If you are thinking of ways to find relevant contacts, you should consider doing an X-Ray search. This method, also called Boolean search, allows users to locate precise results, including contact details, from various online websites. It does so by combining phrases, keywords, and symbols.
There are many different types of information you can find using the X-Ray search. Examples include:
- Contact information such as phone numbers or email addresses
- Portfolios
- Employees who have a certain skill
- Employees who work in a specific field
- Academic degrees
- Certain certifications
- Employees from a specific location.
You can use X-Ray search on practically any website and in any search engine. You can also use it on social media such as Linkedin. Using X-Ray search is not difficult but it requires some practice.
To make your X-Ray search as effective as it can be, you need to use several keywords or combinations of keywords. You also need to think about which of these keywords are the most relevant to what you are looking for.
If you want to get better at sourcing (whether it is information or potential employees), find out more about X-Ray search and use it today.
How to use X-Ray Search?
So, X-Ray search sounds great and you are wondering how you can actually use it? Here is a step by step to help you get started.
- Choose a search engine you want to use to do the search
Although you can typically use X-Ray search in all search engines, it can be more difficult to use this method with some search engines and easier with others. Using Google is recommended as many people have already tried it and it works well.
- Set up the basic boolean string
To do that, you need to type “site:” command and after the url of the website you want to search. Do not include the “www” and the “https”
- Add keywords
The next step is to add keywords relevant to what you are trying to find. You can also add location if you want to obtain results from a certain area. The more keywords you use, the more specific the results will be.
- Narrow your results
Once you have some results, you can examine them and add additional keywords or word combinations to get even more accurate results.
What can I use X-Ray search for?
There are plenty of applications of X-Ray search. You can use it to, for example:
- Search websites with many user profiles
- Search industry news websites
- Search websites with events
- Search target companies
- Search for personal websites
- Remove certain websites from the search.
As you can see, there is no one right way to use X-Ray search. Depending on what information you are trying to find, you can experiment with keywords and use it in a number of different ways.
X-Ray search and recruitment
X-Ray search is popular in recruitment as it can help with sourcing candidates. Through putting together specific words and phrases, for example referring to skills the employer is looking for, the user can get less but more accurate results. Thanks to that they can identify candidates with qualifications they look for.
As a recruiter, you can also use X-Ray search to find candidates on websites that are difficult to navigate or that contain a lot of information. This is because as well as using the X-Ray search to find candidates and certain details in search engines, you can use it to find information on a specific website you are already scrolling through.
Thanks to the X-Ray search, a regular search engine or a social media platform, such as Google or Linkedin, can become your best source of highly qualified candidates.
Looking at the example of Linkedin, it is a professional site allowing people to find others who work in the same industry, to connect with industry experts, or to look for employment. There are so many users that manually looking for those who have qualifications you are looking for could be very difficult. This process can be made significantly easier and faster thanks to X-Ray search.
When using the X-Ray search on Linkedin you can use the function ‘intitle:’ to look for the keyword in the title section. So, if you are trying to hire nurses, you can use the following formula:
site:linkedin.com/in intitle:”nurse”
Or, if you are looking for marketing assistants, you can use:
site:linkedin.com/in intitle:”marketing assistant”
And so on.
You can be creative with using the X-Ray search and the results will be different each time you change the keywords.
X-Ray search and the energy sector
The benefits of X-Ray search in recruitment are clear but you might be surprised to hear that it can also be used in the energy sector. After all, as we mentioned before, you can use the X-Ray search to source not only job candidates but also information. So, if you are an energy broker looking for suppliers that meet certain requirements, or you are an energy consumer wanting to get a new supplier that meets the specific needs of your business, you can try out X-Ray search today.
If you are looking for an environmentally friendly energy contract, you can use keyword combinations such as green energy deal or renewable energy deal. Thanks to that, you can easily identify suppliers that offer renewable tariffs. You can then do a price comparison and choose a contract that you think is the most competitive.
When applied to the energy sector, X-Ray search can also be used to find energy advisors and get their contact details. X-Ray search will obtain their contact details for you and all you will need to do is send a message to them using this information.
X-Ray search collects data from different platforms so you can be sure you are getting diverse and impartial results.
When using X-Ray search, you can exclude a website from your search so, when using it in researching aspects of the energy sector, you can, for example, exclude your current supplier.
To do that, you need to use the “-site:’ formula. So an example would be -site:scottishpower.co.uk.
What are the benefits of using X-Ray search?
If you are still not convinced about the benefits of using X-Ray search, have a look at the list of the main benefits that come with it:
- You will identify potential clients, business partners, job candidates, or employers
- You will get full names of contacts you find
- You will easily get contact information such as phone numbers or emails
- You will save time and effort
- You will get more results than if doing the search the regular way
- You can get results that focus on a specific region, city, or country
- You will get the most accurate results.
Once you try X-Ray search, you will never want to go back to doing research the regular way where you look up keywords in Google and browse hundreds of pages. Try it today and see for yourself how effective and easy it is!