How to recruit on LinkedIn in 2013

Founded a decade ago, LinkedIn is the world's largest business-oriented social network with more than 200 million members in over 200 countries and territories. It targets professionals defined as individuals with careers built on distinctive qualifications. The depth of information that LinkedIn collects on its members and strong search function makes it ideal to source white-collar, mid- to senior-level talent.

In South Africa, LinkedIn has 2.3 million members. Of these, there are 2,344 business development directors, 20,395 senior engineers and 14,425 marketing managers. A search of marketing managers can further be refined to target 5658 females, of which 2887 are Johannesburg-based, and even zero-in on prospects at specific companies, like Unilever, SABMiller and Brandhouse.

The latest tools

Since LinkedIn first launched its hiring solutions over five years ago, it has steadily evolved its toolset. Here is an introduction of the latest tools that LinkedIn has to offer from a social recruitment tool perspective:

1. Recruiter enables HRs to expand search beyond personal connections to access the entire LinkedIn network. Using powerful filters and LinkedIn's advanced search interface HRs can zero-in on the ideal candidates even faster. HRs can view the names and full profiles of contacts outside their own network and use InMail messages to contact top talent directly. HR team activities can further be synchronised with shared profiles, searches, projects and candidate notes to build, track and manage talent in a healthy pipeline.
   
2. Jobs help HRs put jobs in front of the right candidates. Using sophisticated algorithms to match jobs and profile data, Linkedin automatically targets the most relevant candidates with jobs. HRs can share personalised jobs with top talent when candidates visit their LinkedIn home pages, on employees' profile pages, or on the company's Career Pages. Great candidates can be driven to high-priority roles with a Sponsored Jobs placement or HRs can bid for premium placement of jobs in LinkedIn's personalised job recommendations. Jobs can also be distributed to thousands of other websites as they are shared across social media networks.
   
3. Career Pages lets HRs create a customised career site to show off your employer brand and culture, as part of your social recruitment strategy. Using images, video, employee testimonials and more, companies can create a hub that tells a rich story about who you are as a company. Every time a relevant candidate logs in to their LinkedIn home page they will see a recruitment ad encouraging them to follow the company. Based on their LinkedIn profiles, the Career Page experience can be tailored to each viewer with dynamic messaging. This includes automatically showing each visitor to your Career Page the jobs that are most relevant to them.
   
4. Work With Us allows HRs to own the advertising space on the LinkedIn profiles of current employees. By reaching candidates in the context of their trusted relationships with your existing employees, this transfers a subconscious endorsement of the advert. Companies can display jobs personalised to each viewer using personal details and granular targeting capabilities to spotlight a company for the kind of candidate it is trying to reach. For example, an investment firm could feature an actuary's photo and name in an advert with the job title, fund manager, and say: "Dear John, picture yourself with this job." In addition to LinkedIn features, companies can also create custom ad content to grow their follower base and showcase career opportunities.
   

Many HR recruiters are now using LinkedIn to market current job openings to active job seekers. Others are also using LinkedIn to find and engage passive candidates who are not trying to change jobs, but would be open to an offer. By exposing them to a strong employer brand message that stays in the back of their minds, HR recruiters can fill job openings quicker when top talent leaves the company.

Don't be cheap

One of the biggest mistakes HRs can make is to post jobs on personal profiles to avoid paying for LinkedIn Premium to access the hiring solutions. Candidates quickly start viewing the untargeted, irrelevant job posts as spam, while they only reach a fraction of South Africa's total talent database. The failure of such campaigns is an inadequate reflection of LinkedIn, which is very effective when used correctly.

While LinkedIn was founded as professional social network to bring people together, it has done a lot of work on its hiring solutions - now its biggest source of income. Over the past year, LinkedIn's corporate clients grew by more than 40% to about 13,700 by late 2012. About 82% of Fortune 100 companies now use LinkedIn Recruiter and 10 000 companies worldwide use LinkedIn's social recruitment products and services.