Recruiters Use LinkedIn for Recruiting Employees

Nine Ways Employers are Using LinkedIn for Recruiting Employees

By Alan Case – Best-Case Consulting

LinkedIn and other social networking sites are advantageous for employers who use them for both networking and recruiting. I am receiving more emails from my LinkedIn contacts asking me to refer potential employees or help them make a contact for hard-to-fill positions.

The potential for LinkedIn and other social networking sites to play a major role in your employee recruiting strategy increases as millions of potential employees profile themselves on these sites each year.

It's not enough anymore to post a job vacancy on Monster.com, CareerBuilder.com, Craigslist.com. Employers are swamped with hundreds of resumes from unqualified applicants when they post on big boards. (You can still find great candidates through these job boards, so continue to utilize them as a part of your recruiting mix.)

But, the world of recruiting is changing. More and more the online focus rests on social networking sites and smaller, specialized job boards. Here's how employers are using LinkedIn, for recruiting. LinkedIn users:

1. Develop and expand a personal network of professionals to whom the employer or recruiter can send a request for a referral of a recommended candidate for a particular job opening.

Scott Allen, author of “The Virtual Handshake” says that in addition to building a referral chain, you need to build relationships: "by building authentic relationships, virtually as well as face-to-face, people will actually make referrals — taking the time to think of possible candidates/prospects in response to your query, or even proactively referring people to you when they hear of a need. But they only do that if they have a strong enough relationship with you. Otherwise you’re undifferentiated from the dozens or hundreds of other recruiters they’re connected to. Strong relationships, not large contact databases, build this kind of business."

2. Stay in touch with former, valued, trusted colleagues for potential future employment relationships. You don't want to lose touch with people who have worked successfully for you or with you in the past.

3. Actively search for candidates among the members by searching on keywords for people with the required qualifications listed in their LinkedIn profile. (This is why keyword rich, well-developed profiles are recommended for professionals on LinkedIn.) Share your contact information so others can easily contact you whether you are actively or passively job searching.

4. Search for potential employees by past or current employer who may have employed people with the needed skills and experience.

5. Search for employees based on references from recommenders, the process used on LinkedIn in which members of your network can write notes of recommendation for you.

6. Can ask your employees to activate their networks to reach out to potential passive candidates for jobs. Employee referrals are valued (Not everyone is looking, but most people are open to the right opportunity.)

7. Can use Inmail, your internal inbox at LinkedIn, to request assistance from your network or selected professionals to find a qualified candidate.

8. Respond to questions in the "Answers" section of LinkedIn. That's how I researched this article and responding can raise your profile in the LinkedIn community.

9. For a fee, you can post jobs on LinkedIn and recruit and hire candidates. According to LinkedIn, "LinkedIn combines job listings, candidate search, trusted referrals and the power of networks to give you results."