LinkedIn for Recruiters

Jason Buss of The Talent Buzz, says many recruiters are using LinkedIn after they meet with prospective candidates and add them to their network. This method of networking allows recruiters to keep up with job changes, transfers and promotions. As long as recruiters are active on their LinkedIn account, they can keep in touch with these top candidates.

From an eBook (2008) by Bill Vick and Des Walsh, “An effective profile in LinkedIn’s elaborately constructed, highly searchable database system will incorporate the key words for the LinkedIn member’s interests, employment history and industry, even casual or vacation jobs.” LinkedIn works very much like the search engines now, you can search for people, companies, answers and yes, keywords. Incorporate your skills and job titles effectively throughout your profile, and recruiters will be able to find you.

LinkedIn Jobs make an executive recruiter’s job just a little bit easier because in each group there is a job board as well as a general job board. Now all that recruiters need to do is search jobs via the LI search bar or through groups which they belong. Not only are job seekers posting, but companies across the globe. This is an easy way to learn more about the company, their network, connect with them directly and add them to your own network. LinkedIn is much more professional than job boards, and you can connect with people via email and/or phone.

Recruiting from Job Boards

One job board lists the advantages for executive recruiters to use their job posting resources:

• Unlimited searching, only pay for resumes you download
• Post jobs for free
• Build filtering questions to qualify applying job seekers

Job boards are good for posting career fairs or open call for resumes because they are able to reach a plethora of people across the world, but recruiters will be filtering through as many as 1,000 candidate resumes or more. It can be timely.

Most job boards do have a fee for posting and/or downloading resumes, check with each site’s guidelines before using as a recruiting tool.

Specialized college career boards such as University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton MBA program offers recruiters to post positions that are exclusively targeted for Wharton’s top MBA graduates. This is an opportunity to connect with recent graduates to network and find not only their skills but also their fields of interest.

Wherever executive recruiters choose to locate candidates online whether it’s LinkedIn or job boards, it’s important to use a variety of tools and also build trust with all prospective candidates.

Executive Recruiters: Executive recruiters are usually employed by one company, with their primary role being to hire and fire employees. They generally work in the HR department and in small companies they may take on general HR-related tasks. In larger companies, the executive recruiter’s main job focus will be recruiting.

• They usually follow normal procedures for filling a position – advertising the open position on the company’s Web site as well as other employment sites and in local newspapers.
• They have the task of going through employment applications and narrowing them down to a select few candidates.
• They interview candidates and make the decision of who to hire.
• They’re usually paid an employee’s salary, rather than commission.

Headhunters: A headhunter is usually a third party recruiter, either freelance or an employment agency that pursues candidates for a company. Some headhunters have the job of finding new talent for sports teams, but in most cases, a headhunter’s main job is to find the best candidates for a company out of the many people who apply for any given position.

• They rely heavily on having a large network of contacts
• They operate using a retained search (done by high-end executive search firms in which an upfront fee is paid, usually 1/3 of the employee’s annual salary), delimited/engaged search (upfront fee is paid but will be refunded if the search fails) or contingent search (paid only when the candidate accepts the job).