Linkedin can be a great tool to find the right people for a job, a project or for one time help. In fact, it is that good that sometimes you get too many results and can’t see the forest for the trees. In this post I’m going to explain how to use Linkedin’s advanced search features in order to find people for specific tasks.
Let’s assume you’re looking for a PHP developer for your company. Here’s how you can use linked in to find people to hire:
In the search box type in PHP and hit search. The results will display people who mentioned the word PHP in their profile (note that people who are in your network show up first).
Refine the results by selecting or typing-in a location in the Location box on the left. Now, you will only see people from that location.
To further refine the results, in the groupsbox choose a group such as “Job networking” (of course you will have to be a member of that group in order to see it). That way you will get back people who are searching for a Job.
I made a video that illustrates how to do that, see it below:
Over the past year I’ve written several posts about different Google applications. These include Google search, Google Reader, Gmail, Google Maps, and more. In case you’ve missed some, here is your chance to catch up with some great Goolge practices and tips (note that some of them where published on MakeUseOf.com):
If you’ve ever tried Twitter’s search, you’ve probably found that it’s not very good. Indeed, Other Twitter search alternatives exist, such as Trendistic, Tweefind, Tweetzi, and Twazzup. But wouldn’t you rather just use Google for the task?
To search Twitter with Google, all you need to do is add to the search query a limitation that tells it to search only within Twitter (and not the whole web). To do that, simply add the following string to the query:
site:http://twitter.com
So, for example, to find mentions of this blog, we’ll add the word ‘productivewise’ to the query, as shown below (notice that there is a space between the search term, productivewise, and the sit URL) :
Every day we read, hear, and see tens of web pages if not more. How do you process the useful and interesting information you find online? Do you send it to yourself via email? Do you star it in Google Reader or add tags? Or maybe you just rely on the good old brain to retrieve the right information at the right time?
To participate, write in the comments what are your online information processing methods.
Next month I’ll post a summary of all the answers.
Two weeks a go I gave a lecture in a social media seminar. Now I’ve translated the presentation I used into English and made it easier to understand without seeing the actual lecture.
The presentation describes 20 social media practices that will help you in your daily life. It includes tools to monitor your web presence, ways to track interesting topics and conversations, methods to find people and to get answers, and more.
It revolves around the following seven categories:
People Database
Keeping in touch and more
Conversation
Search
Collaborating
Monitoring and News
Self monitoring
I’ll be glad to get your feedback and thoughts about it.
Social networks and social media tools let you find and communicate with people all over the world, even if you’ve never met or known them before. But sometimes, all you really need is the opinion, advice or support of the people closest to us. Status Search answers that need by letting you search your friends’ social status updates.
Recently launched in beta, Status Search is a little private search engine. It connects to your Facebook and Twitter accounts (no need to give away any passwords) and then lets you search the status updates of the people you follow, and also the photos, links and videos of your Facebook friends.
Can’t I just use Google?
If you think about it, many of your quests for information would be better answered, and sometimes can only be answered, by people you know or those who are in your close surroundings. Also, you have much better information about the reliability of these people and it is easier to approach them.
Let’s think of some realistic examples. It’s Saturday morning and you want to go with someone to the sea. Just type in ’sea’ and you’ll find all the people who’ve written something about it – some are probably about to go there…
Upon undertaking a new project it is a good practice to search for related work done in your organization. Asking co-workers if they are aware of such a work is one (good) way to do it. Another way is to search for documents in your file system. The latter can be done using the built-in search feature in windows.
To search for documents related to you project, do the following:
Go to the root folder (found it under ‘My Computer’, you can use the keyboard shortcut Winkey + E).
Click the “Search” button on the upper toolbar (see image below).
A new window will open inside the current one. Write a keyword related to the new project in the search box and hit search. You can search all or part of file names or a word or a phrase inside files.
The built-in search feature in windows folders
The results of the search you performed are a good base for the new project. It will allow you to continue previous work undertaken in your organization and save you time reinventing the wheel.
Since RSS was introduced, the number of sites people are able to read increased substantially. Try these six methods to find more sites to subscribe to and fill in the reading gap.
1. Stick to good things
Let’s say someone you followed on twitter, or a coworker from work sent a link to a useful article in PDF format. PDF documents on the web are disconnected from the site they are published on. That is, there is no navigation menu to put you in context. When you get this kind of document, remove the end of that document’s URL and visit the site that published it. Usually, you will find more interesting things in there.
For example – I got to a document called “Best Practices for Political Advertising Online” while I was reading a post through my RSS reader. That was its original URL:
The idea is simple – your RSS reader (hopefully) contains hundreds of your favorite sites. Why not use its search capability before turning to Google or other search alternatives?
The rational
The search option in your RSS reader searches through all your subscription. Put differently, you have a private search engine to search the best sites on the net (why else would you subscribe to them?). Admittedly, it won’t always be the best solution, but I would keep it in mind when searching for something. After all, a recommendation on a software or a site from Lifehacker , MakeUseOf, Mashable or ReadWriteWeb could be better than just finding a site through Google.
Linkedin can be a great tool to find the right people for a job, a project or for one time help. In fact, it is that good that sometimes you get too many results and can’t see the forest for the trees. In this post I’m going to explain how to use Linkedin’s advanced search features in order to find people for specific tasks.
Every day we read, hear, and see tens of web pages if not more. How do you process the useful and interesting information you find online? 
