1) To expand the number of people you know and who know you. To find and to be found!

2) To learn new information pertinent to your field from mentors and thought leaders.

3) To illustrate your expertise with a community of people who may connect you to opportunities based on learning about you and what you know.

It seems clear Google+ offers a lot (and a lot of potential) to satisfy these needs.

Today, I wanted to share some advice about how to address #1: How to find people on Google+

Recruiters in the social sphere are already buzzing about using Google+ profiles to find and source applicants. It’s important to know how they are looking and to make your profile as searchable as possible. Google doesn’t share its search algorithms, but there seem to be ways to make it easier for people to find you.

How are people searching?

I do not profess to be an expert at Boolean search. Luckily, I know how to find the people who are! If you’re not familiar with Boolean search, it’s a way to create (usually) complex strings of search requirements in order to find the exact results you want. For example, you can write a Boolean string to find engineers who graduated from a particular school. Depending on how complex the search, it may find engineers with a school name in their title, or only those who actually listed they “graduated” from the school. It’s possible to write a search to find people who work in a particular company, or those with a particular job title.

Kelly Dingee wrote a terrific post on Fistful of Talent about why she’s excited about using Google+ for recruiting. (Be sure to read her post; it may convince you to at least create a great profile and hop on board!) In addition to her ideas information about how she plans to use Google+ and Google profiles for search, Kelly provides what she calls a “simple” search string (to use directly in Google) to find an engineer in Google+:

site:plus.google.com google engineer

Irena Shamaeva wrote a great post about how to search Google+ profiles. Irena links to two searches I think are particularly useful for job seekers. Her first link is to search for people on Google+. This brings you to a page inside Google itself, set up to let you search within Google+ profiles. Search for anything you want to find here. Maybe you’ll be looking for expert career and social media advice? Search {“career coach” and “social media”}. Or, even, {career coach, social media}. You’re looking for someone who works in a particular company? The link brings you to “work at Google.” You can search for “work at” any company!

Hopefully, you are recognizing the opportunities to find people on Google+. As the number of people who sign on grows, the opportunities to find, learn from and connect to people will also grow.

Some additional, useful resources for finding people:

@recruiterdotcom details search strings and how to write them in their post. They also wrote a post about how to find people on Google+. They suggest two new tools to try, which seem similar in results to the link above, but are created outside of Google:

• http://findpeopleonplus.com/
• http://www.gpeep.com/

If you’re already using Google+, you may be familiar with “hangouts.” Recruiter.com also highlights a website called gphangouts.com aggregates all the public hangouts on the social network. It includes “recent” and search functions too.

Wait – you want to start from the beginning – what’s Google+? Read this post to get started learning what you need to know.

Stay tuned for more information about Google+. Please consider including me in your “Career Advice” circle. (No one has access to what your circles are named!) Find me in Google+ HERE.

photo by gwen

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