Google Plus (X-Ray Google+)

G+ or Google Plus has been ignored and still is, by recruiters everywhere.

G+ for most of them is a ghost town. I always hear things like „Nobody is there“, „I am not going to waste of time there“, „G+ is not for hiring“ etc.

Don’t be stuck only with LinkedIn and don’t believe the typos in LinkedIn is the secret that is going to help you Crack the code to LinkedIn. It is going to help you if you are still living at 2012.

Yes Google+ is not a LinkedIn, but have you ever tried it? I don’t have to be a mind reader, but I believe that your answer is NO. 

Google+ has millions members, they are using G+ profiles and these profiles are linked with other services like GMail, Google Docs and Google Search etc.

Every year, I am able to hire between 4-8 people from Google Plus and some of them are not on LinkedIn. So if I can do that, you can do it too.

Why Google+ is good:

• Searching and messaging is completely free! 
• Google Plus still remains untapped communication tool. 
• You can reach out to whoever you like on G+ using hangouts. 
• It has a very broad demographic. 
• Lots of IT people are on Google Plus 
• Create completely customised talent pools (via Circles) 
• Great community functionality

X-Ray Search Google Plus Search

Simple put this string: Java “Prague” into search. If you hit search it will bring up the full news feed, which is not what you want. So instead of ‘Everything’ select ‘People and Pages’

You can also use this string: “software engineer” “Prague” “Skype”

X-Ray Search Google Search


Here is an example of a Google X-Ray search of Google+ on Google Search to find software engineers who work at Skype in Prague, using “lived in ____:”

site:plus.google.com “lived * Prague” “software engineer” “works * Skype”

When you perform the search, you will see more duplicates results, such as the “About” and “Videos” sections.

If you wanted to remove those, you need to add just few things into the string.

-inurl:(about|photos|videos) 

more advanced -inurl:(posts|about|photos|videos|plusones)


So the string will looks like

site:plus.google.com “lived * Prague” “software engineer” “works * Skype” -inurl:(about|photos|videos)

If you are Boolean addict and you would like to use more than 1 title, than you can use this string on Google+:

site:plus.google.com lived * Prague (programator | programmer | developer | software engineer)works * Skype -inurl:(about|photos|videos)

Of course, you don’t have to add target companies in your search strings, you can remove the Skype from it so it will looks like.

site:plus.google.com “lived * Prague” (programator |programmer | developer | “software engineer”)“works *” -inurl:(about|photos|videos)

Email address:

Some profiles are full of links on other sites so you can easily find the email on the candidate. Sometimes even phone numbers on their profiles can be found.

Google+ cannot be ignored. Try to use it and you will be surprised, but if you are not going to use it, that's fine with me. It just means, that I have less competition.

For this blog, The Czech Recruiter, over. :)

If you have any interesting tip for me, let me know in the comments or over the Twitter