Connect with the Best on LinkedIn

By Megan Martin

While Facebook may be great for connecting with old buddies, the most promising site for professional networking and recruiting is LinkedIn. With over 60 million members, many of whom are senior executives, LinkedIn is becoming a top choice for recruiting qualified candidates.

“The average [LinkedIn] member is a college-educated 43-year-old making $107,000,” says Jessi Hempel in her April 2010 Fortune magazine article, “How LinkedIn Will Fire Up Your Career.”

“More than a quarter are senior executives. Every Fortune 500 company is represented. That's why recruiters rely on the site to find even the highest-caliber executives.”

If you aren’t sure where to begin, the social networking experts have some ideas for how you can get connected with the “A” players you’re looking for.

Grow Your Network

In order to reap the rewards of LinkedIn, you have to be present and connected. Start by building a network of the people you already have in your email contacts. From there, you can search their contacts for new connections. Beginning with just fifty direct contacts can lead you to hundreds of thousands of connections.

“The value of LinkedIn depends on the number and quality of your connections, and the way to build up a great network is to work on it all the time,” says Nick Saint in his BusinessInsider.com article, “How to Use LinkedIn For Recruiting.” “You don't want to spend all your time worrying about this, obviously, but making a LinkedIn connection part of your routine when meeting new people professionally goes a long way.”

Saint recommends making a LinkedIn connection whenever you meet a new and promising candidate. “No one is more likely to know people with the right qualifications than someone who has them himself. If things don't work out with that prospect, your time will still have been well spent if he leads you to the person who does take the job.”

Lou Adler, a 30-year veteran in the recruiting business, says in his adlerconcepts.com article, “10 Great Tips for Using LinkedIn to Find the Best Passive Candidates on the Planet,” that recruiters should find top candidates by looking at endorsements and recommendations.

“Endorsements, which show up as recommendations on the endorsed person's profile, provide another series of connections [and] dramatically increase your opportunity to find great candidates,” says Adler.

Search Smart

Most hiring managers and recruiters target active job-seekers, but the beauty of LinkedIn is that you have access of countless “passive” candidates: people who are satisfied with their current position but would be willing to switch companies if they were offered a greater opportunity to grow.

Auren Hoffman, author of the BusinessWeek online article, “Seeking Great Candidates Online,” says: “One way to get a steady flow of high-caliber applicants is to actively seek them out… companies should spend more time identifying, nurturing, and recruiting so-called passive candidates…While these candidates might not have the same qualifications as employee referrals, they can be found on a wider scale.”

Adler also notes that using LinkedIn’s advanced search tools is a great way to find people in your extended network who either are excellent candidates for the position you’re looking to fill, or who know someone who is.

Another helpful feature that Saint points out is the “Search Alert,” which saves productive searches and can automatically perform the search daily and send you results via email. Saint says that this “allow[s] you to pounce as soon as the perfect candidate changes status or joins the network.”

Strengthen Relationships by Helping Others

Jake Swearingen, author of the bnet.com article, “How to Get Started with LinkedIn,” says that a little goodwill can go a long ways towards strengthening your network relationships.

“There are three main things your network can do for you: answer business-related questions, make recommendations and introductions and provide company information,” he says.

He recommends focusing on helping others when you first join. If you can offer help, advice or services to others, you’ll build a strong reputation for yourself.

One way you can assist others is by answering questions in your area of expertise, thus showing off your own talents, ideas and abilities. Additionally, asking questions will persuade others to offer their advice, which can help all members of the network.

You can also introduce and recommend colleagues. This will encourage others to do the same for you.

Communication is Key

Staying in contact with prospective candidates is extremely important. Check in with several people in your network each week, even if you don’t have a specific agenda.

However, avoid spamming potential candidates by sending mass emails about job openings.

“This is a great resource for getting the word out far and wide when you have a major opening, but use it sparingly,” says Saint. “As exciting as your employment opportunities may be to you, many of the people receiving your email will regard it as spam. That’s not to say you shouldn’t use this technique, but rather that it is most effective when used rarely.”

While LinkedIn may create the illusion that you’ll never have to pick up the phone again, Saint warns that it’s “not an excuse to stop making recruiting calls…when it comes to making new contacts, nothing beats a phone call.”

<< Back to News Main