The Internet Sourcing Community

Does anyone have any concrete examples of using 'implicit search' to find niche candidates?

I posted this in the LI Boolean Strings group, but just to make sure I get coverage- and also because the Group seems to be acting weirdly for me, LinkedIn has some weird little errors- I wanted to post this question again here too.

I was introduced to the concept by Glen Cathey's writings, but I find his stuff to be more conceptual and big picture- it doesn't really help me get started with a specific search etc.

For example, I have (or had) an open job req for an SEC Accountant for a tech company. The ideal candidate was either- some public experience having audited publicly traded companies, then private experience with a publicly traded firm. Or, straight public accounting, but again having audited publicly traded tech companies. The key search term would be 10K and 10Q doc preparation, in case you're not familiar with SEC reporting. 5+ year player. This is in the Greater Boston area.

Of course anyone can search 10K and 10Q, or SEC reporting, and I got a bit clever and searched for people with 'external reporting' in their title (if their company is publicly traded of course). But I didn't end up finding anyone qualified who was interested.

My question is- how would a more experienced sourcer use implicit search here? I get the basic concept that you'd find a publicly traded company with some % of their Senior Accountants having to do SEC reporting, whether they put it in their LinkedIn profile or not. But what do you do then- call every Senior Accountant at every public firm in Boston and ask them if they're involved in SEC reporting? Doesn't sound very practical. I could look at straight public candidates (who I suspect would be a better fit anyways), but I have no way of knowing who their clients are unless they put it in LI profile (doubtful), and even if they say 'software' clients I have no idea if they're public or private....

(And yes, I can and did search LI groups- there are a couple of, um, workarounds if you're not a member of the group that I wouldn't print here.... good idea but didn't find me what I was looking for).

There was one thing Glen mentioned in his LinkedIn sourcing webinar on June 10th about being able to search for companies that have a lot of a certain phrase- like SEC accounting or SOP 97-2 or something like that- from which you could infer that even people who don't have that in their profile likely have the skill. But even after rewinding and watching that part several times, I couldn't quite catch what he was saying. Starts at 47:15 if anyone's interested.

I realize this is a long and broad question, but any help from experienced sourcers would be greatly appreciated. Thanks,