Back in 2002 when the world was now waking to web 2.0 and social media was still a gloom many software developers were still trying to figure out what scripting language works best, the LinkedIn idea was being conceived by Reid Hoffman, Allen Blue, Konstantin Guericke, Eric Ly, Jean-Luc Vaillant for people in professional occupations. LinkedIn was formally launched on May 5, 2003, and mainly used for professional networking. within three years of its existence, LinkedIn increased to 20 million viewers. and has in recent times grown to over 1000% of that number in more than 200 countries and territories.
Undoubtedly LinkedIn brought some white collar aftershock into the social networking game, spotting bright colors and of course some gloves to knock out some of its predecessors such as PartnerUp, VisualCV, Meetup, BranchOut and many others. LinkedIn definitely entered the game to change the game and even now beats mySpace with over 33.9 million unique visits and now stands amazingly at number 14 on Alexa’s ranking. Many of us have watched the LinkedIn brand grow year on with support for English, Spanish, German and French
But one would ask how did LinkedIn get to the recruiters desk and eventually become the number one recruiting system? many people who used LinkedIn at the time to utter social media worthy things had to go back and clean up as they realized many recruiters were now ‘sniffing’ information on them, at this time LinkedIn had moved from being just a personal social media platform to being this social media platform where HR managers began to investigate the dealings of prospective and existing employees. Users began getting serious with their status messages, profile pictures, personal statistics, work experiences, friend connections, etc.
I am listing in this article 5 things that shot LinkedIn from a social buddy to a Business-oriented social network service and more practically, a recruiters PI (Private Investigator).
LinkedIn’s features go beyond Job search and recruitment.
With little more than a job posting, employment candidates will find you on job boards or your career site. But if you’re seeking the roughly 80% of prospects who are not actively looking for a job, you have fewer sourcing choices because they will not look at job announcements or visit career sites. But fortunately, these employed and not-looking individuals comprise the majority of LinkedIn members. There are other communities dominated by non-lookers (i.e. Facebook and Twitter) but LinkedIn is superior because its content focuses exclusively on professional contacts, sharing, and communication. Without the high percentage of “information clutter” from pictures, small talk, and family matters found on other sites, recruiters on LinkedIn have less information sorting to do. Obviously finding top employed prospects alone is only the first step in sourcing; you will also have to contact, build a relationship, and work hard to convince these non-lookers to even consider a job opportunity.
Though linked is flooded mainly by job seekers, many employees also use linked in to connect to businesses and friends this is due to the many features that have been added aside job search such as answers, groups, events, etc. it has become standard practice for most professionals to have a profile on LinkedIn. In fact, one of its strengths is that its members can be visible on LinkedIn without being suspected of looking for a job, further expanding the percentage of members who are currently not active job seekers. Having a profile does, however, provide the added benefit of making a person “visible” to recruiters. So even if you’re not actively looking, having a profile will provide you with an opportunity to be periodically “found”, so that at the very least you will know if you’re still marketable.
It is referral-friendly
The most effective recruiting source both in volume and quality are employee referrals, so any sourcing option becomes more valuable if your employees will regularly use it to find referrals. many social media platforms have wished they could boast of this as a feature. Because LinkedIn is friendly in many ways not related to job search such as benchmarking, healthy mentor – mentee relationship, asking questions and learning new things, it easily attract a huge number of frequent return members. On LinkedIn, it is easy for employees to identify and connect with others in the same profession and gradually becoming an employee referral. Recruiters, who have a broader access to the entire LinkedIn database, can also “suggest” names within LinkedIn that an employee may want to build a relationship with in the hope of eventually making them a referral.
LinkedIn profiles are accurate, comparable, and searchable
Because resumes come in dozens of different formats, they are a nightmare to search and compare side-by-side. LinkedIn profiles are consistent, meaning that they all contain the same format in every profile. This consistency makes it easier for recruiters and hiring managers to compare different prospects side by side on the same factors. LinkedIn makes it easy to search their database on a variety of topics including industry, connections, current and previous companies, job title, location, profession, and education. LinkedIn also provides targeted updates and follower statistics which allow you to limit and target the updates that you receive.
Research has shown that LinkedIn profiles can be more accurate than resumes. Because their profiles are seen by so many colleagues and individuals (many of whom would’ve attended the same schools and worked at the same organization), it’s much harder for an individual to “get by” with a profile that contains inaccurate information. LinkedIn profiles are also more likely to be up-to-date than resumes, in part because LinkedIn will periodically encourage you to keep improving and updating your profile. Because many executives have LinkedIn profiles, the LinkedIn database may allow your internal recruiters to replace some external executive searches. If you need additional information on a prospect, LinkedIn provides a recommendations feature, which although subjective, can provide additional insights into the individual and what others have experienced when working with them. LinkedIn also has an “introduction” feature that allows an employee to introduce a recruiter or another colleague to one of their contacts.
Powerful talent management research capability
Perhaps the most unique feature of LinkedIn is that it provides you with the ability to conduct talent management research. For example, LinkedIn is the only database that allows you to identify which firms are hiring and which individuals got hired there. Research can also help you measure the turnover at a particular firm, and more importantly which firm those people turning over immediately moved on to. The research capability also allows you to find out whether the number of individuals in a particular job title at a firm are increasing or decreasing and whether employees at a particular firm are being promoted internally. If you’re interested in strategic recruiting, internal movement, and retention patterns, there is really no alternative to LinkedIn.
Also sometimes smart recruiters can learn that certain actions by an individual may “signal” that they are about to enter “job search mode.” The signals might include updating their profile, joining new groups, becoming a LinkedIn answer “top expert” or increasing other networking activities. Contacting a targeted individual who in the past has expressed no interest in a job may get a completely different result when they are considering entering job search mode. And if you get there early, you will likely encounter little recruiting competition and probably hire the ‘best’ candidate.
It provides an easy reference snapshot
In addition to recruiting, LinkedIn is a widely used reference source for quickly getting to know an individual. Many professionals use LinkedIn to get a quick snapshot of a stranger who contacted them or an individual whose name they come across while reading. With permission, it is also possible to conduct 360° reference check surveys among the connections of an individual you are considering hiring.
This feature has been widely used by HR professionals to do background checks on recruitment candidates and has proven to be a trust worthy source of vital information the candidate consciously or unconsciously omitted from their curriculum vitae. LinkedIn has in many ways been the first point of call for digging deeper into people’s lives before recruiters head off to Facebook or Twitter (to probably see the unofficial side of a candidate i.e. friend activity, status posts, weekend activity, hobbies, ideologies and so on)
LinkedIn provides advertising capability
Many recruiters have had issues in the past advertising vacancies as the readily available medium would have been the traditional media (newspapers, magazines etc) Linked provides recruiters free advertisement mediums to reach its followers and non-followers (which sometimes spans thousands of users at a time). Over time users could apply for positions through this same medium making it easier, cheaper, efficient and more user-friendly both for the candidate and the recruiter. Although its advertising approach is not as strong as other portals, LinkedIn provides the capability of strategically placing ads covering your products or jobs and discussions which most recruiters use to mentally study prospective employees.
Polls on professional issues are another form of advertisement on LinkedIn with polls employers are able to fetch opinions on a particular subject matter (picking on thoughts of both candidates and businesses). Not only will polls provide you with valuable and current information but they will also signal to others that you (the poll sponsor) are a key information source on that topic. Building a strong employer brand is essential if you want to eventually attract the very best.
LinkedIn has provided the capability for firms to create their own “company page” and to populate the page with materials that help to build their employment brand. Individual employees can also send updates to their connections with links to relevant articles, news items, and blogs, which taken together may also help to strengthen your employer brand. The company page can also be used to highlight your company’s products and services. Allowing individuals to apply instantly for a job without having to update their resume is a powerful advantage. Some firms are beginning to use a LinkedIn profile (at least initially) as a substitute for a resume. One way to do that is to add an “Apply with LinkedIn” button to your job postings. LinkedIn makes it easy to post and distribute current job openings to both types of prospects. When you are seeking active candidates, use LinkedIn job postings as a supplement to your normal job-posting channels.
Final Thoughts
Although linked in is not yet a perfect system many recruiters use it as a recruitment and human resource repository. It would be strange to come across a practitioner who is not utilizing LinkedIn’s recruitment tools as it has become the recruiters system of choice.
