Linkedin For Recruitment

If you would have observed, the Advent of web 2.0 has brought lots of internet based tools to recruiter’s desk. So ability to use these tools efficiently has becomes a necessary skill set for any recruiter. World Wide Web is loaded with tools like Job portals, Social Networking website, Communities, Twitter, LinkedIn, Blogs and for that matter google itself, as a medium to headhunt or source profiles.

Compared to all the means Linkedin has come out as the very interesting tool for sourcing profiles, specifically if you want to reach to passive candidates with niche skillsets. Linkedin has free tools as well tools you can buy, But as all of us know buying tools of Linkedin is not the cheapest of solutions also it does not assure you any closure in spite investing good amount of money on it. With my experience I have found some of very interesting and free ways to source profile using linkedin. And I would like share it with you.

So let’s get started with:
The foremost aspect which represents you in Linkedin is your profile; it’s the single most important differentiator between you and some other recruiter .
Make sure you add who you are and what you do, your education background etc. Also share the kind positions you work for, type of companies you represent and do make it a point that you share your contact details including your mail id and contact number so that people can easily approach you.

Once your profile is ready, the next thing you do is to build contacts, this enables you to reach more and more people and improves your visibility, the best thing is import your address book from internet mail accounts and your outlook, find who all are there and invite them. If you have database of candidates or clients with their mail ids make sure you upload it linkedin thus adding all of them as your linkedin connections. Also keep adding each candidate whom you get to know constantly in Linkedin. This will help in continous increase in your connections. Also make sure you accept all invitations which come to you or even become a LinkedIn OPEN NETWORKER(LION)

Once your profile is ready and contacts list have started building up, you need to make sure that people who have worked with you, your candidates and as well as your clients recommend you, Linkedin also  provides a link to ask for recommendations don’t forget to use that.

Now you are all set to utilize linkedin to its fullest. So let’s move into how to use some of the free tools on Linkedin to source profiles.

1. Keep updating your status with the hottest requirement you are having this will allow people in your network to know what the hottest thing you have. Who knows right candidate might from someone you know.
2. Search for Linkedin groups which are relevant to what you are looking for, identify group by skill set, company names, education background, roles, etc. There are two important you can do, firstly post jobs in these groups and directly mail to group members. Do not choose groups by size but by your need. Also make sure you remove groups or leave groups which are useless. As Linkedin limits you to just 50 communities.
3. Question and Answers: Keep asking for question to all you connections, these question are also read by their connections ,
you can ask questions like I am looking for a Java developer from Internet domain can you suggest me anyone or say I am hiring Java developers can you help me in finding one or can you suggest me companies where I can get the java developers from banking domain. Who knows as an answer you can get a good candidate.
4. Searching people: This is a very important feature you can use to search through Linkedin. I would suggest you to focus on simple keywords like company name or designation or say Java if you are looking for Java developer. The result might be wide but can be useful. To make it focused you can use location criteria. Once you know that you have found the right profile ,you can directly connect with your first level of connections, for the second and third level the best thing is able to get contact details from the 1st Level connection whom you know well, when that doesn’t work see what groups is the person you want to contact is member of, you can mail to him if you belong to same community. Another way is search their names on job portals using previous companies name as combination, you might be able to get his email id or old contact number from there. If you still don’t find a way to reach the person, better call his company boardline and ask to connect.

Using all this regularly definitely pays off by in generating lots of passive candidates. With my experience using Linkedin I have found that most profile I get are unique, passive and generally the perfect hit for me.
Also I get approached by 3-4 peoples who saw my linkedin profile as need my services to get them the right job. Many are not useful but still it’s important that people start knowing you as the right person to approach when hunting for job.
One of the factors you should always keep in mind while using linkedin maintain strict formal relationships, use your words carefully and don’t make people feel that you are hurting their privacy, this will help networking efforts last of long.
I hope you find the knowledge I shared useful. I am sure there might be more ways to use Linkedin, I leave that for you to find it.
For any further details feel free to connect with me at anuj@zyoin.com