The talent acquisition field has experienced a significant number of layoffs recently. In light of the stiff competition, it is advantageous to be knowledgeable about searching for job opportunities that are not publicly posted. By leveraging advanced search techniques, such as Boolean strings and other methods, you can uncover a network of hidden job openings and other career prospects that are available online.
This is a guest post written by David Puente:
Over the past year, company after company has conducted layoffs impacting tens of thousands of highly qualified individuals. Recently, companies have begun a second or third round of layoffs, saturating the market even more and making the search even harder. Human Resource and technical roles have been severely impacted over this period leading to a great deal of competition for limited roles.
Right off the bat many job seekers flooded LinkedIn and Indeed looking for opportunities just to find that they were competing with hundreds and thousands of other applicants. Even if you are the first person to apply, you will soon find your resume among hundreds in just the first hour. But not every company uses or has the capability to use LinkedIn, Indeed, and other job boards to list their roles.
Though I am still currently seeking a new role, after being laid off 3 weeks ago, I’ve been finding greater success seeking roles as if I was sourcing for a candidate. Over the past week and a half of searching, I have been contacted by a handful of companies that did not have roles listed on LinkedIn or Indeed.
Here’s my strategy to find a hidden job market for recruiting jobs:
Operators/terms to know:
Site: – helps the search focus on websites
Intitle: – helps search through the website titles that include a desired keyword
Inurl: – helps search through the website URLs that include a desired keyword
AROUND(N) – makes it possible to perform searches focusing on sections of a page/site that are relevant to the context (ex: sourcing AROUND(3) ATS . this will search for the term sourcing within three words of ATS on a page)
OR – results include either keyword or all of them
Minus/- – Excludes a keyword from the search.
* – a wildcard is a placeholder for an unknown term
#..# – allows the search to focus on a range of numbers instead of a single number
As a recruiter, I love to google x-ray and power search for candidates. Whether I site-search Google, GitHub, or others, or focus on resumes/profiles/about me sites, being able to utilize Google opens up many more possibilities in a search. Now that I am focused on finding a role, I have taken the same approach to my candidate search, but instead I have geared it toward companies, job descriptions, and specific roles. Keep in mind that the following example is for recruitment roles. Tech and other non-tech roles can also be searched for, as long as the keywords/terms are changed to suit the role being looked for.
Site:*.com – looking for any site ending in .com (ideally looking for direct company sites)
Intitle:(recruiter OR sourcer OR “talent acquisition”) – focusing on sites with a title that includes recruiter, sourcer, or talent acquisition
Inurl:(careers OR jobs) – focusing my site search to have “careers” or “jobs” in the URL
(remote OR virtual OR [enter state]) – focusing on pages that have the terms remote, virtual, or the state I live in. I like to keep this option open as some companies are open to remote, but do not list that option. I feel that a company is more open to a remote employee if they live in the state that the company is located.
“5..10 years” – ideally looking for a role that is looking for 5 to 10 years of experience required (I currently have 8+ years)
Example search put together:
site:*.com inurl:(careers OR jobs) intitle:(recruiter OR sourcer OR “talent acquisition”) (remote OR virtual OR Florida) “5..10 years” qualifications responsibilities ATS -indeed -zip
With this search I also wanted to focus on, ideally, what every or most job descriptions have when listed. So I added the terms qualifications and responsibilities in hopes of finding links that will go direct to a role/job description that will allow me to apply. I also excluded indeed and zip, so that way I’m getting less job boards and more company sites.
This search method isn’t perfect, and you will most likely come across roles you have already applied to, but I liked the opportunity to search for and apply directly on a company website and find roles that were not listed anywhere else. I hope this information is helpful and please reach out to me on LinkedIn if you have any questions.
About the author: David Puente II
David Puente brings more than 8 years of expertise in sourcing and recruitment, covering full lifecycle, sourcing, closing, and a strong drive for promoting diversity and inclusion. For the past 3 years, David has been at the forefront of diverse recruitment efforts, leading Diverse Sourcing Sessions, implementing strategies, conducting lunch and learn sessions, serving as a company Diversity Champion, and earning certification as a Diversity Recruitment (CDR) professional.
David’s approach to sourcing and recruitment extends beyond filling roles for the sake of it. Instead, he strives to ensure that candidates are placed in an environment that maximizes their potential for success, growth, and the achievement of personal and professional goals.
You can connect with David on (LinkedIn here)←
Recommended Reading:
Marc Hamel Interview
Building a use case with recruiting data
Trending Talent Sourcing Tools in 2023
- Unleashing the Power of AI in Talent Sourcing: Meet Noon - May 17, 2024
- Demystifying Natural Language Search: Crafting Effective Boolean Strings - April 26, 2024
- The Art of Context: Why Rushing to Conclusions Can Lead Us Astray - April 25, 2024
Issue is that Google implies an and ignores parentheses (always has or at least for over a decade). Which means this search wants all of qualifications AND requirements AND ats which I would change to OR. Also, the years condition is very limited if it is executed literally. An example issue might be if it only looks for exact matches (although they do e.g. would it not find a listing asking for N+ years? Because.of that I’d also follow it with an OR then adding senior-level titles or similar
Finally, No it wasn’t your intent for this as you aimed to remove indeed, indeed’s native search is utterly useless and if you put in OR it literally searches for OR!! (usually) so x-ray is perfect for indeed searches