I got notification yesterday that it was my turn to receive Facebook’s new graph search product that Jim Stroud posted about last week. I only had time to really dig into it last night and I was definitely intrigued by the possibilities.
I must mention something first though: there are some really creepy searches you can do using this tool. And yes, I know it is all public information and people probably shouldn’t be posting some of the things they post. But it has never been this easily accessible. I have to admit, after doing a few searches, I did a quick scan through my own likes and interests to make sure everything was on the up and up.
That being said there are also some pretty entertaining searches you can do using it.
For sourcers who want to use it, let’s do a little compare and contrast with LinkedIn on some sample populations:
Here is a search for recruiters who work for Microsoft on Facebook and LinkedIn:
606 versus less than 100. Okay, let’s try a software developer search:
More than 1,000 versus 4,381. That’s not very specific, unfortunately. And unlike LinkedIn, it is pretty difficult to get a broad, metro area location. Using the nearby modifier in the Facebook search gives me a number of more than 100 (but obviously less than a thousand). A similar search on LinkedIn only drops the total to about 3,500.
So do you have Facebook graph search? Have you tried it out yet? Find any tricks to finding people yet? If so, hit the comments or drop me a line.