Can you believe that LinkedIn has around 5.3 billion users? It’s a social network for professional connections, and it can help with your job search – especially if you’re trying to find new employees! Here are some tips on using the site effectively when finding candidates in the first place. LinkedIn is an excellent tool for recruiting. It can reach out to an audience that you might not be able to otherwise. It also allows you to search for people who have similar interests in your area. The recruitment issue is twofold: you need to discover good people, but you also need to find them quickly, which is problematic. But, if you utilize LinkedIn, interacting with the most qualified candidates in a matter of days or even hours isn’t tricky. LinkedIn is, without a doubt, the top site for both recruiting and networking. In this piece, I’ll teach you how to utilize LinkedIn as a recruitment tool to get the highest response rates possible, whether you’re a seasoned LinkedIn user or new to the network. Let’s get started.
The Simple Parts of LinkedIn Recruiting
It’s simpler than ever to obtain information about prospective candidates these days, thanks to AI and other technology. All you have to do is take a little more time to utilize this data correctly. LinkedIn makes this simple by giving you direct access to millions of job-ready candidates and the information you need to improve your chances of success. LinkedIn Recruiter and Talent Hub, two specialized recruitment tools, provide many pathways to suitable prospects, and once you’ve found them, it’s simple to verify, track, and monitor your progress. It’s no longer necessary to publish and pray.
The Difficulties of LinkedIn Recruiting
Most recruiters now use LinkedIn to find prospective applicants, so the trick is to break through the clutter and establish yourself as the employer of choice in your sector. The good news is that even little things like a candidate’s name is spelled correctly may make all the difference—trust me on this. However, it takes time and works to develop a LinkedIn profile that stands out. The effort that goes into good recruitment occurs before actually advertising positions and reaching out to individuals. Ideally, you already have a robust online presence and a habit of regularly providing material and engaging with your followers. If not, now is the time to get started!
Steps to use LinkedIn for recruiting:
Step 1: Establish a LinkedIn presence for your business.
I can’t emphasize this enough: in today’s competitive job market, the easiest way to define your brand is to research. The difference is in the details; therefore, we’ll cover most of the Work in this step and the following. If you’re going to utilize LinkedIn for recruitment, you’ll need a home base first and foremost. This will be the hub for all of your recruitment efforts. It’s where prospects will seek to authenticate your company’s legitimacy and learn more about it (more on that later). It’s critical to create this area before moving on to the next stage, so you can utilize LinkedIn to establish the remainder of the foundation (step 2). LinkedIn makes it simple to create a complete profile in a short amount of time, with advice along the way.
- Create a LinkedIn account.
If you don’t already have one, start by creating a LinkedIn account. Go to LinkedIn and click Join Now in the top menu to create an account. You’ll be directed to a sign-up page where you may use your email or Google account to create an account. After that, you’ll be asked to provide your first and last names, as well as complete a brief security check to verify your identity. You begin filling up your profile on the next screen, including your current location and most recent work information. Next, LinkedIn will give you a code to authenticate your email as a last verification check. LinkedIn is now linking you to other people’s profiles. You may either import your email contacts to check who you already know or search for particular individuals to connect with right now, or you can skip these steps for now. Finally, LinkedIn walks you through the efforts of adding a profile picture, downloading the LinkedIn mobile app, and following businesses that are important to you. Now that you’ve completed your profile, you’re ready to build a business page.
- Create (and begin to populate) your business page.
Go to your top menu and choose Work, then Create a business page to get started. You’ll choose your company’s size and begin entering information about it. If necessary, modify your LinkedIn public URL since this is how LinkedIn users and search engines will locate your page. After that, you may add a logo, a cover picture, and a page description to your page. I recommend that you include the following three items in your report:
- What your business does
- Who does your business cater to?
- Your company’s vision and objectives
It’s as simple as that. This thorough yet concise review encourages applicants to do more research if they so want.
It’s critical to fill in as much page information as possible, not just because LinkedIn prevents you from doing some services (such as adding connections) until you’ve finished specific areas, but also because LinkedIn statistics reveal that total pages get 30% more weekly page views. In addition, adding tags and categories further improves the searchability of your content. Following that, be sure to maintain your corporate page up to current with the most up-to-date company information and exciting material, as well as like and share other people’s stuff and respond to comments on your own. The more active you are on LinkedIn, the higher your engagement and positioning in job seekers’ search results.
It would be best if you strived for a regular (preferably daily) balance of both product and service content to get the most excellent engagement:
- Observations on the industry
- Promotional material
- Product/service offers are updated regularly.
And brand/culture material that humanizes your brand by showcasing your successes and shows how much you love your employees:
- Culture
- The company triumphs.
- Highlights of Employees
To improve your LinkedIn SEO and attract relevant followers and, eventually, prospective applicants, every change and page data should be optimized using keywords and tags. It takes a lot of effort, but it’s well worth it. This is your brand’s home page, and it may be a candidate’s first impression of what a typical day at your company looks like. You’ll get the reputation you need to employ outstanding personnel to continue to post content and develop followers.
- Make contact with your staff.
Start with the low-hanging fruit: current (and, if feasible, former) workers if you’re new to LinkedIn and don’t have any connections yet.
Inform workers that they may now add your firm to their LinkedIn page. This is significant because the more sites that link back to your corporate profile, the more likely it is to be discovered—for example, by a prospective applicant checking up an employee’s profile. Even better if the prospect knows the employee: studies suggest that candidates are more inclined to consider a job if they have a first-degree relationship with the organization. Consider connecting with individuals in your desired candidate’s circle who can double your reach and bring you closer to first-degree away if you already have a LinkedIn profile and ties with workers. It’s essential to keep in mind that anybody may build a LinkedIn profile. You’ll need excellent connections to seem completely legitimate. Don’t simply spam folks to obtain as many connections as possible—make deliberate relationships and tailor your invites. Then, ideally, you’ll want to interact with your new relationships regularly, but that’s a topic for another day.
Step 2: Create a LinkedIn Recruiting Plan.
Now that you’ve created an account on LinkedIn, you can begin investigating the many recruitment possibilities available and devising a strategy to make use of them.
- Set the settings first.
If you’re a seasoned recruiter, this one may seem self-evident, but only interview a small number of people. On LinkedIn, this is very crucial. It’s easy to get carried away and squander time when there are so many excellent prospects. Set a precise amount of individuals you’re willing to screen and interview, as well as a defined interview timetable. As a general rule, I try to present roughly five properly vetted applicants to my recruiting managers.
- Make a strategy for outreach and prospecting.
We’ll go into the exact LinkedIn tools to utilize later, but it’s helpful to be aware of the many methods to identify prospects at this point so you can start preparing your outreach templates.
You may take one of three major approaches:
- Inbound: Make use of LinkedIn’s Talent Hub. to automate posting a position and vetting answers.
- Outbound: Use the LinkedIn Recruiter tool. And LinkedIn’s native messenger, InMail, actively looks for and contact applicants.
- Referral: If you can acquire them, recommendations have already been evaluated via word of mouth. Ask your network for suggestions if you don’t have a large following or advertising budget and can’t depend on brand awareness alone.
- Prepare your strategy’s supplies.
This is necessary so that when a position at your organization becomes available, you are prepared to take it. As I already said, it’s all about preparation. Depending on your strategy, you’ll need the following items: A LinkedIn-optimized job description: Competition is fierce, so make yours stand out. For whatever job title you can think of, LinkedIn has helpful advice and job description templates (available at business.linkedin.com, which also has a lot of other good recruiting tools).
Templates for outreach emails: These should be tailored to each recipient—for example, look at their LinkedIn page and mention their unique achievements and why they could be a good match for the Post. However, it’s best to start with a template (which should include a catchy subject line). Templates for recruits include the following: Once you’ve recruited, you’ll want to announce it on LinkedIn to help humanize your brand and promote visibility. Have templates or samples available to utilize, especially if your recruiting managers aren’t social media gurus. Here’s an example from my newsfeed:
You’re in a beautiful position to finally start posting now that you’ve done a lot of the homework by improving your LinkedIn profile and being ready to welcome prospects.
Step 3: Create a job posting.
On LinkedIn, you may post jobs for free or for a fee. Let’s go through each one, from the most basic to the most advanced, and when you should upgrade to have access to LinkedIn’s premium features. It’s worth noting that you could advertise an available position in a simple corporate update, but I haven’t done so here. Of course, it wouldn’t harm, particularly if you already have a considerable following. Still, you’re better off advertising your available positions with specific groups or utilizing LinkedIn’s specialized recruitment features, in my view.
- Distribute to groups
Posting to LinkedIn groups is a terrific method to reach out to (and connect with) a targeted audience of individuals in your business. The drawback is that many of these organizations have membership qualifications and regulations to prevent spam. On the other hand, the appropriate groups may be a terrific recruiOnrectly. Many of the right groups hem have particular areas for job openings, and regardless, they provide you access to a more focused pool of talent than your firm or workers have.
- Create a job posting for free.
When you post a job on LinkedIn, it is visible to relevant matches throughout the LinkedIn user base. It is assigned to your business profile, and you are given a list of 50 possible prospects and five free InMails to contact them. Of course, you can always pay to increase the visibility of a Job Post, but the free option is an excellent place to start. To post a free job, go to the Work button at the top of the page and choose Post a free appointment. Then, start inputting your business name, as well as the job title and kind you’re looking for, to fill up your company page.
Then you fill in the job description, add skills to make your position more accessible to qualified people, pick how to accept applications (through email or an external website), and set screening criteria.
That’s it—the job is now ready to preview and publish. This may be all you need. I’ve done LinkedIn hiring where I’ve just advertised free positions. However, if you don’t obtain enough quality applicants this way, or if you want to undertake both inbound and outbound recruiting.
- We are using InMails to reach out to people.
LinkedIn’s native email enables you to contact individuals without having their contact information, even if you’re not connected.
Your monthly InMail “credits” (sends) are determined by the sort of LinkedIn account you have. You didn’t get any credits with the ordinary account you joined up for. You’ll need to update to the following:
- 5 InMails each month with LinkedIn Premium
- Professional LinkedIn Sales Navigator for 20 monthly InMails
- 30 InMails every month from the LinkedIn Sales Navigator Team
Use an outbound automation solution like Rocketreach or Interseller to discover contact data if you don’t want to pay more InMail credits or prefer ordinary email.
- Use LinkedIn Recruiter
As I previously said, LinkedIn Recruiter allows for an outbound strategy. You may search across LinkedIn’s 700+ million people using Recruiter (or the lighter version, Recruiter Lite) to identify suitable matches quickly based on specified keywords. This isn’t the same as typing in a search term in the usual search field. Advanced search criteria, AI-based suggestions, a list of individuals who saw your job, the total number of applicants qualifying for your open position, and a dedicated inbox for answers and bulk messaging to reach more prospects quicker are all available via Recruiter. It also reveals if individuals are searching passively or actively. They’re all significant time saves.
In addition, each Recruiter license comes with more inMail credits than LinkedIn Premium or Sales Navigator:
- Recruiter costs $825 per month and includes 150 InMail credits per team member as well as unrestricted access to all profiles (not just first, second, and third-degree connections)
- Recruiter Lite costs $119 a month and includes 30 InMail credits per team member and infinite third-degree connections.
Log in to LinkedIn Recruiter and create a new project to begin inputting information about the position you’re recruiting for after you’ve signed up.
Next, you’ll be prompted to provide a descriptive job description and apply filters (such as job title, location, skills, and other keywords) to ensure accurate results.
You may prioritize and bookmark the prospects that interest you after your project is posted, follow your recruitment efforts using LinkedIn’s advanced analytics, and alter your campaign or job posting appropriately whenever LinkedIn proposes matches.
- Use LinkedIn Talent Hub.
Talent Hub allows you to take a more inbound strategy, where applications come to you. Talent Hub is an applicant tracking system (ATS) that assists applicants in finding and applying for your job openings, as well as integrating data from other HR and recruiting methods. For the price, you’ll need to contact LinkedIn. Create a new project like you would assist in LinkedIn Recruiter to get started. There are a few other areas to complete, such as recruiting manager and pipeline phases (screen, interview, offer, etc.)
When you post a job, you’ll immediately see the number of candidates.
Other information, such as candidate activity and response rate, may also be drilled down. And Talent Hub is designed to be used by your complete recruiting team so that you can collaborate and share top applicants, as well as evaluate and give comments.
Is it necessary for you to utilize both Talent Hub and Recruiter? I don’t believe the expense is justified. They’re both strong, yet they’re used for different things. Because you depend on individuals coming to you using Talent Hub, it’s best suited to firms that already have a following. On the other hand, a Recruiter will be your best choice if you want to source talent rather than merely publicize a job and have someone devoted to handling it. Recruiter Lite could be a better option if you make infrequent hiring or don’t have a dedicated recruiter.
Step 4: Check out the candidates.
You should have a list of probable applicants and a pipeline of persons who have applied for your position by now. You’ve taken use of LinkedIn and made it simple to keep track of applicants. You’ve begun sending out your templates and have had some responses. It’s time to whittle them down. I won’t advise you to screen prospects since every organization is different, and you’re the hiring manager. Instead, I’ll leave you with a few LinkedIn-specific suggestions. Because, in addition to reviewing prospective candidates’ applications and replies to your outreach attempts, you’ll want to check for specific information on their profiles—both to cross-reference with the candidate’s résumé and to gain additional information that a resume won’t provide.
It’s up to you how detailed a candidate’s profile should be; however, if you’re searching for serious candidates, I believe you should look for the following:
- A nice photo for your profile: A professional headshot indicates that the applicant is active on LinkedIn, takes their online presence seriously, and approaches their Work more professionally. Anyone can create a LinkedIn profile, and a good photo demonstrates that the individual is worth knowing more about.
- Position descriptions: Even if they are between employment, their current role should be documented and kept up to date. Check their application, CV, and references for thorough explanations of current and former tasks and particular skill sets.
- The amount of connections: A large number of connections indicates that people trust you. They don’t have to have 500 or more, but I’d check for more than 50 to confirm the validity of a profile.
- Endorsements and recommendations: These are simple to get from past employers and colleagues, and they are such a valuable differentiator that I believe they should be included in every profile. Look for terms that are relevant to your needs.
Tip: To review candidates’ profiles anonymously, go to Settings & Privacy > Visibility > Profile viewing choices and choose Private mode by clicking the arrow beneath your profile image and selecting Private method. Remember that you’re gathering valuable data every step of the way, whether you’re utilizing LinkedIn Recruiter or Talent Hub. Continue to use their analytics and monitoring tools to track your success and adjust your recruitment efforts as needed.
Frequently Asked Questions
How can LinkedIn be used for recruitment?
A: LinkedIn is a social media platform on which people can create profiles, share their skills and interests, connect with others, and find professional opportunities. Suppose you are looking for Work as an engineer or programmer in the Bay Area area of California. In that case, it may be best to use your profile on LinkedIn to show off what you have been doing professionally.
How do I recruit better on LinkedIn?
A: You should create your own social media marketing plan and make sure to focus on the LinkedIn platform. There are a lot of opportunities for you in this field, and if you have an idea of what kind of product or service would be helpful to people, that might help ease any concerns they have about recruiting new employees.
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