JP writes “I am an executive search consultant working exclusively in financial markets. And to be more precise I am looking for people working in commodities: traders, sales, marketers, etc in soft commodities and particularly in Asia – very very very difficult to find.”
Looking for my help. I had two answers for him…
Get creative in searching
In his case, I think the issue might have been in part the language he used. I did a search on Senior SOFT COMMODITIES Marketers but didn’t get any hits. (This was JP’s stated search term)
I relaxed the criteria all the way to “Senior COMMODITIES” in any job title and came up with 127 in my network, 20+ outside it. (my extended network is 3.6 million+).
So with that change, the search was a bit too loose with any profile mentioning commodities showing up.
Adding “Sales” (instead of marketers) to the search term resulted in fewer matches, and while some didn’t quite relate, one “Senior Commodities Sales Manager at Danske Markets Finland” showed up – so that proved there is at least one similar person in the database.
So to get the most out of the system, it’s important to get creative in searching.
Some industries / professions are not well represented
My last bit of advice to JP was that senior commodities salespeople may not be well represented in LinkedIn. It seems like a small job pool to begin with, so the fact that we can’t find many may indicate there are not many to find.
Another way to search would be to find people that would know these targeted individuals – and contact them. It’s an indirect route, but may help.
Extend to your own needs…
Searching? Use these techniques. Wanting to be found? Optimize your profile so that JP will reach you with his next search;-)
(And if you happen to be a senior commodities salesperson who is interested in working in Shanghai, I’ll be happy to pass your name along;-)
To your continued success with LinkedIn,
steve