Tweet

Is Linkedin The Death Knell Of Recruitment As We Know It?

Guest post by: Logan Nathan

Article Overview: With the LinkedIn network growing to 100million, the next natural question to ask ourselves would be - With most of the world's professionals "Linked In" one network, how much more time do we have left, before LinkedIn revolutionises the recruitment and redefined how companies hire employees?

Is Linkedin The Death Knell Of Recruitment As We Know It?

When LinkedIn opened its first office in Australia in January 2010, Steve Barham, the Director of Hiring Solutions predicted that most of Australia's workforce would be covered by LinkedIn. By June the same year, 15,000 new people had signed up as members. On the flip side recruiters Rio Tinto, HP and Vodafone Hutchison were among the first to sign up for LinkedIn Recruiter a new product that was rolled out. The seriousness with which this social media business portal is targeting the recruitment industry is evident from Global CEO, Jeff Weiner‘s observation that the recruitment solutions division is LinkedIn's biggest and fastest growing division. A wake-up call to recruiters

The growing popularity of Linkedin is a wake-up call to recruiters who need to revaluate and fine tune their online recruiting strategies. While LinkedIn should be seen as an additional channel rather than a replacement for traditional online recruitment, it provides recruiters a cost efficient outlet to help them promote their brand and also reach a much wider pool of quality candidates than what was possible using traditional online and offline media. To add even greater value, technological advancements that allow recruiters automate posting of jobs and also track responses have made portals such as LinkedIn an even more attractive proposition to recruiters.

Social proof - the new age alternative to referrals

Allowing members to post detailed resume style profiles enhances their LinkedIn social networking experience as recruiters are able to assess potential talent easily and can shortlist candidates that could match their requirements. The shortlisted candidates could be contacted directly or be passed on to a recruiter to complete the interview process.

Once the interview process is complete, recruiters call for references from candidates, and often the final decision hinges upon how candidates are scored by the referees. LinkedIn offers the social proof option where recruiters can view "recommendations" made by colleagues, previous employees and business affiliates on the any profiles they may find interesting. This way the strengths of potential candidates can be identified and matched to the requirements of the position that needs to be filled.

One of the most significant benefits that LinkedIn provides is to inform members who the contacts of their direct connections are, and provide access to information about their place of employment, their job title and their professional interests. This information makes it convenient and easy to connect with such contacts for a position that needs to be filled.

Countering the escalating cost of traditional media

With traditional media costs escalating many businesses are turning to online recruiting to find candidates. LinkedIn also offers a paid option to recruiters who are willing to invest to find candidates that they would otherwise find difficult to source. On payment of a fee, recruiters can post jobs on LinkedIn to recruit such hard to find candidates. The value that is offered is the ability to combine job listings, searches, referrals that are trustworthy and the power of social networking to deliver results in hours instead of days.

Climbing the learning curve

Just like any other process there is a learning process associated with using LinkedIn as a recruiting tool. For instance it's a good idea to get in touch with warm leads from direct contacts. Warm leads are pre-qualified and calling them is far more effective than cold calling. It's quite likely that an unknown person will not call back, and if at all the call is returned the likelihood of a worthwhile lead being provided is rather slim. On the contrary the direct connections of first level contacts are a great source of warm leads. First level contacts can suggest which of these are most qualified and a recruiter can then up and recruit them. To cement relationships with these new contacts, it's important to connect with them directly on LinkedIn. Even if they don't end up as employees they could be potential candidates for future job openings. Repeating this process will result in a recruiter building a huge database of prospects that are more likely to be the right fit for the recruiter.

Another strategy that many recruiters overlook is building a private network of "tip-toe" contacts. There are always people who tip-toe or get the itch to check out jobs to see if anything catches their eye. Generally they would first look at their primary LinkedIn contacts to check out what's available. By telling everyone in their network that they would like to talk to these people, recruiters can get the first crack at finding quality candidates.

Here are additional tactics to use for recruiting candidates:

• Use the advanced search facility to research and find profiles of passive candidates perfectly matched to jobs - searches can be made by job title, keywords, company, geography, industry and more.
• Increasing the size of a network -The more connections a recruiter has, the greater the access to a pool of talented candidates. This is why the most active recruiters on LinkedIn are also the ones who are extremely well connected. This is one of the reasons why being an Open Networker is an advantage.
• Joining relevant LinkedIn groups - One of the best ways to access candidates who are not in a recruiter's network is to join groups in different industries depending on the requirement of the position to be filled. Group members can be accessed through the advanced search facility.
• Active network participation - keeping active through discussion, recommendations answering questions increases "visibility" and results in a greater level of credibility.

LinkedIn is a great recruitment tool, but is of no use if recruiters cannot be found. Recruiters should ensure that their profiles are made public so they can easily be found by candidates.

In the final analysis the power of LinkedIn lies in the ability of reaching a wider pool of talent through a network of established contacts, a process that is a refreshing change to finding "cold" candidates through job ads, both offline and online. While traditional forms of recruiting are likely to continue in the near future, the day could not be far when social media portals such as LinkedIn could eventually usher in a new era in the recruitment industry.

Related Articles
  Employers: What is a professional recruitment service?
  Legal Marketing: More LinkedIn questions and answers
  Why an Outstanding Resume is Not Enough to Get an Interview: Reason 6
  The jobs market and some job seeking top tips
  Employers: What can you do to ensure you stand out above your competitors?
  How Recruitment Process Outsourcing Can Help Your Business Stay Focused
  Legal Marketing: LinkedIn's professional growth
  Employers: Using a recruitment agency: the pros and cons!
  How to stop social networking sites killing your restraint of trade clauses
  Part IV: Can LinkedIn Increase Your Sales?
  Recruiting effectively: an employer guide to making the recruitment process lean.
  The Truth About LinkedIn That You Might Not Want to Hear
  The Benefits of Outsourcing Your Employee Recruitment Process
  Employers: How do you ensure the most efficient recruitment practice?
  Leverage Social Media - LinkedIn Strategies
  Wake Up and Smell the Coffee
  LinkedIN: The Most Unique Social Media Platform
  LinkedIn or LinkedOut! It's time to get in!
  What to do on Linkedin
  Recruiting Top Sales Pros is now HARDER, not easier

Article Tags: LinkedIn, networking, Recruitment, search, Social Media



Related Forum Posts
Re: 15 Ways You Can Look Amazing on LinkedIn - Nice thread. Still I didn't use Linkedin properly. Sure I will take your points.
Re: 15 Ways You Can Look Amazing on LinkedIn - Hi Evan, Thanks for the tips, I am a Linkedin member but have not found the time yet to complete all those tasks but you have given me a bit of a kick to get them done, thanks again for the list, regards, Mal.
Re: Social Networking Site Endorsements - Hi Shri, If you don't like the person who sends you request to be friend, then you shouldn't add him as a partner. Try to be away from bad neighborhood. It is general for all social networking sites (DIgg, Stumble Upon etc.), not for only Linkedin. There will be a lot of requests for becoming partner, but you should watch that person's past activity carefully and stay away from sucpicious guys, especially spammers.
Re: Make Friends...Literally BUILD them! - [quote="burnsrunner":1zobscwk]I agree! Networking is definitely the key word here. What does everyone feel about the different Networking platforms out there? Twitter Facebook LinkedIn what are some others?[/quote:1zobscwk] I am on Twitter and Linkedin, have not joined Facebook yet as my time is fairly limited and one needs a lot of time to devote to all these various networking platforms. Unless you do this full time (the networking I mean). MichelleJ
Re: Social Networking Site Endorsements - [quote="orxan":2qtwn5i5]Hi Shri, If you don't like the person who sends you request to be friend, then you shouldn't add him as a partner. Try to be away from bad neighborhood. It is general for all social networking sites (DIgg, Stumble Upon etc.), not for only Linkedin. There will be a lot of requests for becoming partner, but you should watch that person's past activity carefully and stay away from sucpicious guys, especially spammers.[/quote:2qtwn5i5] Being a friend on a social site is one thing and that's not what I was talking about. Giving a personal or professional endorsement (which is done on Linked In) is a different situation. When you give an endorsement, you are recommending that person and that's much more serious to me than just being a friend. Shri


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Coaching Tip: Identify Your Core Values

SEO – Link Building Secrets

How To Improve Your CTA (Call To Action)

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.