Hey, yo’ Sourcers!
Sometimes the best sourcing hacks are staring you in the face and it takes a while for you to see them. Yet, when you do, you can’t unsee them anymore. This is one of those cases.
There are a lot of people on Facebook. As of this writing, about 3 billion, more or less. And what are these people talking about on and off Facebook…? Oh, about 3+ billion things, among them the very thing you are sourcing for. For example, imagine you are looking for someone skilled in python engineering. This Google search could lead to talent gold: “Find me on facebook” python engineering.
Do you see my logic? On social media, people want to connect with like minded individuals so they will ask people to follow them on Facebook, among other platforms. The search below unearths people who have mentioned “python” and requested people to follow them on Facebook for (presumably) more of the same python info or to connect with them directly. Make sense? Yeah, I thought it made sense too, and the proof is in the search result itself.
Take for example the third result in the search results is a blog post on Medium.
I love Python and JS. See my portfolio or find me on Facebook, LinkedIn or Github.
Are all of the results this perfect? Nope. But they are definitely worth looking into. For that matter, here are a few more to add to your bag of tricks. (Of course, change the keywords python and engineering to whatever you have an interest in.)
There are other ways to leverage this strategy. For instance, content creators often ask people to DM (direct message) them on various social media platforms.
Sometimes people invite you to send them questions related to their content. More often than not, they will supply a way for you to contact them. A few examples…
And finally, here are some search suggestions to further inspire you.
I’m curious. Have you tried this type of search before? If so, which method works best for your searches? Inquiring minds would like to know. Hit reply and share your story or tag @sourcecon on LinkedIn and I will reply. Sound good?
See you at SourceCon!
Jim Stroud
Your SourceCon Editor
