If you were to talk to recruiters 15 years ago, they would likely laugh at the idea of using social media to find talent. But fast forward to 2021, and you’ll find that most recruiting is done via social media, especially LinkedIn. A whopping 87% of recruiters use LinkedIn to find new hires. LinkedIn is more professional and business-focused than others and is the most relevant to recruiting.
LinkedIn boasts nearly 740 million members and over 55 million registered companies. In addition to that, there are almost 14 million open jobs listed on this platform right now.
To get the most out of LinkedIn as a recruiter, you need to understand how the platform works and the different features it offers that can make your job easier and get you more successful matches.
One of the best tools to use along with LinkedIn is recruiting software such as JazzHR. This software helps you find highly qualified candidates that are the right fit for your job openings.
There are some other great options for recruiting software that may be a better fit for your company’s specific needs. We will share more about those later.
For now, let’s get into the guide on how to use LinkedIn to make your recruiting efforts less stressful and more fruitful.
Step-By-Step Guide to Using LinkedIn for Recruiting
Step 1: Create a Company Profile
The first step in LinkedIn recruiting is to create a profile for your company on the platform.
You need one for a couple of different reasons. One, you need a place to keep and organize all your recruiting efforts on LinkedIn.
And, two, it serves as a way for potential candidates to learn more about your company and whether they may be a fit for it.
Included on your company page should be:
- What your company does
- Who your target audience/client is
- Your company goals and mission statement
- Information about products and services
- Link to blog
- Link to other social media profiles
- Employees and testimonials
- Career opportunities
You want to build out your company’s LinkedIn page out as much as possible. This is how candidates learn more about your company and decide whether you are a legitimate company that they may consider working for.
Step 2: Search for Candidates
LinkedIn offers some top-notch features to search for candidates, the most notable of which is LinkedIn Recruiter.
Using this recruiting solution, you can get all sorts of insight on LinkedIn members and search for candidates by things such as:
- Past or current employers
- Job titles
- Years of experience
- Level of seniority
- Company size
- Location
- Education
- References from trusted sources
You can also save searches to come back to the list at a later time.
LinkedIn Recruiter also allows recruiters and companies to search for candidates they are not connected to and send messages to them. Recruiter bypasses the need to be within three connections of a person to view their entire profile and message them through the platform, widening your talent pool significantly.
Step 3: Screen Candidates
Now that you have your company profile up and running, it’s time to screen potential candidates for any open positions you have.
Using LinkedIn alongside JazzHR gives you the best potential options. This recruiting software will post jobs on any job boards and then can import candidates from LinkedIn Recruiter. Candidates can apply for positions via the Apply with LinkedIn (AWLI) feature. All they have to do is click on any JazzHR careers page, and the job application fields are prepopulated with their LinkedIn profile information.
You can also use JazzHR to request referrals from potential candidates, which is much easier than chasing down email addresses and spreading your recruiting efforts between the recruiting software and your email.
If you want to get on some of the job boards, such as Monster or CareerBuilder, you can pay to syndicate jobs through JazzHR’s dashboard. This helps you gain more visibility for your position and draw more potential candidates to the opportunities at your company.
The pricing for JazzHR starts with their Hero package at $39 per month on an annual plan. In the Hero plan, you get unlimited users, three open, active positions, and job posting and syndication.
The next pricing tier is the most popular, Plus. It starts at $229 per month on an annual plan and includes:
- Unlimited users
- Unlimited open jobs
- Job posting and syndication
- Applicant tracking system
- Interviews and assessments
The Pro package gives you the most and is priced at $339 per month on an annual basis. Features include:
- Unlimited users
- Unlimited open jobs
- Job posting and syndication
- Applicant tracking system
- Interviews and assessments
- Offers and e-signing
- Reporting and compliance
- All-access support
Step 4: Reach Out to Candidates
Part of being a recruiter is being proactive. Rather than just posting a job and waiting for candidates to come to you, your company needs to reach out to people who appear to be a good fit.
There are a few ways you can use LinkedIn to do this.
One way is the platform’s InMail. It’s LinkedIn’s version of email doesn’t require you to leave the platform to use it. A free LinkedIn account only allows you to send messages to people with whom you are already connected, but as a company doing recruiting, you have access to InMail, which allows you to send messages directly to the inbox of a potential candidate.
In addition to InMail, LinkedIn also has a feature called Sponsored Jobs, which allows employers to bid to be at the top of the list for the “Jobs You May Be Interested In” part of a person’s homepage. This is a way to get more attention and eyes on your job posting. LinkedIn claims that members are three times more likely to apply for a job that is sponsored.
Step 5: Ask Current Employees For Referrals
One of the top ways to get strong candidates for positions in your company is to connect with the network of your current employees. And thankfully, LinkedIn is a platform that loves connecting people and utilizing referrals.
Have your current employees identify who is worth connecting with; they can suggest friends in their network as employee referrals for job openings.
3 Top Benefits of Using LinkedIn for Recruiting
There are many options out there when it comes to recruiting candidates for positions in your company. However, we feel that LinkedIn is among the best.
Why? Because of these three benefits.
Reaching Passive Candidates
Many people are active on LinkedIn but are not looking for a job. These are passive candidates. LinkedIn claims that 70% of the people who use its platform are passive.
Those passive candidates are the ideal target for recruiters. Using the advanced search tool within LinkedIn, recruiters can find passive candidates who have the qualifications and experience necessary for jobs and reach out to them.
This helps recruiters gain access to a pool of highly qualified candidates who may not know about the opportunities that await them.
Private Mode
If you don’t want potential candidates or prospects to know you are scoping out their LinkedIn page to see if they would fit your company’s jobs, you can opt for your profile to be in private mode.
You can stay anonymous and do all the LinkedIn searching you want without drawing attention to yourself. The profiles you look at will still get the notification that says “1 person viewed your profile” but will not state who.
Up-To-Date Profiles
Candidates actively searching for jobs tend to be much more diligent about updating their profiles with their most recent work experiences, new skills gained, new certifications or education, referrals, and more.
So you’ll have a very clear idea of potential candidate’s skills and job history just from their LinkedIn profile.
3 Biggest Challenges With Using LinkedIn for Recruiting & How To Troubleshoot Them
Though LinkedIn can be a great resource to use when recruiting for the reasons listed above and others, it doesn’t come without some challenges.
Here are some of the issues you may run into when using LinkedIn for recruiting.
Customization
As much as we love the LinkedIn Talent Hub, there isn’t much room for customization. And you may be surprised to find that customization is an important piece of the recruiting process. You want your brand to be consistent across the board, as that helps you look more professional to potential candidates and makes them more interested in pursuing a job with your company.
Thankfully, recruiting software like JazzHR offers all the customization you need.
You can add your company’s brand into emails, your career page, and more to make the experience for candidates a consistent and smooth one that they feel they can trust. You can also create custom workflows that let your candidates know where they stand in the hiring process.
This customization is key to the success of your recruiting efforts.
Cold Recruiting
Recruiting cold with no leads, no referrals, no connections can be a total shot in the dark that may not always work out. If you’ve ever done recruiting, you know that you take many shots that don’t ever come to fruition. That just comes with the territory.
A big part of LinkedIn is reaching out cold and making connections with strangers, but a part of it is also using your network to make those connections and taking advantage of the InMail feature.
To use InMail in the best way possible, LinkedIn has some tips to follow:
- Choose wisely. You are limited to a certain number of InMail messages per month, so be picky with who you send your messages to.
- Personalize it. A general or template message will be a dead giveaway. Take the time to personalize the message and chat about connections, work experiences, or common interests.
- Strong subject line. You need to grab their attention right off the bat with a solid subject line with either a business topic or something personal.
- Start a conversation. InMail is where you start a conversation and then take it to the phone. This is not the place to share everything–simply start the conversation and go from there.
- Keep it short. Most people read their InMail messages on their phones, so keep your message short and to the point. We are talking 150 words or less.
- Have a call to action. Like we mentioned above, InMail is not where you close a deal. It is instead where you get the ball rolling. So use this message to do just that.
- Have a strong profile. Once they see your message, they’ll hop immediately to your profile, so make sure it’s good and provides credibility.
- Leverage relationships. Look for prospects with people, experiences, or interests in common with you–they are more likely to respond.
Price
The recruiting done via LinkedIn is essentially done with two different solutions. Outbound recruiting means you want LinkedIn Recruiter, and inbound recruiting means you want LinkedIn Talent Hub.
Outbound recruiting means that you, as a recruiter, reach out to ideal candidates after doing a thorough search. Inbound recruiting means that candidates come to you and apply for jobs. LinkedIn has separate solutions for these two types of recruiting. Because you likely want to utilize both inbound and outbound recruiting, this means you end up paying a higher cost.
LinkedIn Recruiter costs start at $99.95 per month for the Lite version and $825 per month for the Corporate plan. And when it comes to LinkedIn Talent Hub, their pricing is only available when you contact LinkedIn, meaning it’s probably a decent amount of money.
As you can see, those two prices can add up to be quite a bit. However, other recruiting software options such as JazzHR are not as expensive.
Other Options For How to Use LinkedIn for Recruiting
This guide has shown you how using JazzHR can make the recruiting process with LinkedIn more smooth and successful.
However, there are a number of other tools that can also help you with recruiting, and each works best in different scenarios. We have researched and reviewed the best recruiting software, and you can get more in-depth information on each in our buying guide.
If you are looking for recruiting software that does an all-star job of tracking applicants, you may want to opt for BambooHR. There are a couple of different plans you can choose from with this software, and you can get specific price quotes by contacting them. You can also sign up for a free BambooHR trial to see if it’s a fit.
If you are looking for cheap software (and by cheap, we mean free), we suggest taking a look at Recooty. This option is ideal for small and growing companies that are looking to make their first hires. Recooty offers a free plan, as well as paid plans that provide more features.
Our top recommendations for recruiting software are:
- ClearCompany – Best for talent management
- JazzHR – Best for high-quality candidate sourcing
- BambooHR – Best applicant tracking system
- Recruiterbox – Best for collaborative hiring
- Recooty – Best free recruiting software