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Turn "top talent" into your recruitment quality standard. Find out how to improve your LinkedIn recruitment with fresh strategies and examples for 2023!
With over 50 million users who look for jobs every week, LinkedIn is one of the best places to recruit your next candidate. However, you need to approach LinkedIn recruitment right to get the best out of the platform.
You could just share a job post and call it a day, but where’s the fun in that? Doing the bare minimum and spreading yourself too thin across platforms will fill your pipeline with applications, but very few applicants will be the top talent your business deserves. This article will walk you through the best practices for LinkedIn recruitment so top talent becomes your recruitment quality standard.
Keep your LinkedIn company profile updated to strengthen your employer brand.
At its very foundation, your company profile should communicate who you are, your company’s mission and values, and what value you offer. This can sometimes be tricky, especially since your company profile can be looked up by your customers, but create a good LinkedIn content strategy to combine the best of both worlds.
After all, customers are more likely to purchase from brands that share their values, and what’s better than showing how proud you are of your employees?
The second level is openly sharing your wins, learnings, and time spent together.
(Read on, and we’ll explain how to do it right with employee advocacy.)
Ensure that your personal profile shows who you are (profile), what you do (headline), and what value you offer (experience & summary).
Now, the immediate question is: Why should you update your personal profile when you primarily recruit through your company profile?
Here’s the thing: as a recruiter, you’re the person candidates will look up before (or right after) applying for a job at your company. Your LinkedIn profile can be your best asset in increasing your hiring quality.
People prefer engaging with people. As such, personal profiles generate more engagement. On your personal profile, you can also share your company profile’s content for more reach and send private messages to candidates.
Finally, you can also create original content on your personal profile that shows your expertise.
Fortunately, updating your personal profile is quite simple. Ensure that you:
We could write thousands of words about the right LinkedIn content strategy (and we have), but the best approach for a beginner is to provide career advice or answer questions job seekers often have.
In time, expand your content strategy to include your experiences and perspective. Cover trending topics. For example, Vanessa Raath posts her opinions about the concept of flexible work:
Apart from posting or sharing content, comment consistently on others’ posts, participate in discussions on relevant topics, and answer questions quickly.
Another place to find applicants and content ideas is the ‘LinkedIn Groups’ section. Filter by industries, specific positions, schools, and other criteria to land in groups where your top talent hangs out.
Then, actively participate in the groups. Don’t expect just to share a job post - you should engage and interact with other members, provide advice, and get to know them.
Pay attention to the topics and questions they discuss. Then, use them as inspiration for the content you post to your personal LinkedIn profile or company page.
Just as everyone wants to know what’s going through an applicant’s head, applicants want to know what the company cares about when recruiting. As the person in the middle, you have a fantastic opportunity to help the candidates and the companies bridge the gap.
Share more information about how your company hires - even how you recruit:
Give the candidates a sense of what they can expect if they click the “Apply now” button.
Note: If your company is remote or you allow employees to work from home, explain how you help your employees thrive while working remotely.
The more connections you have, the more likely you’ll find the right talent. Unfortunately, building your network is not as simple as sending out connection requests to as many people as possible.
Instead, personalize every connection request by telling the person how you met or why you would like to connect. Once they accept your request, engage and communicate with them often to maintain your network.
Set aside time to connect with the people in your professional network. Start easy, with 30 minutes weekly, and then refine your engagement list.
LinkedIn allows you to create job posts for free, or you could use LinkedIn Recruiter if you hire often. LinkedIn Recruiter offers additional features, including analytics, messaging features, and recommendations.
As a recent study on LinkedIn recruiting found, you’ll need to write a good LinkedIn job post:
Then, amplify your job post by sharing it yourself and explaining the position in your own words. You’ll add more value and perspective. Consider adding a quote from an existing employee on the team, like Igloo in our example above.
Leverage existing employees by asking them to provide a quote about their experience at the company, as Amazon’s dev team does in the example below.
Quotes from existing employees provide social proof, which is critical in a candidate-driven market. It also allows you to re-share your post (without repeating yourself) so more potential candidates see it.
If you’ve found possible candidates on LinkedIn, you can approach them directly through messages or using InMail.
It’s important to remember, though, that if you have a free account, you’ll only be able to send direct messages to other users if you’re connected. In contrast, when you upgrade your account to a paid plan, you’ll get the ability to send InMails - LinkedIn’s version of the email.
No matter what messaging tool you use, you should use them carefully. Only send messages to those candidates you really want to talk to. And when you do, personalized messages are always better than a cookie-cutter approach.
Put your sales hat on. Explain why you reached out to that specific candidate and why your company would be a good fit for their interests.
In the example above, the recruiter took the time to understand the position’s unique challenges and this candidate’s previous work history. It’s not an impersonal message, so even if the candidate is not interested, they’ll be more likely to respond and perhaps refer someone else in their place.
Companies with a good employee advocacy program are 58% more likely to attract top talent, so don’t forget its role in your LinkedIn recruitment.
Firstly, you reach more people whenever your employees post about your company. If they’re satisfied with their role, they’ll be more open to recommending open positions to their friends. And while you can offer referral bonuses, there’s nothing like organically connecting with a fantastic candidate because they see how great it is to work at your company.
Encourage your employees to share news about your company, life at the company, and job openings on their personal profiles.
On the other side, don’t forget to celebrate your team. For example, Draft shares interviews with their employees, which is fantastic for improving your candidate quality and generating positive sentiment.
Once you’ve implemented all these best practices to attract more talent and recruit more effectively, how do you know if you’re on track? You could use LinkedIn analytics for company pages and job ads, but you’d be missing the influence your personal profile had on the hire.
Is your content effective enough to convince the right talent to apply for a job?
This is where Inlytics comes in.
It gives you all the tools to measure and track your personal profile content performance on LinkedIn.
This means you’ll see how any given piece of content performs, how much engagement it generates, and what types of content resonate most with your audience.
As one of our users - a tech recruitment consultant who uses content to establish trust on LinkedIn - says,
“Inlytics has helped me identify what content has been a success and how. The highest impressions aren’t always important; the engagement rate is really important to see. It’s also helped me identify when I’m getting higher than average views or engagement spread across multiple pieces of content.”
In addition to these metrics, the platform provides you with enhanced profile stats that show how well your personal profile is optimized. Then, increase your success with AI-driven recommendations.
Discover insights other recruiters can’t see. Analyze data faster. Find out how to attract top talent. Get started with Inlytics for free today!
