How to Use Linkedin for Prospecting

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The problem with recruiting is twofold: you’ve got to find quality candidates, but you also need to find them fast, and that is not easy.  

But connecting with the most qualified applicants in a matter of days or even hrs isn’t impossible– if you use LinkedIn.  

LinkedIn is hands-down the best solution pertaining to hiring and network in one platform.

In this post, I’ lmost all show you how to make probably the most of LinkedIn being a recruiting tool to find the best response rates possible, whether you’re a veteran of the platform or have never used it prior to.

Let’ s i9000 dive in.

The Easy Parts of Prospecting on LinkedIn

These days, armed with AI and other technologies, it’ s easier than ever to get information on potential applicants. All you have to do is spend a little extra period harnessing this information the proper way.

LinkedIn makes this easy by providing not just direct access to a job-ready talent pool of millions of people but also the data you need to increase your likelihood of success.

The dedicated recruiting tools, LinkedIn Recruiter and Talent Hub, provide multiple avenues in order to qualified candidates, and when you find them, it’ s easy to confirm and track candidates and monitor your progress. No need to publish and pray anymore.

The Difficult Parts of Recruiting upon LinkedIn

The majority of recruiters these days use LinkedIn to resource potential candidates, therefore the challenging part is cutting through the noise and positioning yourself as the employer of choice in your field.

The good news is, details no more than the correct spelling of the candidate’ s name make all the difference—trust me on that certain.  

But it still takes effort and time to build the kind of existence on LinkedIn that stands out. Good prospecting is all in the work that comes before actually posting tasks and reaching out to individuals.

Ideally, you already have a solid on the internet presence and normal practice of expressing content and keeping engaged with fans. If not, now is the time to start building it!

Step 1 : Build Your Company’ s LinkedIn Presence

I can’ t stress enough: In today’ h busy job market, the simplest thing you can do in order to differentiate your brand name is to do your research. The particular differentiation is in the facts here, so within this step and the next, we’ re covering the bulk of the work.

You need a home bottom on LinkedIn first of all if you’ lso are going to use the platform for recruiting.

This will be a main space for all your recruiting activities. It’ h where your job blogposts will show up (more on that later), and where candidates will look to confirm your business is legit and learn more about it.

It’ s vital that you set up this room before you do anything, so you can actually use LinkedIn to place the rest of the groundwork (step 2).

Handily, LinkedIn makes it easy to build a complete profile quickly, with guidance on the way.

Sign up for a LinkedIn account

Start by setting up your LinkedIn account, in case you don’ t curently have one.

To open an account, head over to LinkedIn, click Join Now in the top navigation, and you’ ll be taken to the sign-up page where one can sign up with your email or Google account.

Then you’ lmost all be asked to enter your first plus last name and do a quick security check to prove you’ re real.

To the next page, you start filling out your profile with your location and many recent job details.

As a final verification check, LinkedIn will send you a code to confirm your email.

Now LinkedIn begins connecting you to profiles. You can carry on by importing your own email contacts to find out who you already know, searching for specific people to connect to, or skip these steps for now.

Finally, LinkedIn takes you through options to add a profile photo, download the mobile app, and follow companies highly relevant to you.

Now your own profile is all arranged and you’ lso are ready to create a business page.

Generate (and start building out) your company page

Start by clicking on the Work symbol in your top nav, then Create a company web page .

You’ ll select your company size and start filling out details about your company. Definitely customize your LinkedIn public URL if needed, as this will be what LinkedIn users plus search engines use to discover your page.

You may then continue building your own page with a logo, cover image, and page description.

I would recommend including three elements in your description:

  • What your company does
  • Who your company acts
  • Your own vision and business goals

Simple as that will. This is a comprehensive yet brief enough review to encourage applicants to do further study if they want to.

It’ s necessary to fill in as many web page details as you can—not only because LinkedIn locks certain functions (like adding connections) until you’ ve completed certain fields, but also because LinkedIn data shows that total pages get 30% more weekly page views. Plus, adding tags and classes helps make your web page more searchable.  

From there, be sure to keep your company page regularly updated with the latest company information and engaging articles, as well as liking plus sharing others’ content and replying in order to comments on your own. The more active you are, the greater LinkedIn rewards you with lifts in engagement and positioning in job seekers’ search results.

For the most engagement, you’ lmost all want to aim for a regular (ideally daily) mix of both product/service content material:

  • Market insights
  • Promotional content
  • Updates on product/service offerings

And brand/culture content that humanizes your brand, demonstrating your wins which you value your employees:

  • Culture
  • Company wins
  • Employee Spotlights

All updates and web page details should be enhanced with keywords plus tags to boost your LinkedIn SEO and attract relevant supporters and, ultimately, possible candidates.

It’ s a lot of work but it’ t worth it. This is the front side page of your brand name and potentially your own candidate’ s initial impression of what a day-in-the-life looks like at your organization.

As you continue to share articles and gain followers you’ ll gain the credibility you have to hire great talent.

Connect with employees

If you’ re new to LinkedIn and don’ to yet have any kind of connections, start with the particular low-hanging fruit: present (and, if possible, past) employees.

Let workers know they can today list your company on their profile.

This is important because the more webpages linking back to your company profile, the better the chance for it being discovered—by a potential candidate looking up an employee’ h profile, for example.

Even better if the candidate is connected to the employee: research shows that applicants are more likely to consider a work when there’ s i9000 a first-degree link between themselves and the company.

In case you’ ve already established a LinkedIn presence and connections with employees, consider connecting with other people in your ideal candidate’ s circle who can multiply your reach and get you closer to first-degree away.

Remember that anyone can create a LinkedIn profile. To look truly legit, you will need high quality cable connections. Don’ t simply spam people to get as many connections as you can—choose connections considerately and personalize your own invitations.

Then ideally you’ ll want to regularly build relationships your new connections, yet that’ s an additional post for another day time.

Step 2: Create Your LinkedIn Prospecting Strategy

Since you’ re set up on LinkedIn, you can begin exploring the different options it offers for recruiting and making a policy for which to power.  

First, set parameters

If you’ lso are a seasoned recruiter this one might seem obvious, but plan to vet a restricted number of candidates. This is especially important on LinkedIn. With so many high-quality candidates, it’ h easy to get carried away and waste time.

Lay out a very particular interview timeline and set a clear number of applicants you’ re prepared to vet and job interview. My rule of thumb would be to aim to deliver my hiring managers about five carefully curated candidates.

Plan outreach and prospecting tactics

We’ ll get into the specific LinkedIn tools to utilize shortly, but it helps at this stage to be aware of the various ways to find applicants so you can start prepping your outreach layouts.

There are 3 main approaches you can take:

  1. Inbound: Post a job and vet responses, using LinkedIn Talent Hub to automate the process.
  2. Outbound: Proactively search for plus reach out to candidates making use of LinkedIn Recruiter plus LinkedIn’ s indigenous messenger, InMail.
  3. Recommendation: Whenever you can get them, referrals are actually vetted by way of suggestion. Tap your network for recommendations if you don’ t have a big following or marketing budget and can’ t rely on brand exposure alone.

Prep components for your strategy

This is important so that each time a job opens up at the company, you’ re ready to go. As I said, it’ s all within the prep. Depending on your selected strategy, you will need:

A LinkedIn-optimized job description: Again, competition is high, so make this count. LinkedIn helpfully offers suggestions and job explanation templates for every job title you can think of (you’ ll find these types of at business. linkedin. com, which includes a lot more useful hiring resources).

Templates with regard to outreach emails: These must be customized to every recipient—you’ ll wish to check your recipient’ ersus LinkedIn profile plus speak to their unique accomplishments and why they may be a good fit for your role, for example. However it helps to start from the template (including an attention-grabbing subject line) for efficiency.

Templates for new hires: Once you’ ve hired, you’ ll want to share this news on LinkedIn to boost awareness and help humanize your brand. Especially if your employing managers aren’ capital t social media experts, have got templates or illustrations ready to use. Here’ s a good example I could see in my feed:

Since you’ ve carried out a lot of the legwork, simply by polishing your LinkedIn presence and getting prepared to receive candidates, you’ re in a great position to lastly start posting.

Step 3: Post work opportunities

There are both free and compensated ways to post work on LinkedIn. Let’ s go over each, from free to most costly, and when to upgrade for access to LinkedIn’ s premium tools.

Note that you could announce an open part in a simple company update, but We haven’ t integrated that method right here. It wouldn’ capital t hurt, especially if you curently have a large following, however in my opinion you’ lso are better off sharing your open recs along with targeted groups or even using LinkedIn’ ersus dedicated recruiting equipment.

Post in order to groups

Publishing to LinkedIn groupings is a great way to increase your reach in order to (and interact with) a relevant audience associated with industry-specific people.

The caveat is the fact that many of these groups have requirements to join and rules to follow to reduce spam. But if you use them the right way, the correct groups can be a excellent recruiting resource. Many of them have dedicated areas for job possibilities, and regardless, offer access to a more targeted pool of talent than that of your company’ s or even employees’.

Publish a free job

When you post a LinkedIn Job Posting, LinkedIn displays this to relevant matches across its whole user base, posts it to your company page, curates you a list of 50 potential candidates, and gives you five free InMails you can use to contact all of them.

You can always spend to boost a Job Post, but the free option is a solid begin.

To post a free job, click on the Work icon towards the top of the homepage, then click Post a job free of charge.

Start typing in your corporation to fill in your company page, and the job title and type you’ re employing for.

Then you move through options to fill in the job description, include skills to make your work more visible to the right candidates, choose how to receive candidates (via email or even external website), and add screening specifications.

That’ s it—you’ re ready to survey and post the task.  

This may be all you need. I’ ve done LinkedIn hires where I’ ve posted free jobs and nothing else. But if you don’ t get enough qualified candidates in this way, or if you want to have a dual inbound-and-outbound approach…

Outreach via InMails

The particular native email built into LinkedIn allows you to reach people without needing their particular contact details and also if you’ re not connected.

The number of InMail “ credits” (sends) you obtain per month depends on your own type of LinkedIn accounts. The standard account a person signed up with doesn’ t come with any kind of credits at all. You’ ll have to upgrade to:

  • LinkedIn Premium intended for 5 InMails monthly
  • LinkedIn Sales Navigator Professional for 20 InMails per month
  • LinkedIn Sales Navigator Team for thirty InMails per month

If you don’ t want to buy extra InMail credits or simply prefer regular email, use an outbound automation tool like Rocketreach or Interseller to get contact details.

Use LinkedIn Employer

As I mentioned previously, LinkedIn Recruiter allows the outbound strategy.

Using Employer (or the light-weight version, Recruiter Lite) you can search through LinkedIn’ s 700+ million users to instantly find good matches according to specific key phrases.

This isn’ t the same as utilizing the regular search bar. Recruiter provides additional functionality like superior search filters, AI-based recommendations, a list of those who viewed your job, the entire number of candidates competent for your open function, and a dedicated mailbox for responses and bulk messaging to reach more candidates quicker. It also shows whether people are passive or even actively looking. Many huge time-savers.

Each Recruiter permit also includes a lot more inMail credits than you get with LinkedIn Premium or Sales Navigator:

  • Recruiter starts at $825 per month pertaining to 150 InMail credit per team member, plus unlimited entry to every profile (ofcourse not just first, second, and third-degree connections)
  • Recruiter Lite starts at $119 each month for 30 InMail credit per team member and unlimited entry to all third-degree cable connections

As soon as you’ ve registered, simply log in to LinkedIn Recruiter and create a new project to begin entering information about the role you’ lso are hiring for.

From there, you’ ll become asked to write a detailed job description and add filters (like job title, area, skills, and other keywords) for accurate results.

Once your project is certainly posted and as LinkedIn suggests matches, you can prioritize and save the candidates that will interest you, track your recruiting initiatives using LinkedIn’ s i9000 powerful analytics, and adjust your marketing campaign or job publishing accordingly.

Make use of LinkedIn Talent Hub

Talent Centre enables more of an inbound approach: candidates come to you. Talent Center is an application monitoring system (ATS) in order to candidates find and apply to your job ad, even pulling information from other HR plus recruitment tools.

You’ ll need to contact LinkedIn designed for pricing.

To get going, create a new task as you would with LinkedIn Recruiter. There are a few extra areas to fill in, including hiring manager and pipeline stages (screen, job interview, offer, etc . )

Once posted, you’ ll start seeing the number of applicants straight away.

You are able to drill down into other details too, such as candidate activity and response rate. And Talent Hub is perfect for your entire hiring team to use together, so you can collaborate and share top candidates, review, and provide feedback.

Do you need to use both Talent Hub and Recruiter?

I don’ capital t think it’ h worth the cost. They’ re both effective, but they serve various purposes.

Along with Talent Hub, you’ re relying on individuals coming to you, therefore it’ s more for companies having an established following.

On the other hand, if you want to source talent yourself rather than just advertise a position, and you have someone dedicated to managing it, Employer will be your best bet. Recruiter Lite might be the better fit if you’ re only making occasional hires or don’ t possess a dedicated recruiter.

Step 4: Vet candidates

By now, you have a list of potential applicants to reach out to and/or a pipeline of people who have applied to your work.

You’ ve put LinkedIn to operate and made it simple to keep track of candidates. You’ ve started trying with your templates and got some responses.

Now it’ s time to narrow them down.

I won’ t tell you how to veterinarian candidates, as it’ s different for each company and you’ re the potential employer. I’ ll simply leave you with a few tips specific to LinkedIn.

Since, as well as evaluating potential candidates’ applications plus responses to your outreach efforts, you’ ll want to look for particular information on their profile—both to cross-reference using the candidate’ s curriculum vitae, and to learn more a person won’ t find on a resume.

It’ s up to you how complete a candidate’ s profile must be, but if you’ lso are looking for serious job hunters, I think you need to look for these things at a minimum:

  • A good profile picture: A professional headshot signals that the applicant is active on LinkedIn, takes their on the web presence seriously, and is more professional within their approach to their career. Again, anyone can make a LinkedIn profile, and a quality picture certifies the person is worth learning more about.
  • Role explanations: The person’ s current role, at a minimum, ought to be on the record or more to date, even if they are in between jobs. Search for thoughtful descriptions of current and previous responsibilities and particular skill sets, plus cross-check with their software, resume, and references.  
  • Number of connections: Loads of connections is a sign of people’ ersus trust. They don’ t need to have 500+, but I’ m look for over 50 to verify a profile’ s legitimacy.
  • Endorsements and suggestions: These are easy enough to procure from former employers and coworkers, and such an important differentiator, which i think every user profile should have them. Search for keywords that match your requirements.

Tip: Use Private Setting to take your time looking at candidates’ profiles anonymously, by clicking the particular arrow under your profile picture and going to Configurations and Privacy > Visibility > Profile viewing options and selecting Private mode.

If you’ lso are using LinkedIn Recruiter or Talent Center, remember that you’ lso are collecting valuable information every step of the way. Carry on using their analytics plus tracking features in order to measure your improvement and optimize your recruiting efforts accordingly.

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