Use LinkedIn for Recruiting Employees

Social Networking Sites Can Yield Top Quality Talent

Use LinkedIn for recruiting your new employees through networking.
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Are you interested in knowing how you can best use LinkedIn for recruiting employees? LinkedIn is a business and employment service that launched on May 5, 2003. Let's start by looking at the sheer magnitude of its volume of users. It has over 720+ million users, with 50K remote jobs available in the US. 40 million people use LinkedIn to search for jobs each week and LinkedIn claims that 3 people are hired every minute on LinkedIn.

It was created to help generate opportunities for the global workforce and its mission was (and still is) simple: Connect professionals together so they can become more successful.

LinkedIn Continues to Become More Useful for Recruiting

Over time, it's become a great resource for employers to network with others and to help with their recruitment needs. The potential for LinkedIn—and other social networking sites—to play a major role in your employee recruiting strategy increases as more job seekers and connectors post their profiles each year.

It's not enough anymore just to post a job opening on Monster, CareerBuilder, Craigslist, or other online job boards. That's because employers are inundated with hundreds of resumes from unqualified applicants who mindlessly post on the big boards. While you shouldn't forego the job boards altogether, there are better ways to recruit superior employees.

How Employers Use LinkedIn for Recruiting

Here are some great tips to use LinkedIn to help you with your recruitment search.

Post jobs on LinkedIn.

LinkedIn combines job listings, candidate search, trusted referrals, and the power of networks to give you results. By posting a job directly on LinkedIn, you can attract the right candidates, as the site will present qualified job seekers with your posting. You can post your name and your own profile to the listing. Applicants can apply for the job directly through the site, unclogging your own inbox.

Use your network.

As the recruiter, you can elicit candidate recommendations for a particular job opening. LinkedIn boasts members from all 500 of the Fortune 500 companies. LinkedIn's members comprise 50 million companies. There are 14 million Open jobs on "LinkedIn Jobs."

The more vast your network is, the more quality referrals you will get. You can also tap into the networks of your valued employees by asking them to share your jobs with their LinkedIn connections.

Stay in touch with former, valued, trusted colleagues.

You can use LinkedIn to say in touch with your network for potential future employment and recruitment possibilities. You don't want to lose touch with people with who you've successfully worked in the past. These people could be your next best employees.

Use your company page to sell yourself as an employer of choice.

With 50 million companies posting on LinkedIn, you will need to set your company apart as an employer of choice. You can do this by effectively selling your company on your LinkedIn page.

Actively search for candidates using keywords.

You can narrow down your search for candidates by cross-referencing your requirements with the qualifications listed in their profiles. This is why keyword-rich, well-developed, complete profiles are recommended for professionals on LinkedIn.

Develop a keyword-rich profile.

Since keywords are the topic, develop a complete, keyword-rich profile for your own company on LinkedIn. Remember, some prospective employees also use keyword searches on LinkedIn. They also look at company profiles to compile lists of places where they'd like to work.

Use Inmail.

This is LinkedIn's internal email system which allows people to send messages to others even if they aren't connected. People use Inmail for everything from job searching to networking and asking for help with answers to questions. They also ask users to comment on products and services. They use it as an opportunity to sell their products and to find great prospects to fill a job through networking.

Keep your contact information up to date so employers find you.

It's always important to share your details so others can easily contact you whether you are actively or passively job hunting or looking for employees. Even though LinkedIn does offer Inmail, not everyone uses it since it is a premium service for paying members. You want to make certain that if an employer searches LinkedIn for potential employees that they find the best candidates

Use LinkedIn groups.

Participants in groups may share the interests, memberships, specializations, backgrounds, and experience you seek in a potential employee. Group members may also connect you with a potential employee.

Upgrade memberships to take advantage of paid features.

You will want to upgrade the memberships of your key managers and supervisors to premium so they can search for and contact candidates privately on LinkedIn. In addition, LinkedIn now offers a service called "LinkedIn Recruiter" that cuts down your hiring time by providing access to the world’s largest professional network. According to LinkedIn, "You’ll get up-to-date insights on more than 690M+ members, advanced search filters, and recommended matches to prioritize based on who’s most open to hearing from you."  They have a less expensive service that offers fewer features.

What Some Employers Say About the Power of LinkedIn

Susan Graye, a former recruitment executive at Hewlett Packard Enterprises, has been part of the LinkedIn network for years and has used the site to find employees by searching by the employer (current/past), using InMail, purchasing advertising, and networking. Graye has filled jobs from sales positions to executive-level jobs using LinkedIn. She thinks it allows Hewlett Packard Enterprises to network proactively and learns on a continual basis.

Another recruiter has been using the site for a good portion of his career. According to Devin Blanks of DB Search Group — a Minneapolis-based staffing and recruiting firm,

"I have personally been a part of the LinkedIn community since my early career. Currently I have been using it frequently to connect with many hard-to-find professionals whom we may not have had the opportunity to connect with using more conventional means.
"Most recently, we wanted to fill a Senior Director of HR position. As this position was more complex than usual and called for a very specific skill set, I used two different approaches to using LinkedIn." First, we posted the position, and second, we viewed potential candidates through second and third party connections via my immediate contacts and requesting an introduction. I got great response, met with a few candidates, and filled the position with a LinkedIn member.
"Most of our candidates come from either our own internal database, referrals, cold-calling, and non-online networking associations. However, when I can't find a very specific candidate through those means, I will definitely keep LinkedIn as a serious recruit networking source."

Greg Buechler, the founder, and CEO of Off the Hook Jobs uses LinkedIn for every search.

"I do advanced searches to identify potential candidates and typically will send InMails rather than trying to get to a person via the introduction route. If an individual has an email address posted in their profile, I may also send an email directly to the person.
"I have filled several jobs over the years and typically they are at the executive level. I don't see much below a Senior Manager or Director level as being very effective on LinkedIn. But at Senior Manager, Director, Vice President, CEO levels, it is great."