LinkedIn Recruiter Tip: Use Update Me to Know When to Reach Out to Prospects

Every enhancement we make to our flagship product, LinkedIn Recruiter, is driven by our goal to make lives easier for recruiters like you. You may have missed some of the features we have introduced recently and the goal of this tips column is to spotlight a few of those for you.

One of these features is Update Me, a functionality designed to do three things:

1. Keep you abreast of what’s going on in the professional lives of candidates that are of interest to you (you can get updates on up to 150 of them).
2. Alert you when prospects make changes to their profiles so that you can use those as signals to reach out at just the right moment.
3. Give you personalized information to make your conversations with those targets more productive.

Essentially, Update Me allows you to gauge if candidates you're interested in are ready to make their next career move. So when they update their profile or celebrate a work anniversary – two indications they are more willing to talk with a recruiter – you’ll receive an alert on your Recruiter homepage newsfeed.

That information also helps you stay clued in on targets over time and allows you to have more personalized, meaningful conversations with them when you do reach out. It’s also one of the easiest tools to use, as it literally requires just one click of a button.

How does it work?

Okay, so how does this tool work?

First off, sign into LinkedIn Recruiter and find the profile of the person you’d like to follow. Once you do, you’ll see a black bar titled “Recruiting Tools” on the right side of the screen.

On the left of that bar, you’ll see a grey star – the "Follow” button. Hover over it with your cursor – it should turn the star blue – and click it. If you did it right, the star should turn white over a green background.

Congratulations, you’re now following that person (you can follow up to 150 prospects). From now on, when they update their profile or celebrate a work anniversary, you’ll receive an update on your homepage. 

Want to stop following someone? No problem. Just go back to their profile, uncheck the star and you’ll no longer get updates from that person.

Remember, hiring is all about timing and the Update Me feature makes it easier for you to know when the timing is right. Happy recruiting!

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