X-ray searching allows you to view more than the typical 100 LinkedIn profiles for free by searching LinkedIn profiles through search engines like Google. An X-ray search string targets both default and customized LinkedIn URLs to find profiles containing desired job titles, industries, locations, and keywords. Additional tips are provided for refining searches and connecting with potential candidates found through X-ray searching.

1. ADVANCED RECRUITING TECHNIQUES
X-RAY SEARCH - LINKEDIN

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What is X-Ray Search?
X-ray search is targeting a site (like Linkedin) with a search
engine (like google/bing/yahoo) using the ‘site:’ search
operator.
Ex: site:linkedin.com

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How is X-Ray Searching LinkedIn useful?
• Unlimited profile views i.e. you can view more than 100
profiles – FREE! (Remember, LinkedIn only allows 100
profiles free for view). Around 85% of all LinkedIn profiles
are publicly accessible through search engines, meaning
there is no restriction on viewing profiles through Google.
• Full names are visible for any degree of contacts
• View out of network connections (Remember, LinkedIn
does not allow viewing out of network connection)

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Anatomy of LinkedIn’s URL
There are two types of URLs that are allocated by LinkedIn;
• Default URL
• Customized / Personalised URL

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Anatomy of LinkedIn’s URL
Default URL:
When you create your LinkedIn profile, LinkedIn allocates a
default URL something like the one shown below;
Note: The above URL has the keyword ‘pub’ before the name
and some numbers after the name.

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Anatomy of LinkedIn’s URL
Customized/ Personalised URL:
LinkedIn allows you to customize/ personalise your profile’s
default URL as shown below;
Note: The above URL has the keyword ‘in’ before the name
now and not ‘pub’. Also, it has no numbers after the name and
it allowed me to give a name of my choice - maleks. The
personalised URL looks polished than the default one
and something that people can easily remember.

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Anatomy of LinkedIn’s URL
• Observation: Personalised URLs have the keyword ‘in’ in
the middle while non-personalised URLs have the keyword
‘pub’ in the middle
• Hence, the default URL will be
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/ followed by default string,
whereas the personalised URL will be
http://www.linkedin.com/in/ followed by the user defined
name
• Now that we know which two URLs we are targeting let’s go
over the anatomy of a Google search string

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Anatomy of Google Search String
Here is a Google search string template;
site:www.linkedin.com/in/ OR site:www.linkedin.com/pub/
"Job Title1" "Job Title2" "Industry" "Location" "Keyword1"
"Keyword2“ -intitle:"profiles" -inurl:"dir/"
Let’s understand the above string;
• Site: We are using the site: operator of Google to screen
LinkedIn. Note we are targeting both the URLs (default and
customized) of LinkedIn here using the OR operator. (i.e.
site:www.linkedin.com/in/ OR site:www.linkedin.com/pub/)
For Canada, the LinkedIn URL will be
site:ca.linkedin.com/in/ OR site:ca.linkedin.com/pub/

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Anatomy of Google Search String
• Job Title: You can put as many alternate job titles you want
(ex. “Food Scientist” “Food Technologist” “R&D Manager”)
• Industry: It can be “Food” or “Beverage” or “Food &
Beverages” or “Food Production”, or any other relevant
industry from LinkedIn’s industry list
• Keyword: These could be any specific keyword required by
client. You can put as many alternate keywords you want to
make a bull’s eye query ex. "Aseptic”, etc.
• Location: To target our search location wise, I have put area
as listed in LinkedIn’s location list - “Greater Chicago Area”.
A little homework is needed here as LinkedIn will only
recognise areas it has listed in its Location list.

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Anatomy of Google Search String
• Google will also return some directories of profiles. These
URLs will usually have “dir” in them somewhere. Ex:
Therefore, to remove these directories of profiles we use
the minus operator ex. -inurl:“dir/” -intitle:“profiles”. If you
see jobs pages appearing in your search results then you
can append -inurl:“jobs/” to the string as well.

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Low Hanging Fruits
• For finding active candidates, you can use keywords like
“Looking” or “Seeking” or “2013” or -“Present” etc.
• Looking: Some mention “looking for a new opportunity” on
their profile and we can target those profiles with this keyword.
• 2013: Those who have recently left their job and updated their
profile will have 2013 on their profile. However, this will also
include those who have started a new job in 2013.
• Present: Notice I’m using Present with the minus operator. The
reason for doing this is those candidates who have left in 2013
and have joined another company will have Present on their
profile (ex. 2013 - Present), whereas those who have not joined
and are unemployed will not have Present (ex. 2012 - 2013).
Hence, use of Present with minus operator will get us only
unemployed candidates.

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Go Live!
• Let’s put actual values in the template string now and see.
We’ll search – Scientists in beverage industry in Chicago..
site:www.linkedin.com/in/ OR site:www.linkedin.com/pub/
"Food Scientist" "Beverage" "Aseptic" "Greater Chicago
Area“ -intitle:"profiles“ -inurl:"dir/"

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Go Live!
• About 18 results found. All local, beverage industry,
Scientists and all have “Aseptic” keyword on their profile.
Not bad! Bull’s Eye Query!
• Now, try the query without the keyword “Aseptic” and we
get about 432 results. All local, beverage industry and
Scientists! All these 432 profiles can be viewed free unlike
through LinkedIn which will allow only 100 profiles to be
viewed free.
• Try your queries and go for that hard-to-find talent!
• Happy Hunting!!

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Some more sites we can tap…
X-Ray Searching Job Board - Indeed.com:
• The format of the query will remain the same, just a few
changes;
site:indeed.com/r “Food Scientist” Illinois
• Indeed does not categorise industries or location like
LinkedIn does; hence you need to put all the relevant
keywords in the string to make a bull’s eye query.
• Food for thought: Can we x-ray search Monster and
CareerBuilder??

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Some more sites we can tap…
X-Ray Searching Social Media site – Twitter.com:
• The format of the query will remain the same, just a few
changes;
site:twitter.com “Food Scientist” Illinois
• Be more creative while trying to search twitter as we get a
lot of profiles we don’t want.

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Tips!
• While you try this x-ray search, stay logged out of your
linkedin account, so you can get full view of 3rd degree
contact profiles as well. If you are logged in, linkedin can
identify if a contact is 1st degree, 2nd degree or 3rd degree,
but it can not tell if you are not logged in. 
• Try this search on different search engines – Bing and
Yahoo. You’ll be surprised to see different results.
• When sending an invite on linkedin – do *NOT* send the
default linkedin invite. For a better acceptance ratio,
customise your invites according to job search and send.

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Questions?
• Feel free to reach out to me.

18. Thank You
Shahnawaz Malek
http://www.linkedin.com/in/maleks