What’s the Least You Can Do?

WHAT IS LINKEDIN?

We all know of LinkedIn and most of us probably use it in some way, but it’s helpful to have an overview of what LinkedIn actually is.

LinkedIn is a social networking website for people in professional occupations. Founded in 2002, it now has 830 million members across more than 200 countries and is available in 24 languages. Clearly, LinkedIn is a powerful place for any business, organisation, or professional for many different reasons, and you would be foolish to ignore it! But what exactly are the benefits to you and to your company of using it?

Is LinkedIn An Effective Place To Recruit Candidates?

LinkedIn can be used to find jobs, people, and business opportunities or make recommendations of those you have connected with. Employers can create a LinkedIn company page, post jobs online, and search for relevant candidates who have created a LinkedIn profile. Job seekers can review the profile of hiring managers (perhaps that’s you) and discover which of their existing contacts can introduce them to the particular hiring manager.

LinkedIn is the most effective social platform for recruitment. However, it’s not usually a candidate’s first stop unless looking for a specific company or place where friends and former colleagues work. You can add job posts for free to your LinkedIn company page or find more qualified candidates with a LinkedIn Recruiter subscription.

However, a LinkedIn Recruiter Lite subscription costs more than £1,000 annually and a regular LinkedIn Recruiter job posting subscription with advanced search filters and targeted jobs to hit a qualified talent pool, costs more than £4,000. All companies should advertise their job postings, job titles, and job description on their LinkedIn company page. After this, it may be more cost-effective to use a job board advertising reseller to advance your recruitment efforts and find the right candidates. You will gain access to a job ad applicant tracking system that allows you to manage your job post and job openings, screen candidates, and arrange interviews.

EMPLOYER RECOURSES AND ARTICLES

Explore these articles to find out more about job posting on LinkedIn and building your employer brand:

• LinkedIn Or Job Boards? What’s Best For You
• LinkedIn: You Just Need To Know How
• Job Advertising On Social Media

Tips For Using LinkedIn

BE CLEAR ON YOUR OBJECTIVES

• The most important question to ask yourself is what you are hoping to achieve by using LinkedIn. Do you want to actively develop new relationships and pro-actively maintain existing ones through Linkedin? Do you want to increase sales? Do you want to recruit passive candidates or find candidate LinkedIn profiles of professionals actively job searching? Or do you simply want to have a company profile on LinkedIn to demonstrate your business credentials or promote customer and employee testimonials?

MAINTAIN YOUR COMPANY PAGE

• No matter your reasons for using LinkedIn, it is crucial to ensure your LinkedIn profile is professional, accurate, and up-to-date. LinkedIn is one of the first places customers, job candidates, and other businesses will look to learn about who you are and what you do. To maintain even the most basic profile, you should ensure that the photo, summary, and professional headline contribute to your professional credibility.

CONNECT AND ENGAGE

• Connecting with people is the primary motivation for using LinkedIn. Creating connections and accepting connection requests is a powerful way to make candidates feel important. Even if they are not a match for the current job title and role you have open today, it gives you a chance to create a talent pool of candidate profiles. You should not be afraid to approach other LinkedIn users; it is at least very flattering. 
• LinkedIn helps you find connections and widen your web of contacts by highlighting people you may know, either because they are a contact of one of your contacts or work in the same business sector. You can also do searches by job title or hashtags, a useful tactic for your recruitment process and one used by professional LinkedIn recruiters.
• LinkedIn also enables you and your company to have regular communication with your clients (existing, old and potential) through status updates, job ads, periodic messaging, commenting on their updates, etc. There is no point in having these ‘connections’ if you don’t maintain some degree of communication.  That said, not every one of your connections will be worth your time and effort, so be selective.

ENCOURAGE STAFF ACTIVITY

• You should encourage your staff to engage on LinkedIn by sharing and commenting not just on your posts but other related companies, topics, and interests. If you wish to position your company as an industry leader and a fantastic place to work, then your team’s voices confirm your credibility.

USE PAID ADS

• Paid ads are a great way to get new B2B leads. You can run campaigns to target companies or candidates that meet specific criteria and target people and companies specifically with a targeted campaign. If you have a message to deliver, are recruiting on LinkedIn, and want to drive more leads, or even just increase your following and brand awareness, a job ad or paid ad campaign could be just what you have been needing.

JOIN A GROUP

• Join as many groups as you can! Join groups that your audience may be interested in to monitor the topics of conversation and join networks of your peers. It doesn’t have to be industry-specific; it could be location-based for local businesses or to find answers from those qualified to answer them. 

USING LINKEDIN GROUPS

Another way of growing your contact base is to join a LinkedIn group.  As LinkedIn puts it, “LinkedIn Groups provide a place for professionals in the same industry or with similar interests to share content, find answers, post jobs and your job description, make a job search, make business contacts and establish themselves as industry experts”.

Essentially, this means there are two main types of LinkedIn Group…Groups with your target clients, where you will want to grow your contact base and ultimately bring in more business and Groups containing your professional peers, with whom you may wish to exchange information and opinions and increase your professional standing.  If you enjoy using LinkedIn, you may also find yourself joining Groups containing people you know and have an interest in keeping up with (perhaps exchanging the odd piece of gossip here and there!).

But remember that taking part in these Groups will take up your precious time, so be clear about what you want to achieve from joining a LinkedIn Group and use wisely the opportunities that present themselves from these Groups.

LinkedIn is a powerful tool that can really grow your contact base and ultimately, your business.  But, you have to be prepared to put in some work if you want to truly reap the rewards.  However, if you are still unsure why you would want to use LinkedIn, then go back to the beginning and look at your objectives.  If, ultimately, your motivation in using LinkedIn is no more than to keep up an industry profile, then that is the very least you should do.