Though much of the attention in this economy is focused on job seekers, employers trying to hire just the right person for a position need to know how and where to post their open job to attract the right candidates. Making use of targeted social media is one way and, when it comes to networking and recruiting, no site is more effective than LinkedIn®.
On job sites like Monster.com® or CareerBuilder.com®, your job posting not only competes with hundreds of others–both in your company’s field (a recent search for “Software Engineer” in Ohio brought up 14 pages of listed ads and a geographic search for all jobs listed more than 5,000), but attracts people with all levels of skills and experience–hardly the targeted response you are looking for when trying to fill a specific need within your organization. LinkedIn, from its inception, has been much more directed at business professionals and its reliance on “connections” between colleagues. It immediately sorts much of the wheat from the chaff when it comes to engaging professionals.
That doesn’t mean that the talent pool gets smaller. LinkedIn claims 35 million members from 200 different countries and the numbers grow daily as more employers learn how to best use LinkedIn to meet their needs for top talent.
It’s Who You Know: That old adage still holds true in today’s competitive job market–even if you are the employer looking for employees. You not only can send a request to the people within your LinkedIn network asking that they pass along the job post to anyone they know who might suit the job (former colleagues in your field are great for this), but may also make use of LinkedIn’s own search tools to narrow down a perfect candidate from across the entire LinkedIn database–by using search criteria like Experience, Education, Work History, Geography –even Recommendations–and many more.
It’s Also Who You Don’t Know: Professionals who are good at what they do often already have a job or have no need to actively look for one. These are called “passive candidates”. They are the types who get a phone call offering them a position and, as an employer, you’ll be competing with other employers for this talent. Using LinkedIn to search for specific qualifications will turn up lots of these passive candidates for you to mine. Send them your job post.
Up Close and Personal: Using LinkedIn’s “In Mail” feature: You can compose a personal email which will be sent directly to all candidates you choose–whether you know them or not informing them of the job opening and asking if they are interested. LinkedIn claims 60% of its members actually open and respond to InMail Messages–unlike random emails they receive from a stranger. Using this method, you may discover that the perfect candidate is interested in your job–they just didn’t know it until they heard from you.
Attraction Rather Than Promotion: LinkedIn lets you create a profile for your company–using those same rich keywords you use to search for possible employees. Make your company sound interesting and enticing enough and candidates who are actively looking for a new situation (and use LinkedIn to search for companies for whom they’d like to work) may contact you.
Join Some Groups: Groups at LinkedIn not only bring together people of common interests (and you can enlarge your network within your field to more than just the people you know, work with, or work with elsewhere.) You can also ask group members if they know any candidates they would suggest for the job you are seeking to fill and contact those they suggest.
Look Close To Home: Do ask other members of your company, via LinkedIn, to keep their eyes and ears open for prospective employees and pass along the job posting when they find a likely candidate.
Some People Do Like A Know-It-All: Use the “Answer” section of LinkedIn to respond to questions posted about your field. Not only will it show that you (and therefore your company) are on the cutting edge of industry knowledge, but the conversation you join by your answer attracts other people also interested in the subject. Choose from among the responders and pass along the job post to any of them who have impressed you.
LinkedIn also offers corporate services (for a fee) wherein they will post your jobs (using LinkedIn Jobs Network), “push your job listing” to the most qualified candidates whenever they go online, and use their Referral Engine to screen the candidates for you–referring only relevant, high-quality contacts. An Automatic Search Function even alerts you of new prospects as they join LinkedIn.
At Advance Temporary Services, we make use of LinkedIn to form relationships and attract top-notch candidates to provide cost-effective staffing and human resourcing options for our clients, allowing them to concentrate on their core business while we provide solutions to their staffing challenges. Whether you are in need of permanent or contract employees, please contact us today at www.advancetemps.com to learn more about how we can help your business to grow.