LinkedIn product tips

5 LinkedIn Recruiter Tips That Will Make You a Sourcing Superstar

Since its inception in 2011, customers of LinkedIn Recruiter have not only had their accessible pool of talent increase by 90%, but Recruiter has matured to the point where you can search with incredible precision and manage a pipeline of talent with the same rigor as a top performing sales person nurturing their next big deal.

Over the next few posts I will share some of the tricks that I have learned in the hope of increasing the speed of your placements and to help you become the social sourcing superstar of your company

Tip 1: Don’t let Boolean bloat your search results – The NOT is as important as the AND

It only took me a few Boolean searches to get hooked. I could quote and bracket my way to a wealth of talent that almost became addictive. Each search became ever more complicated and I felt I was becoming the Boolean master until I noticed my colleagues begin to generate ever more precise results by not just focusing on the AND or the OR, but also the NOT.

It’s important to remember that Boolean search results are irrespective of date so if you are searching for a SAP analyst for example, your search could return candidates who were once a SAP analyst, but have since progressed to director of SAP analysts. Including a simple NOT “director” is all it takes.

Tip 2: Interview the Hiring Manager and understand the role's objectives 

This tip is not about interviewing the hiring manager in the traditional sense but about spending some quality time with them in the early stages of a placement request. During this embryonic phase it is essential to ensure you have fully understood the hiring managers needs and wants the role. Also look to the future and understand where they see the role in 1 to 3 years.

Having absolute clarity on the objective will help you work your search filter magic. And understanding what the future holds will really help you strengthen your discussions with the potential candidates.

Tip 3: InMail can make or break your opportunity – use them wisely

After mastering Boolean search and understanding the Hiring Manager as if he or she were your twin, it would be a travesty to then burn through your ideal list of candidates by treating InMail like a casual email.

An InMail is your first touch – your one and only opportunity to hook the candidate and as a result, invest the effort needed into constructing a great message. You have read the prospects profile in detail and this knowledge can be utilized when crafting individual InMails or even templates for certain groups of candidates.

It’s also important to remember that if you ever find yourself attaching a job description then take a deep breath and step away from the Send button. The first contact is all about getting their attention with the aim of securing an interview, not closing the deal and trying to get too much in front of the candidate too soon can reduce your response rates.

Tip 4: Think Global – Domestic only searching can limit your potential

When you are not a global organization it is all too easy to remain focused on domestic searches within Recruiter. It can seem easier to entice a local employee and the cost of recruitment is often viewed as smaller.

But what if the role you are trying to fill carries a quota? If we take the UK as an example, the typical notice period for a sales person is three months, but in France it is only one and in the US it is two weeks. So expanding your search criteria to other countries can result in a candidate being recruited 2 months earlier, with the additional revenue far outweighing the cost of relocation of the French candidate.

Tip 5: Let Recruiter do the hard work - Saved Searches and Update Me

Recruiter has some incredible features that help automate tasks within your workflow, which for a busy recruiter can be a blessing.

The first is Saved Searches, which lets me retain the hard work that has gone into the Boolean strings and filter selections used to find the set of candidates. The best part however, is that by saving a search it will continue to run in the background, providing you with a notification of any new candidates each day. It’s like sourcing in your sleep as pipeline is created every day without any effort.

The second is Update Me, which is a simple button that tells Recruiter to keep track of a members profile. If any changes are made to the members profile such as a new position, or updated job title then you will receive an alert. This is great for those times when a candidate may not fit your criteria but are of such potential that you want to keep an eye on their development.

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