Finding the right talent for your company’s open roles can feel like finding a needle in a haystack—especially in today’s difficult, shifting job market. Finding someone with the skillset you’re looking for, who will also be a fit culturally, who also has the expectations of benefits that your company provides, who also is seeking a job and agrees with your salary range? It can give an HR professional a headache just thinking about it.
But with LinkedIn, the landscape of talent acquisition has changed significantly. The popular social media platform has long been a goldmine for recruiters to identify and engage with top talent, sourcing the best potential workers for their business. It offers recruiters unparalleled access to a vast pool of talent, and even helps them sort that talent into who’s looking for a job and who would be a good fit for your open role. Unlike a typical job board, LinkedIn provides important insights into candidates’ professional backgrounds, skills, and endorsements, helping ease the decision-making process for those with hiring responsibilities. Levering the unique power of LinkedIn effectively can work wonders to streamline your hiring process and ensure that you attract the best of the best for your organization.
Here are a few quick tips on using LinkedIn for targeted talent acquisition and recruitment. Before you know it, your recruitment efforts will flourish and your open positions will be filled, with a talent pipeline in your back pocket in case any troubles arise.
Cultivating an Employer Brand
When you think “brand,” you probably think about your company logo, or about what people think of your company’s products or services. But when it comes to recruitment, it’s important to spend some time crafting a compelling employer brand.
Your employer brand represents your organization’s reputation as a terrific place to work and encompasses your culture and values. An employer brand helps top talent envision what it’s like to work within your business and be a part of the team you’re building. It not only attracts great workers, but it also encourages more passive candidates to consider opportunities within your organization. Someone might not even know that they’d be happier working for you than their current position, but a great employer brand can help open their mind to that possibility.
On LinkedIn, your employer brand is best reflected in your company page. To make your page sparkle and shine, ensure that it’s up-to-date and completely filled out. Highlight your organization’s mission, benefits, and career opportunities. Don’t forget to share content that really showcases the best parts of your company culture by utilizing employee testimonials and sharing photos from company events. By consistently engaging with your audience through posts, updates, and interactions, you’ll be able to foster a great sense of community on your page, further bolstering your employer brand and encouraging both active and passive job seekers to reach out.
Targeting Top Candidates
One of the best features of LinkedIn? It’s advanced search functionality. Recruiters can use the LinkedIn search filter to identify candidates based on specific criteria like certifications, location, and years of experience.
But first, you need to know what you’re looking for. Before diving into the search filters, make sure you’ve got a good handle on your ideal candidate profile and truly understand which qualifications and skills you want in the open role you’re seeking to fill. Then, when it comes time to find talent, you’ve got a clear vision. Don’t forget to engage with those passive job seekers as well—again, many top-tier candidates may not be actively looking for new opportunities but that doesn’t mean they aren’t open to exploring them!
Engaging With Candidates
Once you’ve identified potential candidates on LinkedIn, the next step is to engage with them in a meaningful, effective way. Building relationships with candidates is crucial for nourishing talent pipelines and ensuring positive candidate experiences, hopefully taking them from a “maybe” to a “yes.”
There are a few simple ways to do this. The first is to highlight mutual connections. LinkedIn does a great job of showing you how you’re connected to a potential new hire—maybe someone who works for your company currently used to intern with them, or you have mutual friends. Mention those connections in your outreach to help establish credibility. Another tactic is to personalize each outreach message. While this isn’t always possible, it does go a long way towards bolstering your authenticity and rapport. By taking the time to tailor your message to each individual candidate and demonstrate genuine interest in them, you’re proving that you aren’t just a bot or a recruiter casting a super-wide net that isn’t worth their time. Thirdly, make sure to always be responsive. Timely communication is incredibly important to the recruitment process—ghosting or dragging your feet is a no-go and will leave a bad taste in any potential candidate’s mouth.
Leveraging LinkedIn Tools
What really sets LinkedIn apart is their wide variety of tools and features designed to assist recruiters in the talent acquisition process. While you can simply use LinkedIn as it is, really diving into its recruiter-specific tools can give you a leg up. You don’t need to do everything at once—try and explore the features the platform offers and see what works best for you and your team.
For instance, LinkedIn Groups can be helpful for recruiters. By joining groups related to your industry, you can expand your network and keep an ear to the ground for potential candidates. LinkedIn Recruiter, a premium subscription service designed for recruiting professionals, provides even more advanced search capabilities, candidate insights, and collaboration tools. The LinkedIn Job Postings feature allows you to advertise open positions, getting your open positions in front of even more eyes. LinkedIn was designed for HR professionals. If you still aren’t using it to find, nurture, and recruit top talent, there’s no time like the present to start.
Claire Swinarski is a Contributing Editor at HR Daily Advisor.
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