Search Experiment
When using Google to search LinkedIn to find people with specific current titles, this is the area of LinkedIn profiles people target:
With Google, you can leverage the asterisk (single or multiple word wildcard) to “bridge the gap” between the word Current and the Title, because you can’t actually search for the bullet separating the two For example, “current * financial advisor.”
Bing and Yahoo (which uses Bing’s search) don’t have a similar operator or functionality. However, I was curious to see what Bing would do if I simply searched for the phrase “Current Financial Advisor:”
A little over 1100 results, and they look clean (profiles only) and accurate to me:
When you click on a cached result, you can see our current title phrase search is working, despite the bullet separating the word “Current” and “Financial Advisor:”
It is important to note that if you click through the results, out to page 17 for example, you’ll notice Bing drops the estimated number of results from over 1100 down to 373.
Although the results look good, my sourcing sixth sense is telling me that we’re not seeing all of the available results.
Deeper Down the Bing X-Ray Rabbit Hole
Trying to think of another angle to take, I took a closer look at the structure of the LinkedIn profile.
I noticed that title phrases are always in the format of “TITLE at COMPANY.” In the above screenshot, it’s “Financial Advisor at Wachovia.”
Because of this consistency, I thought I would try dropping the search for the term “current” altogether and isolate and target “Financial Advisor at”
site:linkedin.com “financial advisor at” “greater new york city area” “public profile powered by”
Over 2000 results, and they look accurate and clean (profiles only):
Checking out a cached result verifies it’s working the way I wanted it to:
If you click through the results of this search, you’ll notice the total number of results drops from an initially estimated 2000+ down to 728, but that is still nearly double the number of real results returned by the “Current Financial Advisor” search. Turns out my sourcing sixth sense was right.
All is Not Perfect (or Current)
Dropping the word “current” from the search string and simply targeting the phrase “TITLE at” works, and it works especially well in the above example. Even though every single one of the random samples I viewed from the 728 results from the [site:linkedin.com "financial advisor at" "greater new york city area" "public profile powered by"] search appeared to be profiles of people who are currently financial advisors, dropping “current” from the search string and strategy doesn’t always work so well.
For example, when you run this string on Bing…
… some results are of people who state they are currently a Branch Manager at Bank of America, but other results are returned of people who are currently doing something else, but had previously been a branch manager at Bank of America.
This is bound to happen given that we are no longer forcing the word “current” to be in a phrase along with the title we’re targeting. However, in some cases, as with the financial advisor search, this search approach can yield results with nearly all profiles having the target title as a current title.
One of the reasons for this is actually due to the fact that a great number of LinkedIn profiles are not very rich in content or complete. Many people join LinkedIn, add their current position, and then don’t ever modify it – this results in many searchable profiles for which there is only a current job, because no previous jobs were ever entered.
This is one small way in which LinkedIn’s often shallow data and many incomplete profiles actually works in your favor – if you’re trying to target people by current title and want to find the maximum number of available results without having to be limited by trying to use “current TITLE” in your strings.
What’s the Shortest Effective X-Ray String?
Looking at the “Public profile powered by” phrase in the search strings, I was curious to see if the entire phrase was even necessary to get good results.
I shaved the “public profile powered by” all the way down to just “powered.” It seems like the most unique term and unlikely to produce (m)any false positives.
site:linkedin.com “financial advisor at” “greater new york city area” powered
Over 42,000 estimated results.
- 
That’s a lot of results – certainly more than the two previous searches. Of course, the 42,000+ is just an estimate and we can’t see past 1,000 results – but I decided to check the integrity of the results out to the maximum you can view (1,000).
As you can see from the image below, you can actually view 1,000 results, and impressively, most (but certainly not all) of the results appear to be all profiles of people who are currently financial advisors – even out to the last page. That’s a significant improvement from my previous best Bing search which yielded 728 financial advisors.
Sweet. 
As Irina Shamaeva has speculated, the Internet search engines obviously don’t index every element/word/phrase of LinkedIn profiles. However, it does appear that the word “powered” is indexed more than the entire phrase “public profile powered by.”
Is there a more simple and elegant search string structure for searching LinkedIn via an Internet search engine to find as many public profiles as possible than site:linkedin.com “TITLE/KEYWORD” “LOCATION PHRASE” powered? If so – please let me know!
Is Google Down and Out?
Going back to Google, we can use a “standard” LinkedIn X-Ray string to compare results with the above Bing search for the exact same parameters:
1600 estimated results looks good, right?
Not so fast.
Notice the 4th result, Shannon Sweeney? He’s not currently a financial advisor:
Using the asterisk in the phrase “current * financial advisor” is not a flawless solution – it will yield false positive results.
Also, navigating through the results, you can see that they actually end at 479. Less than half of our short and sweet Bing X-Ray search of LinkedIn. Interesting, yes?
Can Google Return Good Results with a Short LinkedIn X-Ray String?
Then I was curious to see what Google would make of the short and sweet Bing LinkedIn X-Ray search string:
site:linkedin.com “financial advisor at” “greater new york city” powered
While Google estimates over 94,000 results – you can see from the first 10 that they are mostly directory results and not profiles. Blech!
To add insult to injury, if you navigate out to page 46 – there are actually only 457 results, which is less than half of what Bing returns (which are all profiles and not directory results!).
The Coup de Grace
And now, for my finishing move, I will unveil one of Bing’s (no longer) secret weapons – <insert dramatic music>- proximity search.
Irina brought to my attention via Twitter that Bing actually supports the near: operator. I wasn’t previously aware of this, as I haven’t historically used Bing that much (sorry MS folks), and I had never before heard of Bing supporting proximity search.
A quick bit of research returned this information directly from Microsoft, showing that the near: operator “constrains the distance between terms so that documents that contain instances of the specified terms within ten words of each other are returned before those that don’t.” Interestingly and importantly, that explanation technically leaves Bing the option to return some results in which the near: operator is not strictly obeyed.
Additionally, Bing gives you the ability to move beyond fixed proximity (i.e., near: = within 10 words) and into the realm of configurable proximity by adding a number to the operator, taking precise control over the distance. For example: java near:4 develop
It is also important to know that the order of the terms when using the near: operator is also considered when Bing ranks results. In the above example, pages that contain “develop” 4 words or less after “java” would receive a greater boost in rank than pages in which “java” appears 4 words or less after “develop.” However, depending on the rest of the query, this does not necessarily mean that the former would be ranked higher than the latter.
In other words, Bing favors the original order of the query terms over the reversed order.
So why is this all a big deal?
Well, using Bing’s proximity search effectively allows you to target the current title “phrase” found in LinkedIn profiles, and this is a “cleaner” approach than using Google’s one-or-more-word wildcard asterisk. For example:
site:linkedin.com current near:2 “financial advisor” “greater new york city area” powered
Unlike all of my previous search experiments, we can be more assured that the results are going to adhere to the intent of the search, which is finding the phrase “Financial Advisor” precisely within 2 or fewer words of “Current.” Now, we know that there aren’t any words that separate these two on the LinkedIn profile – its actually a bullet, but this proximity search can be nearly guaranteed to return results where the current title phrase we’re targeting is intact.
Interestingly, even though Bing estimates over 1900 results, when you navigate through the results, you end at page 41 with 410 results. While that is more real results than my first “current financial advisor” search that returned 373, it is less than some of my other search experiments above.
I have my theories as to why this is the case, but I am curious to know what your thoughts are.
If you were curious (I was), here is the search narrowing the distance down to 1 word between the word “current” and “financial advisor:”
site:linkedin.com current near:1 “financial advisor” “greater new york city area” powered
361 real results.
LinkedIn X-Ray Search Summary
· Using Google to X-Ray LinkedIn and target current titles with the “current * TITLE” phrase isn’t foolproof. It will return some accurate results, but it does not return ALL available results, nor are all of the results accurate (current titles).
· You can use Bing or Yahoo to simply search for “current TITLE” and you will return some accurate results. As with Google, however, it will not find ALL available results. Unlike using Google’s “current * TITLE” search technique, all of the results will all be of people with the targeted current title.
· Using Bing to search LinkedIn with the phrase “TITLE at” is also an effective way of targeting current titles without being limited to searching for the word “current,” although it can also return some false positive results (past titles) as well.
· The shortest and most effective LinkedIn X-Ray string to find as many public profiles in a particular metro area as possible appears to be this string structure on Bing or Yahoo: site:linkedin.com “LOCATION PHRASE” “TITLE/KEYWORDS” Powered
· You can leverage Bing’s support of proximity search to target the current title phrase: site:linkedin.com current near:1 “financial advisor” “greater new york city area” powered
· Being curious, questioning status quo and always asking, “I wonder what will happen if…” are critical keys to discovery and innovation!
Conclusion
Bing/Yahoo 1, Google 0.
From my testing, it appears that you can forsake Google and confidently use Bing (or Yahoo) for nearly all of your LinkedIn X-Ray searching needs. It certainly seems that Bing allows you to find a higher quantity of higher quality results, and you can get them with very short and effective search strings, as well as through the use of configurable proximity search, all without all of the non-profile results that Google returns and the annoying CAPTCHAs/you’re not human insults.
Which leaves me wondering – what is going on with Google’s search engine that causes it to return such garbage (non-profile) results when searching LinkedIn?
As a final note – I would never suggest using only one Internet search engine for all of your searching, for obvious reasons. Having said that, Bing has now become my search engine of choice for sourcing and recruiting research.
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