Tools and tips round up: Goodbye Google cache and LinkedIn X-ray search

LinkedIn X-ray search is what sourcing experts like Irina Shamaeva call the ability to use search engines to search for LinkedIn profiles using the “site:” operator. Here’s a basic example of an X-ray search to find people at ProPublica who might report on health:

site:linkedin.com/in “propublica” “health”

Plug the above query into Google or Bing and the results will show LinkedIn profiles that contain the keywords “propublica” and “health” in their About or Experience sections. This is different from LinkedIn’s native search, which has a field to search for keywords in someone’s job title.

Concerns about the state of X-ray search recently emerged in an article by Marcel van der Meer of Sourcing Training. He demonstrated that LinkedIn appeared to be restricting the amount of profile information available via search engines. Shamaeva dug in and came up with an equally concerning lack of results.

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