How to increase your chances of hiring using LinkedIn?

In my previous article, I stressed on the steps that will help a profile stand out. In this one, my focus will be on the ways we . as recruiters can optimize this platform to get the best suited candidates. While some might say with the below pointers, I am giving out the trade secrets; but to me it’s all about trying to share the methods that worked for me, with the hope that it helps others in the Talent Acquisition community. Just like when an untapped market is targeted by new business, it is preferable that there are multiple players because their combined efforts help make the market and consumers more mature, and their buying habits more evolved. Similarly, I am hoping when many of us from the Talent Acquisition community pick up some of these traits, we can provide a better hiring experience to the candidates and also a better ROI to our efforts and investments.

So here are some of the must do things, I vouch for, that can help you better optimize your recruiter license on LinkedIn.

1)   Connect -connect- connect: Connect with the right people and with the right objective. Look at a profile beyond the objective of hiring him/her immediately. Engage with candidate keeping your future business needs in mind. For example, if you are building a new design team and hiring a lot of junior UX/Visual designers currently but see that there are many senior profiles too who might fit in as leads or managers. Start engaging with the latter too. As the team grows, you will certainly be in a need to hire a lead very soon and these potential candidates will make your pool of ready and engaged profiles for the future hiring needs.

2)   Respond to your emails/in-mails/Messages: While I know it is not feasible to respond to all the applications that might come in for every job posting and, believe me, you are not expected to do the same. At least respond to the messages and emails from potential candidates. A lot of gems that I have handpicked were folks who had directly written to me and all I did was respond to them and took their profile forward as they were the right fit. I try to clean up my LinkedIn inbox every weekend (Takes me maximum 30 mins to 45 mins), but to me, it is an investment worth making.

3)   Do not ignore Branding: Work on your company's career page. Respond to comments (specially the negative ones). Share news about the company and insights that might entice candidates to start engaging with your brand. A follower of your company has a 50% more chance of applying to a job at your company than a non follower. Share content which targets to convert maximum of the readers into followers. For example, if you represent a Tech company then your contents should be curated for Techies relevant in that field of business.

4)   Get Trained: Keep yourself abreast on how to use the recruiter account/LinkedIn Talent Solution. There are so many features which when used optimally can become a gold mine for us recruiters. I have learnt most of the features by frequent use of the platform. However, feel free to use recruiter certification courses if need be. 80% of my Recruiters are LinkedIn recruiter certified.

5)   Give feedback: It is not feasible to give feedback to everyone who applies. But try getting back to all of them who have done at least one level of discussion: A talent is 4 times more likely to consider your company when you provide constructive feedback.

6)   Be humble and receptive to feedback: As you start giving feedback to candidates, be mentally prepared to get feedback from them too. A lot of candidates will not agree to your assessment of their profiles. And many a times, our assessment may not be very accurate too. Respect their point of view rather than trying to push your opinion through.

7)   Know your roles well: Know well about the open positions and the ideal fitment required, so that you can give real time feedback on the applications. Do not send copy-pasted feedback. Give feedback specific to the profile of the person. Know your ideal candidate. Be realistic. JDs can be nerve racking at times. Look at a profile from a potential fitment to the role at hand and not necessarily on how the profile matches with your JD. Remember a JD is only made to facilitate the process of finding the right match to the job. Many a times we forget that and recruitment becomes a process of finding a candidate matching the JD that we made.

8)   Target Passive candidates: Reach out to passive candidates via professionally written in-mails. 70% of the global workforce are passive candidates. Treat this problem as converting offline to online. Just like an e-Com company cannot grow beyond a point if it is not able to convince user to move from offline to online transactions, similarly we cannot expect to get the right candidate if we focus only on the ones who are actively looking out for a role change. Pick up the phone and reach out to candidates who you believe is ideal for the role but have not applied. The irony of the Indian market is that while there is a lot of talent available, there isn't a good pipeline of "high quality" talent.

9)   Boost your LinkedIn SEO: One might think, we are recruiters, SEO needs to be done by the Digital marketing folks. Common’s folks! These are the times of technology. Pick up any new learning that will help you do your work better. LinkedIn users run thousands of searches every day, typically to find someone that can help them in their niche areas or locations. The good news is that you can influence your own search rankings fairly easily. Marketeers do this all the time to find new customers. Why cant Recruiters can do the same? To get better ranking make sure to insert relevant keywords in your headline, in your job title and in your summary. Use keywords for industry, location, company names, and even names of people (if permitted). If all these sound very complicated, please take your SEO expert colleague for a cup of coffee and pick up some tricks of his trade :-)

10)  Check your analytics: I can’t harp more on this one. Get familiar with data. Make data can tell you interesting stories. LinkedIn offers analytics that give you insights about who is reading your posts and your company’s performance. Check out LinkedIn’s analytics page which can provide you information about who is engaging with your posts and hence know about the demographics of your followers. This can help you to target the right audience with the right content. Make the data work for you.

With this note, I hope all of us are able to get the maximum out of this platform. However, do know that there are many folks who are not on LinkedIn and many more who are not very active on the platform. So do keep your offline networking active and robust too. Happy hiring everyone!