Tailor your searches to be slick and exclude profiles already looked at

From time to time, we all search for people to work with and get hundreds of results depending on the scope of our search criteria. I used to get lots of results and lots of profiles returned that were not quite what I was looking for or that I had already looked at.

I have now evolved a slick and quick search regime (for PurplePort's Search feature) that takes a few minutes to set up and will eventually return very specific results limited to a handful of specific and tailored NEW profiles every time I use it. It eliminates all the profiles I am not interested in (for whatever reason) and only shows suitable NEW matches.

How to do it

I shoot models, so for my purposes, this is my reference in this article. But you can tailor this to your own field of interest. 

I have been using this method for several years now, which makes it slick and quick. My search results return no more than a few NEW people a day (after I have worked through every profile within my travel limit). Never is anyone returned in results, unless that person changes their levels or alters their profile significantly.

Set your search criteria

Start by setting your search criteria (e.g. model or photographer, levels (shoot styles), distance from you, paid or collaboration, etc.). Once you have your basic search criteria, save it by going to the little grey cog and select "Save searches" and give it a name. You can tweak this, and you can have multiple searches with criteria that vary if you want to. This will now always use these criteria unless you change them, and you can change the default as many times as you like. 

Let's get started

Go to the Search page and run a search with your criteria. Now select someone from your search. It won't matter who it is (unless you make it a "Want To Work With List", which we won't do right now).

1. Click on their profile.
2. On the right-hand side (just under the cover image at the top), click "Add to list".
3. This brings up any lists you have already. We will make a new one for this. 
4. Scroll down to "New List" and give the list a suitable name. Let's call It "Looked at Non-Public" ("Non-Public" reminds me that others cannot see the list).
5. Below this, you will see two checkboxes asking you: "Is this a public list?" (No) and is it a "Want To Work With List"? (No).
6. Leaving both of these blank means that your list will stay personal to you and not seen by anyone else. It will not tell the person you want to work with them either.
7. Click "Create new list".

This list will be used as your default list that excludes future search results for profiles you had looked at before and decided not to pursue.

It might be worth setting up another list that tells those profiles you like (and want to work with) that you are interested in working with them. You can do it now and start adding people as soon as you have finished, or you can do it later.

Once you have created this "Looked at Non-Public" list, go back to the Search page (or refresh the page if you have it open already). About halfway down (under the option called "User filters"), you will see the filter option for "Not in". This filter option will exclude anyone from the results that are in the list you have select. 

Equally, there is a filter option below for "Must be in". This filter option will only include anyone in the results that are in the list you have select. 

Click the box "Not in" filter option and select your new list called "Looked at Non-Public" list. This is your new criteria which will now disregard anyone in your list from your search results. We will use this to filter out profiles already viewed.

VOILA!

Add every profile you look at to the list "Looked at Non-Public"  (in every instance regardless of anything else) as soon as you look at it. Now any future searches will exclude anyone in this list (since you have already looked at them and added them to a specific list to be excluded from future searches).

If you DO want to work with someone, when you click "Add to list" on their profile, click both the "Looked at Non-Public" list and another list (such as your "Want to work with (WTWW) list"). This will let the person know that you are interested in working with them, and exclude them from any future searches.

It takes a while (possibly a long while) before you have looked at all your interested relevant profiles, but that will depend on how specific your criteria are, the distance you set and decide to search from your location.

Use distance initially to limit results

Start small with very tight criteria (e.g. 10 miles). Work through all those profiles that the system returns. Once you have cleared the screen, now increase the distance (e.g. 20 miles). All the original 10 milers will be excluded by default due to your set up, and you will only be searching that additional 10 miles. If anyone joins in the meantime, they will show up anyway because you have not excluded them yet!

Continue to do this until you have the maximum distance you are prepared to travel as your search. Then you have worked everyone.

Searching

Things to note! If you search for beauty within 10 miles, you will get lots of results. As a test, try very limited criteria.

Be warned, if you filter by "Beauty", "Paid", and "Within 100 miles", then you might be on this for a few months. Any future searches will exclude anyone you have already looked at and marked as "Looked at Non-Public" unless you change the criteria and as long as you have the "Not in" selected as part of your search.
You can tweak by levels, emails sent or not, login status, and so on.

I have my search set to female models with zero references, working to levels I'm looking for at the time and within 80 miles which is my practical travel time.

Now it's running like a well-oiled machine. Once you play with it a bit, it becomes easy, and eventually, you will only have new profiles displayed who fit the criteria every time you search, and only NEW profiles will display.

Repeating the search

Occasionally you might decide to revisit profiles for a "re-sweep" in case anyone has changed details, or you just might have missed someone 1st time, so deselect the "Looked at Non-Public" list. You might want to add "Looked at Non-Public 2" for the re-visit, which will repeat the process and start from scratch or have different criteria. This then needs selecting again in the "Not in" filter option.

Doing this will ignore the first "Looked at Non-Public" list but run the new search in the same way, excluding previous profiles and adding them to List 2 instead whilst also excluding profiles again.

Lists

Just a word on lists. I also have more lists, including  "Follow up" lists for people I don't contact straightway. This saves their profiles for contact later without losing them.

I also have: 

• " I want to collaborate" (which is visible)
• "work with list" (so everyone sees it and the model gets notified)

And:

• "Worked with before"
• "Booked"
• "Pending"

You can have as many lists as you need. If you don't want others to know about or see a list you create, make sure the list is not public and not a "Want To Work With List"  (or it could get tricky!).

I wish you well, and slick searching!

Now you are super admin-organized, and searching is cool. It takes time to achieve but once completed, it is worth it.