Written by: Crossroads Career
Anyone who has conducted a search on LinkedIn knows what it’s like to start reading results only to end up saying, “What the heck?” Conducting searches is not as easy as one would hope, but you can dramatically increase the quality of results if you utilize a few easy-to-remember methods.
Remember the search I did in my article, LinkedIn – How Do Recruiters Find Candidates? Shame on you!
Pretending to be a recruiter, I conducted a search for a fictitious opening for a marketing manager. I started the search looking strictly for marketing managers in my network; specifically, the search looked this way: “marketing manager”. Somehow or another, I am connected to over 3 million people who have the term “marketing manager” in their profile.
Why do you keep using quotation marks?
I’m glad you asked. When two or more words need to follow in succession you must surround them with quotation marks. If you don’t, the search engine will look for both words separately. In this case, when I searched for marketing manager (without quotes), the result wasn’t 3 million globally, it was in excess of 10 million!
So, here are the rules-of-thumb for searching on LinkedIn:
Quotation Marks: If there are two or more words that need to follow in succession, surround them with quotation marks. If there is a single word, no quotes are necessary.
Lower & Upper Case: The terms you are seeking (like the ones inside the quotation marks) should all be in lower case including a “single term” like cpa). Joining words are all upper case.
Joining Words: AND (seeking this AND that…you will use this the most), OR (seeking this OR that…you will probably never use OR), NOT (seeking this NOT that…you will seldom use NOT).
To finish the search I started, here are the results, step-by-step:
“marketing manager” = 3.7M
“marketing manager” AND “data analytics” = 50K
“marketing manager” AND “data analytics” AND “business development” = 26K
“marketing manager” AND “data analytics” AND “business development” AND “market research” = 10K
“marketing manager” AND “data analytics” AND “business development” AND “market research” AND “pharmaceutical” = 537
Then I added a filter to limit the search to the Greater New York City Metro area = 24
How’s that going to help me?
The same way I just searched for people (the same way recruiters search for candidates every day), you can search for jobs. Granted, what I have above is probably too narrow a search to come up with a lot of jobs in your area, but when I changed the search from people to jobs, I found 116 nationally and eleven in the New York City area.
There are a number of filters you can employ to make your search results better when looking for jobs.
Those filters include any combination of the following:
Date Posted: Anytime, in the past Month, week or 24-hours.
Experience Level: Internship, Entry Level, Associate, Mid-senior, Director or Executive.
Salary: Lots of different salary levels to choose among.
Company: LinkedIn will suggest some, but you can add specifically desired companies.
Remote: Onsite, Remote or Hybrid.
Easy Apply: LinkedIn will filter out all postings that do not offer the Easy Apply option.
Other available filters include Job Function, Title, Under 10 Applicants, and stated Benefits.
In short, if you play around with the searches you conduct, you can hone them to a fine point and save considerable time reading of inappropriate job descriptions. Remember though, every filter you insist on will reduce the results generated.
Romans 8:28 reminds us “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, according to His purpose.” Hold fast to this truth as you navigate the sometimes overwhelming journey of searching for a job. As you implement the resources and tools provided, rest in God’s promises, knowing that He is working for your good, and His glory.
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