Linkedin For Recruitment
Linkedin For Recruitment
In an interview that dealt with online comments made about her on-stage chemistry with Bradley Cooper at their performance of ‘Shallow’ at the Oscars, Lady Gaga described social media as the toilet of the internet. But I bet you she never worked in recruitment. Seriously. Look it up. She’s an incredibly talented and critically acclaimed artist but I bet you she couldn’t tell you anything about the 2004 ‘opt-out’ provision that was added by the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills to the Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Businesses Regulations 2003, to provide workers and hirers with minimum standards they could expect from private sector recruitment agencies and employment businesses. Could she? No she couldn’t, so why would you listen to her?!
Anyway… LinkedIn is an incredibly useful, arguably essential, you can use to find, connect, filter and verify lots of candidates not only in large numbers but also in thorough detail.
Outreach – With around 610 million members worldwide, the UK being the fourth most connected country on the site there’s obviously no shortage of talent that’s available on the site. Use this to your advantage, define searches and find candidates that match a job description quickly and accurately. Don’t take this convenience in finding large numbers of potentially hot leads as an excuse to spam people’s inboxes or dial a million cold calls, your interactions should be personal and meaningful, do your research and make sure a candidate is the right fit for the role before approaching to avoiding wasting everyone’s time and only creating good, long lasting connections rather than contacting people unnecessarily and potentially burning many bridges along the way.
Verification – This can work both ways: when you’re reaching out and finding new candidates or clients, having a professional and up-to-date LinkedIn profile gives a great first impression to people you’re reaching out to. Make sure you greet visitors to your page with a high res. image of your smiling face, dressed as you would for an interview, think corporate not a cropped picture of you from a party with someone’s hand on your shoulder… you know who! You, just like an ideal candidate should have a fully detailed and up to date employment history visible for people to peruse and talk to you about. LinkedIn Profiles are basically CVs, some companies literally use them as such so have that in mind when you’re populating yours or viewing candidates’.
Engage – Once you’ve found a good candidate pool and checked they’re the right fit, go for it! Message using InMail, talk publicly on shared groups, stay connected and comment on people’s posts and articles. Use social media as the name suggests: engage with your audience, your clients and candidates to keep them interested, updated and therefore more likely to think of you when they’re looking for their next role!
