Scouting For The Right Employees On LinkedIn
It is vital for all businesses to find the right employees, and the internet has changed the way that we look for them. Web 2.0 has made sites like Seek.com the standard resource for both jobseekers and employers that are looking for staff, but for the more critical roles in your business you may want to look a bit harder than simply putting a listing in the job opportunities section on some online job market. One really effective way to target the right professionals for your business is to use your professional network on LinkedIn to identify the ones that would be great for your business.
LinkedIn’s 150 million members1 have created the largest database of professional resumes on Earth, making it a valuable resource for employers looking to hire. The nature of careers has changed and most professionals are open to offers from employers that may lead to advancement or other new opportunities. In fact, LinkedIn has moved towards facilitating this activity on the site with its Corporate Recruiting Solutions pages that are geared towards finding the best of these passive candidates. In recent months they have been developing new ways to use the huge database of professionals on the site and have a Talent Pipeline service that aims at streamlining the process of identifying the candidates that users actually want to approach with an offer. These services aren’t free, and the current price of listing a job on LinkedIn’s Job Board is $195 per posting, which is still a very competitive price for access to such a huge user base; however, there are still a number of things that you can do to look for staff on LinkedIn that won’t cost a cent.
If you are using LinkedIn to keep in touch with the professional network in your industry then finding the right people may be as simple as posting the position and your requirements for candidates in your status update on the site. Part of the power of LinkedIn is the quality of its groups which, because of the professional theme of the network, tend to be focused on practical niches within industries. If you belong to a group that relates to your business then there is a good chance that the most switched on people in your industry will belong to it too. Because you already belong to the same group, you already have a connection with them and they will very likely be open to talking to you about your position. Groups also have a jobs tab that allows you to advertise your positions to a more targeted audience than your general profile does. LinkedIn also allows you to watch for employees that are leaving your competitors in the departures section of their company profile page and this can be an opportune time to contact those people who are leaving with an offer of a new job.
LinkedIn’s advanced people search makes it easy to find exactly the people that you are looking for if you include the right sort of search parameters. It is even possible to look for people that currently work, or who used to work, for your competitors and by including terms like ‘looking’ and ‘seeking’ you will probably turn up candidates that are ready to attend an interview. In addition, when you save the more productive searches that you do, LinkedIn will continue to search for people, especially new members that fit your criteria and notify you when it finds them. The internet has already become the place to find a job and LinkedIn is rapidly becoming the place to find the right person to fill it.
