LinkedIn has 575+ million users, with more than 260 million active users. Consider the below data points:
- 70% of the global workforce consists of passive talent who aren’t actively searching for jobs, and the remaining 30% are active job seekers.
- 87% of active and passive candidates are open to new job opportunities.
There is immense potential in LinkedIn for recruitment. The general method of hiring in LinkedIn is to:
- Share the opportunity on the company page.
- Search for candidates using LinkedIn navigator and InMail them.
- Post opportunities in groups.
The above approach is confined in its scope. An overall brand-based approach is necessary to establish trust and visibility for your company’s brand. We will look at how recruiters can leverage LinkedIn for hiring.
Build Company Page:
The above is a no brainer. It is easy to assume that companies have active LinkedIn pages. Right? No. Only 57% of companies are using LinkedIn pages. Companies need to have a dynamic company page. The objective is to establish visibility. Sharing content, case studies, taking surveys goes a long way in building LinkedIn as an asset. Without a dynamic company page, your recruiters will have a hard time convincing candidates that your company has great culture and benefits.
Join Relevant Groups:
Recruiters should be proactive in joining relevant groups. There is a lot of content that people post in groups. There are groups where candidates are actively looking for jobs. There was a restriction where an individual could join only 50 groups. It has now been raised to 100 groups. Consider two things when joining a group:
- The relevance of the group to you.
- The number of people in the group.
Engage with Content
Recruiters flock LinkedIn. One needs to establish authority in the recruitment domain. Write articles and updates that are original and helpful. Tag people you think might like the articles. Engage with people who comment on your articles or updates. Share your company’s requirements and updates on your profile. Don’t hesitate to write about your company’s culture and values. Candidates consider work culture as one of their top priorities when deciding to join a company. As content gains traction, recruiters get better visibility, and the network expands automatically. It is a reverse methodology. Instead of seeking, be sought.
Connect with Influencers
There are influencers on LinkedIn in all areas. It would be right for you to connect with them, engage with their content, and be mentioned by them, if possible. If influencers could share your requirements, the reach could be multifold. You can tag the influencers and share their posts regularly. It’s essential to be contextual. Also, ask influencers specific questions job seekers might be interested in learning.
Use InMail Functionality
InMail is a great way to share requirements with potential candidates. It’s always good to follow these best practices:
- Don’t spam everyone.
- Find candidates that fit your requirements.
- Make your message crisp, short, and to the point.
When it comes to senior roles, you should first connect with the prospect, engage with them, and then share requirements. Closing executive-level positions take three times more time than general requirements. You need first to build trust and then pitch your needs.
Build your own LinkedIn Group
To build a group from the ground up takes a long time, and also it is for the long term. But if you invest in this, the rewards could be multifold. You could invite multiple HR Recruiters and Candidates to the group and engage them. With strict content policy, make sure only requirements are being shared in the group, and recruiters are collaborating in finding the right fit. Why would they collaborate, one would ask? It is shown that referrals and that too LinkedIn referrals are the best ways to hire a candidate amongst recruiters.
If you build the group over a period, it will become a free marketplace for recruiters and candidates. You wouldn’t spend a penny.
Use Your Connections
You can look at your connections’ connections to see if candidates are matching your requirements. It is a trick all recruiters use because it makes for easy search and access to profiles. There is also an element of trust here. If you happen to find a profile that suits your requirements, you can ask your connection to introduce you to the candidate. This way, trust is established. You can also ask your connection for feedback on the candidate’s suitability for the job.
Make sure to do it with active connections of yours. We all have connections we hardly know. It would not be a good idea to use your connection that is inactive for the reference of their connection.
Build Relationships with Candidates
In case you did not hire a candidate. Keep in touch with him/her on LinkedIn professionally. There is always a chance of a specific role in the future where he could be a good fit. You could also ask him to refer his/her contacts for other requirements. 30% of the recruitment happens through candidate references for top-level jobs.
There is a study that says that if the recruiter and candidates are actively involved in LinkedIn (Liking, Commenting, and Sharing), candidates are more likely to accept job roles. It is a long-term process of building your network and establishing your brand as a recruiter.
Leverage LinkedIn Recruiter Tool
LinkedIn Recruiter is a great tool to perform match-based searches. It’s a feature ‘Find more people like…’ is excellent in identifying similar profiles. You could put the name of a good performer in your company and search. You will be able to pull out profiles that are like the candidate. This way, you will narrow down the search, and you will find profiles that are close to your ideal ‘candidate persona’ in a single search query.
You can now shortlist the profiles and take the first steps in recruiting them by either InMailing them or sending a connection request. Make sure you measure the result of this tool versus your general recruiting.
If you follow these best practices, you could recruit faster and more accurately. And even if you have hired using LinkedIn, how do you ensure you provide good candidate experience. Candidate experience, it was surveyed, is the top priority of candidates in deciding to join a company. At Vultus, we provide end-to-end solutions for hiring, onboarding, and managing employees.
You can check out Vultus recruit here and let us know what you think. You can request a demo, and we shall be more than glad to give one to you.
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