If you are a recruiter, chances are that keyword search is a core part of your sourcing process.
With more than 700 million profiles on LinkedIn and many more across the web, finding the right candidate based on how she describes herself is an obvious approach.
Problem is, it’s also a flawed approach.
Traditional “keyword-based search” is dependent on profiles containing the terms a recruiter looks for.
Too often, they don’t.
The CEO of Paypal doesn’t use the word “Fintech” on his LinkedIn profile. The CEO of Pepsico doesn’t reference “FMCG” on his. “Coffee” doesn’t appear on the profile of the CEO of Starbucks, believe it or not!
If the words you search for aren’t on the profiles you want, you’ll miss them.
Fortunately, there’s a solution. To put it simply, if we know that an executive works for a fintech company, we can assume she has fintech experience – whether she says so on her profile, or not.
If we start to associate keywords with specific employers, we find far more candidates. But we can also target far more precisely.
Rather than just finding people with “FMCG” anywhere on a LinkedIn profile, we can specifically target people who are currently working for an organization in the FMCG sector.
Let’s take a worked example.
The search is for an experienced head of sales. Our candidate will currently be working in consumer goods. She’ll have a background in e-commerce. Must have worked in cosmetics.
A traditional keyword search finds 694,000 people, worldwide, with the phrase “consumer goods” anywhere in their profile. The “company augmented approach” identifies 3.5 million potential candidates.
But adding the “must currently be in consumer products” requirement reduces our list to 935,093 potentials (this isn’t even possible with a traditional search approach!).
To be clear what this means:
Old-school search finds 694,000 people with “consumer goods” anywhere on their profile. Company keyword searching identifies 935,093 people working for consumer goods companies right now.
Not just more candidates. More relevant candidates.
Add a couple of additional filters and – seconds later (literally) – that 935,093 becomes 721 potential candidates.
All in sales leadership roles. All currently working for consumer goods companies. All with e-commerce experience. All with a background in cosmetics.
Unfortunately, traditional keyword search doesn’t do this.
But it can be done.
Here’s how – recorded ‘live’, this video shows the longlist discussed above being delivered in just two minutes. Check it out: https://lnkd.in/eVVe5RSF
You’ll see we’ve done it with a new tool – Talentis – that offers this unique ability to search across around 250 million people profiles, each of them augmented by company intelligence.
Once you’ve watched the video, we’d love for you to take a free trial – a week, on us, with no commitment. Details here: https://lnkd.in/eVVe5RSF
Give it a go!