By | Tracie Johnson | Freelance Writer
If you’re seeking a new hire, LinkedIn is one of the best tools at your disposal. However, with over 500 million users on the site, finding the needle in a haystack that is your next star candidate may be problematic. Here are six compiled favorite ways to help you find them.
1. Targeted Job Postings
LinkedIn has a robust job posting platform that lets you reach a large pool of candidates with your open position. A job posting can target various groups, including company size, years of experience, and job title. LinkedIn also uses a very effective algorithm for matching the candidate pool to your specific opening. They consider location, education, and skills when figuring out who their best recommendations would be, so you can feel confident that the candidates they bring you are highly qualified.
Suppose candidates with the wrong skills or experience level are auto-posted. In that case, there are talent acquisition solutions that can help you customize your recruiting efforts and choose the type of candidates you want to interact with. This issue can be rectified by digging deeper into search results to find the top relevant candidates, which LinkedIn does well.
2. Strategic Recruitment
LinkedIn has become a centralized platform for finding talent in many categories, including engineering, sales, marketing, and more. A strategic recruitment campaign focuses on creating an effective pipeline of candidates that aligns precisely with the needs of a company’s recruiting initiatives and career development plans. A strategic recruitment approach also helps companies obtain and maintain more than one hire at a time. Again, the company’s algorithm does an excellent job of matching candidates to their ideal positions.
3. LinkedIn Recommendations
The best way to find qualified candidates on LinkedIn is to connect with people that know you, the company, and your industry. Recruiting teams have successfully used the LinkedIn platform to leverage their existing network of friends, coworkers, and other organizations to which they are connected. For example, a business owner might ask their peers in the same industry if they would recommend them as a great person to connect with.
This tactic can be used by many job seekers, too. Say you are a recruiter seeking to fill an executive-level role at your company. You can ask Rotary International if they would be willing to give your company pats on the back by writing a recommendation, preferably involving their personal experience, for one of your candidates looking for a new opportunity.
4. Job Referrals
When finding qualified people on LinkedIn, it should not be a surprise that the most effective way is through existing relationships and vouching from trusted recommendations. The simplest way to do this is to ask your friends and colleagues if they know anyone who is looking for a job. If people working at the company have experienced high levels of success previously, then their network of friends might also be capable of filling roles that you need to be filled in the future. The key here is to find people who are credible and influential.
5. Job Listings
Job listings can be the most effective way to find candidates on LinkedIn because they’re so directly focused on your company’s needs. If you’re looking to fill a specific role, use the job posting tool to reach a very targeted group of people you believe are most qualified to do the job. In addition to posting openings, you might also consider setting up an ad to find talent that meets the specific requirements of your business. This will significantly help you to find a specific type of candidate that you’ve been looking for.
6. Job Searching
The LinkedIn job search tool is excellent for finding people with relevant experience and educational backgrounds in your industry. Use the advanced search option to search only those people with jobs related to what you need and set up the job posting feature so it can auto-populate all of your required job descriptions and positions that match the candidates’ skill sets.
Closing Thoughts
In conclusion, when looking for talented workers on LinkedIn, consider what you need in the future and define the specific skills needed for each position. Once you’ve solidified a vision of what your ideal candidate would look like, use the tools provided to find people who match that image and let them know about your opportunity.
