By Irina Shamaeva, Chief Sourcer, Brain Gain Recruiting

Founder, People Sourcing Certification Program

http://sourcingcertification.com

http://www.linkedin.com/in/irinashamaeva http://twitter.com/braingain

Blog http://booleanstrings.com

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Today’s topic is:

Searching

with easy, readable

syntax

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Lots can be found simply searching for

English words and phrases: • “Passive” candidates

• Potential clients

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Google is “the” search engine • It has indexed the largest number of Internet

pages

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Settings • No instant results

• 100 results/page

• No personal results

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Example 1.

Example 2.

Example 3.

The Core Principle of Searching

How-To Tips for Types of Pages

Brief Notes on Syntax

How-To Tips for Types of Info

Fun Stuff: Image Search

Setting the Right Expectations

Q&A

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“What are we going to find?”

Suppose we have landed on an

interesting, relevant page as the result of

a search… • What will the words and phrases be like there?

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Search for some of the words and phrases

you expect to see on the relevant results

page

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Social Profiles (LinkedIn)

Associations

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Expect to find • The word LinkedIn

• Geography words

• Job title(s)

• Certification(s)

• Keywords

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Expect to find: • Association

• Location words

• Industry keywords

• A pointer to a member directory or member

search

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AND

Quotation Marks

OR • Best practices for using OR

Parentheses

Excluding terms • Best practices for excluding

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There’s no operator AND • Do not use it!

Google tries to find pages that have all

the words you have listed

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To try and find the exact word, or words

together (a “phrase”), use the quotation

marks: • "manager"

• "she"

• "registered nurse"

• "please contact me at"

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Caution: watch for MS Office-changed

quotes. Google understands straight "",

not curly “”

OR is a Boolean operator. It helps to use

it in cases you’d really need one or more

of the words to be found in the results

Syntax:

Deloitte OR Accenture OR Gartner

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You can avoid using OR simply by

searching for the words in turn: 1. Search for Deloitte

2. Search for Accenture

3. Search for Gartner

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Google completely ignores parentheses.

Period.

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If you want to exclude a word from the

search results, you can use the minus in

front of a word (no spaces in-between)

For best practices, consider using it less

rather than more, and never upfront

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How to express in key words and

phrases: • Terminology

• Contact Information

Email Addresses

Phone Numbers

• Geography

• Degrees

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What are we going to find?

Imagine words that a person’s profile

page (or a site) would use, not what the

job description necessarily says

To come up with keywords, explore some

examples of “ideal” profiles

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Get quick help in figuring out

terminology

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What are we going to find? • Generic (free) email addresses

• Phrases

• Company emails

Including these in a search may help to

find profiles with contact info, as well as

lists

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Example • "gmail.com" OR "yahoo.com" OR "aol.com"

No need to use long lists

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“Email me at”

“Email me on”

“My email is”

“Contact me at”

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linkedin Melbourne Australia sales

"email me at" "people you know"

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What are we going to find?

• Area codes

• Phrases

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02 Central east region (New South Wales,

Australian Capital Territory)

03 South east region (Victoria, Tasmania)

04 Mobile telephones (Australia-wide)

07 North east region (Queensland)

08 Central and west region (Western

Australia, South Australia and Northern

Territory)

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“call me at”

“call me on”

“my phone is”

“my mobile phone number is”

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Country calling codes and area codes

• http://countrycode.org

• http://www.countrycallingcodes.com

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What are we going to find?

Use the location names the way the

pages may use them

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Postal codes

http://www.geonames.org/postal-codes/ • Note: these numbers have a better chance to be

useful if they are longer and are combined with

other “local” keywords

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Drop the terms with too many synonyms: • You will always

review the results

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Drag an image to Google’s image search

to look for it across the web

LOTs can be found by using English

words and phrases without complex

Boolean operators

By searching using English (vs. Boolean)

you are giving up some control over

search results and may miss some results • But you may gain productivity spending time on

processing the results and reaching out to the

people you find

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After you have mastered searching in

“plain English” you may feel more

comfortable learning to use some

advanced search operators, to gain

better control of search results

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We can only find web pages if they are out

there

Some info is behind a log into a site with a

password

Some info is wrong or obsolete

Blog http://booleanstrings.com

Largest Sourcers’ Online Community • "Boolean Strings" Group on LinkedIn

• Boolean Strings Network

People Sourcing Certifications • http://sourcingcertification.com

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