LinkedIn is a gold mine of candidates if you know the right method of recruiting. The platform allows you to connect with more than 330 million professional, all of them prominently exhibiting their professional skills, job experience, education, recommendations, expertise and talent.
The most interesting fact about Linked In is that is does not connect you with unemployed professionals or recent force of graduates only but also with the active professionals that are in a constant search of new opportunities.
A recent survey in 2011 concluded that 68% of current employers are open for new listings and job offers. Growth is a continuous and desirable process and 83% of working force will be at their ears if you have something interesting to tell them.
Sounds great! Now, when you know that 83% of currently working force can pursue your offer, how can you reach them? How can you find these candidates? And, what suitable methods you will use to narrow down your search and approach the right candidate?
It is not a strenuous process; you just need a right strategy to approach the right person. This example will help you understand my words easily.
Let’s suppose, you are running a surgical business and you need a marketing person who can do his job perfectly. Your requirements are:
- A person with an experience of minimum 3-4 years.
- He should have been working in same field in the past years.
- He should be aware of the local dialect and areas.
- Substantial knowledge of your products, the material and their usage.
- He should be an excellent communicator who can address the people, acknowledge the presence of your brand in the market and can resolve all kind of issues.
You can start with the advanced search options of Linked In with all these required qualifications. We tell you how: There is a tool bar or menu on the right side of the page where you can set to search people. There is a picture of magnifying glass and Advance search option along with it. Modify following parameters to initiate your search.
- In the title field, enter the designation under which you want to do the recruitment.
- Change the industry to “surgical”.
- Change the seniority. You should have access to the premium facilities of Linked In if you want to do an efficient search. Upgrade your account.
- Leave all other options to their default settings.
The preliminary search will come up with hundreds of results. Obviously, all of these people are not looking for a job but many of them may be interested. You can further narrow down your search for better results and making your work easier. You can add the experience required or the location preference. It will definitely help you.
The next step involves looking at these profiles and check how many of them are actively looking for work. After short listing a few names, you can contact them through different ways. Take a look:
- Send them an email to introduce yourself: Never start a conversation asking if a person is interested in your job opening, even if his profile shows his desperation of finding a job. It will scare them away. Simply tell them their profile caught your attention. Mention something unique about them like any achievement, award or certification. Congratulate them for same, establish a relation and check if they will be apt for your job opening. Tell them about the opening once you are sure.
- Find groups they belong to, join that group and try to strike a conversation: This way you can state that both of you belong to same group and you thought if they may like working with you. Looking at your name regularly will help in further correspondence. This particular method is quite effective to recruit new employees.
- If this is a second-degree connection, try to look for a mutual first-degree connection: The mutual first-degree connection will help you form an opinion about the employee and check if they fit your criteria or not.
- Send them a local message using an In Mail if they are part of a Linked In Open Link network: These tools of Linked In will help you gain more visibility.
Linked In is the best platform to look for professional connections and recruitments.
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