A guest post by Jonathan Kidder

Having issues with finding candidates in a niche field? The average LinkedIn user does not take the time to fully complete a profile. Therefore, the chances of not finding every possible applicant online is a strong possibility. If you’re sourcing in a difficult field, thinking of creative alternative ways to find candidates should be a top priority.

Goodreads is an online community of users that review and discuss books. There are currently over 25 million users on this site. It’s definitely a great place to search for active users in niche fields. It’s also great for brushing up on your technical knowledge in that niche field.

Here’s how to get started with sourcing on Goodreads:

First choose a popular book

Once you created a user profile I recommend searching for a niche skill set that you’re actively sourcing on. For example, iOS Development. You can quickly discover which books get highly reviewed in this niche. It’s important to choose a book that’s been reviewed by many users.

Reading Reviews

After you’ve done a search on the popular books in the niche field, scroll down to see the reviews. By reading reviews on a book you can quickly see which users may be experts in the field. You can directly message users or you can use this intel to cross-reference LinkedIn.

Sourcing user profiles

You can also directly source on Goodreads using user profile information. Goodreads allows users to include a summary section in there profile which is nice to use for sourcing. Here’s some example xray searches to use on Google:

• site:goodreads.com/user/ “iOS” “minneapolis”
• site:goodreads.com/user/ “javascript” “minneapolis”
• site:goodreads.com/user/ “C#” “minneapolis”

I recommend referencing their review when you reach out to them. It shows that you share a genuine interest in their niche skill set and you’ll receive a higher response rate. I hope you have success with this quick tip! Good luck sourcing on Goodreads.

About Jonathan:

Jonathan Kidder has over seven years of full-cycle recruiting and research sourcing experience, and he currently works as a Senior Talent Acquisition Sourcer at Vista Outdoor Inc. He started his career in employer branding at one of the largest RPO staffing firms in the world, and he has managed several Fortune 500 brands with social media recruiting campaigns. He’s sourced and recruited for many different industries including Information Technology, Finance, Banking, Engineering, Healthcare, Biotechnology, Medical Device, CPG, Marketing, & Sales. He started WizardSourcer as a way to freelance his talent sourcing abilities. He offers everything from sourced candidate leads to recruitment training services. Follow him on Twitter @WizardSourcer or connect with him on LinkedIn.