Ten years ago, cold calling and emailing were the go-to strategies for recruiting top talent. Today, Recruiters go to LinkedIn.
And we pay for the privilege!
I've been an executive recruiter since 2003 and owner of my own agency since 2005 – and I'm so glad the days of cold calling are behind me.
LinkedIn came on the scene in 2002, and in 2005 they launched a tool for recruiters that gradually became the central tool for both third party recruiters and inside recruiters.
LinkedIn's tool for recruiters (which is aptly called 'Recruiter'), is expensive – but worth every penny. Cultivating a place where people can connect with others for the purpose of furthering their good work in the world is such a gift.
Through "The Working Soul" blog, I'll be lifting the curtain to share the recruiter's view of LinkedIn and the whole job application process so you are in the know. In the future, to find these posts, simply click on the tag, "recruiter-view". For today, I'll start with an overview of how recruiters use LinkedIn, and some corresponding tips.
How Recruiters Use LinkedIn
Search & Qualify: LinkedIn provides a robust search application to recruiters. It allows us to drill down on position title, companies worked, education, certifications, key words, location, skills, languages, and more.
TIPs:
Our success with finding talent is only as good as you, the professional's, care with filling out your profile (I'll be drilling down on that in a future post).
Our success also relies on searching professionals taking care to update their status to "open to work'', which super charges the power of attraction.
Direct Messaging: LinkedIn provides ample credits to recruiters for outreach and direct messaging. Interesting fact: LinkedIn monitors response rates to combat spam. If one's response rate drops too low, a recruiter may be shut out for a week or more from sending any more messages.
TIPs:
It's always a good thing when a recruiter reaches out to you to share about a job opportunity. That means you're getting noticed! So three tips here:
Be sure to check your "notifications" regularly if you're in active job search mode (and weekly for all other times so as not to miss out on a connection).
Respond kindly to recruiters and even share your status or desires so they may keep a look out for you.
Take care to copy any recruiter's profile link who reaches out to you and save it in a spreadsheet that you can reference later when mounting a search. Recruiters are an active and useful part of the search ecosystem, and you will surely want to connect with them one day.
Networking: Recruiters seek to connect with professionals in their niche. It is always a good idea to accept a recruiter's connection request so you can more easily be found as well as collaborate with chance. Recruiters generally have large networks in your specialty area, which means a connection to a recruiter puts you one link closer to someone you may wish to connect with in the future.
Job Posting: The jobs posted on LinkedIn are active and real, whereas those on aggregators, like Indeed, can be outdated or duplicates. If you have upgraded from a free account to a Premium account (which I highly recommend), then you can also access useful intel on the job that supports your application and monitoring of the opening. Stay tuned for a future post on the value of upgrading to Premium during the duration of your job hunt.
Heart~Intel
As you have likely heard me say many times, life is a dance with the mystery. Fifty percent is your active engagement, and the other fifty percent is the unforeseen. When you remove barriers to chance, you open pathways to your highest good.
Recruiters and chance love LinkedIn. Your
Career Ecology = Work~Life Empowerment
Work is the modern day hero's journey! It’s fraught with suffering and success. The nature of Career Ecology is to support your Work~Life Empowerment at every touch point, including job search, resume, interviewing, and social/emotional empowerment. Browse Career Ecology to see how easy it is to turn on and tap your personal power and never feel lost, abandoned, or existentially stressed about work – ever again.
About Lori Wallace
Founder & Work~Life Doula
The challenging world of employment is Lori’s landscape for healing. To ease human suffering and empower authentic relating, Lori founded igMedical Search in 2005 to effectively transform head hunting into human connection. Ten years later, she birthed Career Ecology to unlock limitless growth via her signature Feng Shui Resume, Mindful Interviewing, and Biodynamic Job Search Method – as well as “Way of the Monarch" (a guided e-book and journey into real self). In essence, Lori reframes the search for meaningful employment into a gateway to wholeness where all may seek and find liberation and limitless prosperity.
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