Recruiting is always constrained by money, competition, and expectations. But the main constraint is usually time. It’s hard to get everything done, especially when the labor pool is shrinking, and the skills gap is growing. Therefore, LinkedIn has found an effective way to find the right hires quickly through its LinkedIn Recruiter feature. This article will help you understand how to use LinkedIn Recruiter and make the most out of it.
How to use LinkedIn Recruiter?
Step 1 – When you first get into LinkedIn Recruiter, you need to create a project for your job post.
Step 2 – To create a project, hover your mouse over the project tab in the header and click the create a new button.
Step 3 – Once you have filled in the project details, you will be taken to the project dashboard. Here, you can find all the candidates you need for the job.
Step 4 – Lastly, to find LinkedIn search filters, go to the Talent pool tab of your project.
Once you are in the talent pool, you will notice two types of search filters – Sidebar and Advanced filters. The sidebar filters are the basic recruiter filters that help you filter by job titles, locations, workplace types, skills and assessments, companies, schools, year of graduation, industries, keywords, etc.
Whereas advanced features are only available for LinkedIn Sales Navigator or Recruiter subscribers. The advanced features include candidate details, education and experience, and company filters. Each of these filters offers more options for finding employees and narrowing down the search.
You can message potential candidates using Linkedin Inmail. This allows you to message anyone on Linkedin, whether you are connected with them or not. You can send up to 150 InMail messages per month with the full Linkedin Recruiter package.
Linkedin also provides a tool to help manage, track and stay connected with your talent leads, called the Talent Pipeline. This allows you to:
- Import candidates & resumes from a spreadsheet easily, so that you can track all your leads across sources.
- Automatically connect leads to their Linkedin profile once they are imported, so you can be updated on their career & profile changes
- Assign statuses, sources and tags to help manage your pipeline of talent.
- Your leads do not require a Linkedin profile to be managed through the Talent Pipeline
Why recruit on LinkedIn?
Aside from being popular in the job-seeking field, LinkedIn has many benefits. Here are some of the reasons why to recruit on LinkedIn:
- The main purpose of LinkedIn is to connect with professionals.
- LinkedIn is mobile-friendly, so as soon as you post your job requirement, it will be pushed to the potential candidate’s mobile phone.
- LinkedIn has a strong network, and its talent pool is unmatched.
- Jobseekers and all your competitors will be active on LinkedIn.
How to recruit on LinkedIn without paying so much?
Although you are often asked to sign up for LinkedIn Recruiter, you don’t need it to recruit on the platform. If you want to understand how to recruit on LinkedIn, it’s best to start with a free or low-cost option and gauge whether it’s truly your best source of quality hires or not.
Here are some low-cost or free options to utilize LinkedIn for your recruitment needs:
- Search for passive candidates – Look for candidates in similar roles to the one you are looking for. This makes your job easier if they are also looking for a job change.
- Join relevant LinkedIn Groups – Find active LinkedIn groups in your hiring field. Post jobs in their feeds if they allow you to post.
- Gain insights from competitors – You can look at top companies’ job postings, see what keywords they have used, and replicate it to see if it works for you.
- Create a stunning LinkedIn company page – Use your company page to show potential candidates what you are all about as an employer. This can include content for inbound recruiting, press releases, employee testimonials, and more.
- Give candidates the option to apply on LinkedIn – Anything that makes the application process easier will help potential candidates to apply for the job more efficiently. Make sure you don’t ask them to fill in details that you will anyhow receive from their LinkedIn profile.
- Use Talent Acquisition software to compile all applications in one place – Having some recruiting software is a must if you want to recruit on LinkedIn faster and efficiently. It helps you to keep track of messages, profiles, and applications. You can post on LinkedIn for free through an ATS and keep track of all candidates from LinkedIn and other platforms you use for recruiting.
- Post jobs – Posting jobs on LinkedIn from your personal account isn’t free but can be budget-friendly. LinkedIn runs on a pay-per-click model. This means you only pay when a potential candidate views your posting. After completing the job details, you can set the budget based on the recommendations. You can also stop when you hit your budget or continue until you decide to close it manually. Please note that if you keep the job posted until it is closed, you may spend more than your budget.
- Post jobs on your company page for free – This may work to your advantage if you have a company page with great followers. Post a link to the job post on your career site, which is a free way to get traction without having to set a budget. You can sponsor the post, which will get in front of a huge audience but posting to your feed is free.
What not to do when recruiting on LinkedIn?
While the LinkedIn platform can obviously prove helpful for your recruitment, it can also have some drawbacks. Here are some activities to avoid when recruiting on LinkedIn:
Don’t misuse InMail
Job seekers may complain about unsolicited InMail messages, and LinkedIn has a Recruiter InMail policy that states the following:
- Don’t distribute unwanted or untargeted InMail messages
- Don’t use InMail as event invitations
- Don’t use InMail for marketing campaigns
Mass InMail will get your profile flagged or banned. On the other hand, if you send more than 100 InMail messages over 14 days and have a response rate of less than 13%, you will receive a warning notification and tips to improve your response rate. You will be placed in an InMail improvement period for any breach of the threshold.
Don’t spend all your budget on one platform
If you are using multiple social platforms for your hiring, distribute your budget and track the success rates on each source. Don’t spend all your budget in one place unless you know it will work for you. Further, you should ensure that the job post has relevant SEO keywords and a clear job description for potential candidates to discover it in their search.
Key Takeaways
Finding the right talent for your company is not an easy task. But LinkedIn Recruiter makes finding them easier and more efficient. Recruiter Lite can be a good option for you if you want to take a cost-effective way. Though there is a huge difference between the standard LinkedIn Recruiter and Recruiter Lite, you can choose whatever your business demands and how much budget you have.
