29 Sep Using LinkedIn to Find the Talent You Need
With over 450 million members from around the world, LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network. And with 40 million students and recent college graduates using the social network, LinkedIn has become an invaluable tool for recruiting. This begs the question: how do you take advantage of the world’s largest online database of business professionals to find the right talent for your organization?
Here are four ways you can use LinkedIn to complement your search for the ideal candidate.
Build your Network
These days it’s not enough to attend networking events, you must also build your online network too. Connecting with your current and past employers, co-workers and employees can help expand your reach in the online world. Your connections can share your job posting with their network or refer someone to you that they believe would be great fit. Remember, it’s not just the number of connections that matter – you should be building strong relationships within your network as that goes much further than being another name in a sea of connections.
Send Messages
You can send messages directly to your network asking if they know someone who would be a great fit for the position you are seeking to fill. This is a free service you can use to leverage your connections. If you would like to send messages to someone you do not have a connection with, you can use InMail, which is LinkedIn’s paid service for messaging members you haven’t connected with on LinkedIn yet.
Join LinkedIn Groups
Find LinkedIn Groups that are relevant to your industry and share content with other members. It’s not uncommon to share open positions in these groups but make sure that it’s allowed in your group before you post a job. Some groups have rules about not being allowed to post jobs, so it’s important to know your group’s etiquette. Being a trusted member of a group entails not only following the group’s rules, but also providing valuable content. If you are allowed to post positions to your group, try to find a balance of sharing valuable content while also letting members know you have positions available and you would appreciate referrals from the group.
Use Paid Services
- LinkedIn offers multiple paid features that are built to fit your organization’s specific hiring needs. They offer a Recruiter package with advanced search features, 150 InMail messages per month, as well as reporting and analytics tools. LinkedIn also offers Recruiter Lite, a more affordable package that includes 30 InMail messages as well as unlimited access to profiles of third connections.
- LinkedIn offers a service called Job Posts that automatically shares your job post with applicants on LinkedIn. Job Posts allow you to write in-depth descriptions about the position and then filter your applicants by location, experience level, role and more. If you do this, be sure to use relative keywords that applicants would be searching for, like “Marketing Manager” to ensure applicants searching for “marketing” will see your job post. Also, connect your post to your organization’s company profile, as this will increase the number of views your post receives.
- InMail is a great way to connect with members outside of your network. If they haven’t applied to the position you’ve posted on your organization’s page, you can message members through InMail. When messaging candidates, it’s important to add details to your message to show the candidate exactly why you think they would be a great fit for the position.
LinkedIn is one of many important tools you can use in your search, but it’s not the only one. Contact one of our recruiters to leverage our connections so you can find the ideal candidate