Running Short on Local Leads When Name Sourcing? What About Finding and Targeting People who Attended School in the Client Location?

With any resource you use to source names it’s always important to not get too comfortable and continue doing the same old thing.   Not to say that you should stop doing what works, but it’s good to reassess your strategies and see if you can do anything to help increase effectiveness.  

Using  LinkedIn as an example (mostly because most people are familiar with it), you’ve searched extensively in a variety of resources using very localized criteria such zip code, state name, region, etc. and you’ve developed a fairly good InMail and/or call list.  Yet, you’re not naïve and know that there are plenty of people who live outside of the local area you’ve searched in that might want to hear about the job.  But you have a limited number of InMails left to send (or maybe a short amount of time to make calls) and so you need to be efficient and strategic in who you message and/or call.

We’re currently recruiting for a position in the Gulf region.  Those of us who have been in recruiting for a while know that this can be a challenging region to recruit in as not everyone is a good fit for the gulf or the southern-type lifestyle.  And, sadly, not all who WANT to fit into it will be accepted!!  Even though it’s heaven for many, for many it would be hell! 

You’re not magic or psychic and can’t simply always tell by reading words on a profile just who would be open to looking at a position in a specific geographic region. 

In a situation like this, a number of keyword search strategies and/or group search strategies can be employed.  But, how about start with a strategy that ensures that you’re at least contacting those who are from the area or have at least spent a few or more years there?  One sure way to do this is to focus on those who went to school – preferably college or university – in the area.  Though it isn’t always the case, many times people attend school in the same state they grew up in.  Yet, even for those who came in from another state to attend school, they at least have familiarity with the climate and culture, two very important factors.  You get the point I’m sure.

There are a variety of ways to do this, but start simply by putting the names of local colleges and universities (in quotes) in the “School” field in the search interface of LinkedIn.  You can start easy and simply use the term university followed by the word of and the state name – “university of texas”  But, make sure you go beyond this, perhaps even referring to a list of schools in the state you’re searching.  For example, in the search mentioned above, “university of texas” worked, but I also searched on Baylor, Lamar, “university of houston”, “texas a&m university”, “texas tech”.  Actually, you could even just search using texas AND (university OR college) but this would be fairly limited.

Keep in mind too that once you perform your initial search and get to a results page, you can scroll down to the dynamic options on the left of the screen (or what they call “Premium Filters”) to the “School” box and click on the cross.  You will then see a list of schools that you can deselect or only select in order to focus by school.  I should note that you can also do a site or x-ray search of LinkedIn.com or even use the “Keyword” field in LinkedIn and use the same school phrases as above, but this tends to bring in more noise as you’ll find those who work/ed for the schools.

I definitely found success with this method as it enabled me to save valuable time and resources by targeting those MORE likely than others to find a particular area attractive.  Again, not the only way to do it, but a decent place to start.

Have fun and good luck!!