Use LinkedIn Effectively To Support Recruiting

With over 7 million Canadian members and growing on LinkedIn, and as many as half interacting with LinkedIn at least once a week, LinkedIn has a definite role to play in the human resources landscape.

Who Can You Find On LinkedIn

LinkedIn is divided into many different ‘types’ of members. A significant portion, almost half, are identified as ‘organizational decision makers’. Of course that identification can be misleading as many members on LinkedIn identify themselves self-employed or working as consultants or small business owners, even while employed by others. Among these members there are traditional potential job candidates but also candidates for contingent, freelance and partnered working relationships.
A growing number of university and college students and recent grads have migrated from Facebook to LinkedIn over the past couple of years, increasing the pool of candidates for internships, co-op and entry level jobs.

There are also the traditional “passive’ and ‘active’ job seekers who are sitting on LinkedIn, employed by others, themselves or between gigs, and who are happy to connect for current or future opportunities or to link you to other potential future candidates.

Advantage of LinkedIn for Human Resources

LinkedIn does provide many opportunities to fritter away your time. You can browse a volume of information, including a lot that is repetitive. To use LinkedIn effectively you need to have a clear vision of your goals and actions. The advantage you can gain from using LinkedIn effectively is to save time, resources and energy for a myriad of purposes including recruiting.

LinkedIn for Employment Solutions

Posting jobs and conducting candidate searches can be efficient uses of LinkedIn. Even if you do not want to pay the price for a recruiters account if you are connected to at least 500 people you can conduct a pretty effective search for free.

Another basic advantage to LinkedIn recruiting is that you create opportunities to vetting candidates in a way that does not run afoul of privacy and discrimination rules. Currently if a candidate applies for an opening at your organization upon receipt of the application HR should avoid heading onto social media to dig up information on the Candidate. Finding personal information not relevant in the hiring process can be a potential danger zone if you do not ultimately move ahead with a candidate. However, if you already have a relationship with a candidate you have had an opportunity to vet them long before.

LinkedIn also give you an opportunity to learn about the interests and ‘personality’ of a potential candidate over time. When Zappos announced their recent recruiting process evolution from job postings to relationship building their goal was to be able to gauge the ‘personality’ of candidates to see if they were a company culture fit over time and not simply during the hiring process.

Just In Time Hiring Mode

LinkedIn provides the opportunity, especially over time, to be ready to respond to a just in time hiring need, whether for a full-time, permanent employee or a short-term contingent employee or team. You may not need or be able to hire a full time employee but through LinkedIn you may find the right team or person to solve a short-term problem. Sure, you can post a job on a freelancer website or hire through a temp agency but with LinkedIn you have an opportunity to identify, watch and then select the person or team you have grown to know over time.

7 Simple Steps For Laying The Ground Work For A LinkedIn Recruitment Rock Star Status

1)      Have a professional and complete personal profile including a photo: the goal is to appear professional and trustworthy. Post at least once per week, every week.

2)      Have a professional company LinkedIn page: the same as above

3)      Ask your employees to have professional LinkedIn Profiles: this helps represent your organization well and helps build your presence.

4)      Connect to your employees on LinkedIn (not on Facebook but that is a topic for another day): the goal is to expand your access to future candidates

5)      Have your employees follow your company page and on occasion comment and share your company information: the goal is to increase the visibility and reach of your company LI page.

6)      Connect with many people, including vendors, professional contacts and potential candidates: The same goal as above

7)      Share information via your personal and company page regularly but only when you have relevant information. What might count as this information? Job postings, company news, and accolades for current employees, industry announcements: The goal is to build that trusting relationship and also see which candidates are paying enough attention to have a genuine interest in your organization.

Your general goal is to have a professional presence that enables the mashup of the right person with the right opportunity at the right time. In other words, by having a professional presence and being present you are hoping to create the opportunity for a great candidate to develop a positive impression of you and your organization and for you to do the same with them.