(Part 3) X-Ray LinkedIn, use Google

I hope you enjoyed part 1 and part 2. In this part I will going tell you more about how to X-Ray LinkedIn through Google.

Lots of things is going in my life right now, so I will write more articles soon, but in this moment I will take a break, because I have to do some important stuff.


Why to use x-ray for LinkedIn?

Reason 1: Full Names (always)

Reason 2: Unlimited profiles: You can view more than 100 profiles and absolutely for free. LinkedIn will show you only 100 profiles per 1 search.

Reason 3: View out of network connections

But first you need to understand how the whole LinkedIn URL is working

http://cz.linkedin.com/pub/petr-novak/11/a36/1b1/en 

The above URL has the keyword "pub" before the name and some numbers after the name.

LinkedIn allows you to create your personal link http://cz.linkedin.com/in/petrnovak/

This URL is personalised LinkedIn URL. As you can see there is not "pub" there. Also, it has keyword "in"before the name and not numbers after the name and you can chose your name

Personalised URLs have the keyword 'in' in the middle while non-personalised URLs have the keyword `pub' in the middle. As you can see the default URL will be http://www.linkedin.com/pub/ followed by default string (http://cz.linkedin.com/pub/petr-novak /11/a36/1b1/en), whereas the personalised URL will be http://www.linkedin.com/in/ followed by the user defined name (http://cz.linkedin.com/in/petrnovak/)

So now you understand the difference between these two URLs. And now is time to use them in practices for our Google search string.

Google search string example:

site:www.linkedin.com/in/ OR site:www.linkedin.com/pub/ "Job Title1" "Job Title2" "Industry" "Location" "Keyword1" "Keyword2" -intitle: 'profiles" -inurl:"dir/"

Looks scary, but it’s pretty simple. But here is a quick explanation.

site: we are using this operator to screen LinkedIn website and because we would like to see both URLs (default URL and customized) we need to use operator OR. If you would like to target only Czech profiles its also pretty simple. You will just remove www and put CZ. It will look like this site:cz.Iinkedin.com/in/ OR site:cz.linkedin.com/pub/

Job Title: You can use different job titles like "Developer" "Programmer" "Vyvojar"

Industry: It could be "Software" or "Information Services" or "Information Technology" or any other relevant industry from LinkedIn's industry list. http://www.linkedin.com/directory/companies

Keyword: These could be any specific keyword. In part 2 you will find the information about JAVA keywords. So you can put there anything you would like.

Location: Search location wise (use the areas that are listed in Linkedln's location list. You can use "Prague" "Praha" etc.

Just do your homework and try more options. ;)


During you search, Google is going to provide more profiles with some directories of profiles. These URLs will usually have "dir" in them somewhere. It’s really simple to remove these directories use the minus operator ex. -inurrdiri" -intitle:"profiles".

Also if you see jobs pages appearing in your search results (Google, Bing etc.) you can also simply remove them if you use -inurl:jobs/ in your string.


Few tips for your better search:

Some candidates are free on the market, we called them "active candidates" and when they start looking for a job, they are using keywords like "Seeking" "Looking" "Seeking for new challenges" "Looking for job opportunity" etc. so if you use these keywords you will find the right candidates pretty easily.

site:cz.linkedin.com "J2EE" (inurl:in | inurl:pub) -inurl:dir -inurl:jobs2

site:CZECH VERSION.linkedin.com "Keyword" (customized | default profiles) -REMOVE Dir –REMOVE directory

Looking for Graduates

Example: Gradues at Prague University and CUNI (Univerzita Karlova)

Searching LinkedIn does not give you the option to search by date. The dates are essentially “hidden” from your search parameters. This feature is particularly useful when looking for contractors or recent graduates. Searching for grads who left college at the end of term last year is easy when you search like this:

site:cz.linkedin.com -inurl:dir -inurl:jobs -inurl:company -inurl:groups (“university Prague” OR “CUNI”) ("2010 * 2012" OR "2011 * 2013")

Take risks: if you win, you will be happy; if you lose, you will be wise. So don’t use only LinkedIn, but try Google, Bing etc.