If you’re a technical recruiter or sourcer, then you’re likely familiar with Github’s existence. However, sourcing Github can be tricky and even intimidating for some, especially if you approach it as you would other social networks such as LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook.
Because Github is a community where developers share code, it’s best if you have a clear understanding of what you’re looking for as this is not the place for “title” recruiters/sourcers. If you’re looking for a software engineer, you’d be better served NOT using the term “software engineer” in your query and instead search for what the software engineer is working on.
The beauty of Github is the amount of layers the site has and how accessible it is via search engines and the more tech savvy you are; the better. There are many ways to build out your query to find what you’re looking for on Github, the following should help get you started. Add search terms as needed!
Github Profiles
Profiles: [ site:github.com “joined on” “public activity” -tab.activity ]
Profiles with location: [ site:github.com “san francisco” “joined on” “public activity” -tab.activity ]
Profiles with above + key terms: [ site:github.com (ios | android) “joined on” “public activity” -tab.activity ]
Profiles with above + followers | starred count: [ site:github.com (“50..250 followers” | “100..500 starred”) (ios | android) “joined on” -tab.activity ]
You can also expand your search by removing [ -tab.activity ] in any of the strings examples above. Or target the activity page with [ tab.activity ]
Additionally, you can include “email *” in your search string to return profiles that contain an email address in them, however email addresses are obfuscated and the returned results may include some noise if the term email is used elsewhere in the users profile.
Narrow results by when a user joined: By year “joined on * 2009” or by month “joined on mar *”
Github/Uploaded Resumes
Uploaded Resumes: [ site:github.com (intitle:resume|cv|vitae | inurl:resume|cv|vitae) -inurl:https|format ]
Uploaded Resumes 2: [ site:github.com (intitle:resume|cv|vitae | inurl:com/resume | inurl:com/cv | inurl:com/vitae) -inurl:https|format ]
Github Blogs/Personal Pages
[ site:github.com (intitle:musings|blog) -inurl:https ]
[ site:github.com (intitle:musings|blog | inurl:musings|blog) -inurl:https ]
There are literally countless ways to source Github and it would be a boon to any technical recruiter or sourcer to get familiar with the network. It not only lets you uncover great talent, but can help you become a more effective recruiter/sourcer by encouraging you to gain a better understanding of what the role you’re trying to fill requires.
You can also use the API to find people’s email addresses!
https://api.github.com/users/xxxxxxxx/events/public
Replace the xxx’s with the person’s Github username and then Ctrl/Cmd + F for email.
Thanks, Shane! This was really helpful. I’ve been trying different strings for days to try and effectively Xray GitHub and here you’ve broken it down and made it so easy!
I’ve already come back with results with just a few tweaks.
Thank you!!!
This is a great overview, I’m looking for a strange type of systems biology large data sets scientist (not programmer) that also understands Python, and by using your methods I was able to pull a list of candidates pretty easily. Thanks for putting that together!