With the increasing demand for skilled candidates in all the industries, it is only going to get difficult hiring the top talent. However, following the professional trends can certainly help you hire great candidates without any difficulty. And the biggest trend in the professional market is using LinkedIn for recruitment.
Social media recruiting is turning out to be the best medium for hiring talented professionals. LinkedIn is the biggest professional network in the world with more than 575+ million users. It works as a virtual storefront for the candidates and has made the hiring process for managers more convenient than ever. Gone are the days when hiring managers would open their inboxes to hundreds of irrelevant resumes.
LinkedIn has now made the taxing process of hiring much more streamlined, focused, and easy. Moreover, it lets you know your candidates better before meeting them at the time of the interview. Here’s how:
- You can view the professional profiles of your candidates and gauge their potential with their level of participation and activity in groups.
- You can view how they manage their profiles and present themselves. A person’s attention to detail in their profile says a lot about their openness to new and better opportunities.
- You can see if they are recommended by other people in the ‘recommendations’ section. It gives you a fair idea of a candidate’s work ethics.
- You can ask for referrals from fellow professionals who might have worked with them in the past.
Follow these steps to use LinkedIn to hire the top talent:
Create a Company Profile
Most of the ideal candidates search for jobs on LinkedIn, and to increase your visibility amongst them, you must create a LinkedIn profile. It allows you to share links to your blog, showcase employees and testimonials, and market your company.
To create a strong profile, here are a few things you must ensure:
- Use relevant keywords in the profile for better search visibility.
- Create a headline that will appeal to the top talent.
- Add testimonials to the profile.
- Share useful content regularly so that like-minded candidates can identify your company.
Post Job Openings on LinkedIn
LinkedIn is a one-stop platform where you can post a job for free, ask for referrals, and attract the right candidates. You can also find out if the potential candidates are seeking a job and if they are the right fit for the position.
To reach a huge number of job seekers, here’s what you can do:
- Post a job on the LinkedIn company page
- Post a job on LinkedIn profile
- Post a job in the LinkedIn group
Here’s a detailed blog post to help you learn how to post a job on LinkedIn for free.
Create a Group and Stay Active
Create a group and post relevant content and links to your company blog posts frequently. This will help you build others’ interest in your company which will further help you establish a great LinkedIn presence.
Moreover, staying active in the group and posting relevant content will allow you to continually post job openings and market the positions to many members.
Use InMail to Reach Candidates
InMail is a great LinkedIn feature that allows you to reach out to candidates you are not connected to. In order to use this feature, you’d need to subscribe to one of the LinkedIn premium plans. According to LinkedIn’s research, the average response rate to LinkedIn InMail is 85%. And this is 3 times higher than a traditional email’s response rate. Hence, if you’re hiring, using this feature will ensure that you do not miss out on great talent.
Use an ATS to Post Jobs and Screen Candidates
You can use an ATS (applicant tracking system) that has a LinkedIn partnership for a better experience. ATS, i.e., talent acquisition software helps you streamline the recruitment process by allowing you to post job openings on LinkedIn for free as well as on other job boards directly.
Here’s why using an applicant tracking system is a great way to accelerate and perfect the recruitment cycle:
- It extracts data on applicants’ LinkedIn profiles (data that they might have missed out on their resumes) and identifies top talent based on their skills that match your job description.
- It allows you to send personal messages to your potential employees without having to connect with them.
- It helps you create a talent pool online.
Here’s the most important tip: Connect with the passive candidates and focus on building your company brand. LinkedIn is all about networking. So, to find better hires and fill the positions in your company quickly, you will need to communicate and make connections. Moreover, the probability of hiring top candidates will increase as the size of your professional network increases. All the best!
