One of the most basic requirements when sourcing candidates is that they are based in an appropriate location for the role we are trying to fill.
Recruiters already know that LinkedIn is a very powerful candidate sourcing tool, but do you know all the ways it can help you find candidates that are in the right place? Here are the three strategies that you can use:
1) Advanced Search on LinkedIn
This is by far the most obvious technique, and probably the most useful. Using LinkedIn advanced search page, you can give it a postcode and a search radius and it will find you candidates based on their location.
If you have a Basic profile you will be limited to seeing 100 results per search and will only be able to view full profiles of your 1st and 2nd degree connections.
2) Custom Filters on LinkedIn Recruiter
I’m often asked if it is possible to search for candidates in multiple countries at the same time. You might want to do this if you recruit right across Europe or in a particular region, like the Nordics for example.
One of the best ways I have found to do this is using Custom Filters. You will have access to this feature if you have a LinkedIn Recruiter licence.
Once you have run your search, select multiple countries from the Location filter on the left hand side of your results page. To add countries that don’t appear in the top 10, just start typing in the box that says “Enter location name”.
If you then scroll to the top of the search filters again, under the blue “search” button you will see a link to “Custom Filters” – use this to save your filter for later and use it to save time on future searches.
3) Country Specific Sub-domains used with Google or Bing
If you perform site searches (sometime called X-ray searches) of LinkedIn using Google or Bing then you can take advantage of LinkedIn’s country specific sub-domains to search for profiles from one particular country.
If you just want profiles from the UK for example, search site:uk.linkedIn.com
If you’re unsure what the two-letter sub-domain is for your target country, Irina Shamaeva has posted a list of all the LinkedIn country sub-domains she has identified over on the Boolean Strings blog.
If you want to search for LinkedIn profiles from the UK, but aren’t too confident writing your own Boolean Strings, try out this Custom Search Engine that I made – it only finds UK LinkedIn profiles.
Do you have any other handy tips and tricks for searching LinkedIn by location? Let us know in the comments below.
RELATED: 3 Google Boolean Search Strings for Candidate Sourcing
