Extend Your Recruiting Sphere With LinkedIn

Clues about work history and employers can make hiring easier

Insider

Contributing Writer

In my last column, we discussed the importance of leveraging your sphere within the recruiting process. Networking is the process by which we work our sphere while recruiting. Some may have forgotten, but when social media was first introduced to the world, the terms social media and social networking were interchangeable. Social networking is not utilized as much anymore as a term, but the fact is, networking through social media is exactly what we need to be doing to support our recruiting efforts.

I have found that LinkedIn is the most important site for recruiters who are networking. LinkedIn is a site for business contacts, as opposed to a site such as Facebook, which is focused on personal information. There are Facebook business pages, but the purpose of these pages is typically to attract consumers. On LinkedIn, the users are more focused upon business-to-business connections and even the company pages on LinkedIn are more likely to focus upon the delivery of business-to-business value.

How can social media be used to facilitate the recruitment process?

1. Accomplish research on candidates or potential candidates. Before you meet with a candidate, or even to help you decide whether you would want to meet with someone, visit his or her LinkedIn profile. What are you looking for?

Certainly, their work history is significant. If they have worked at five companies for the past five years, this is not evidence of a stable work history. Stability, experience length, and production focus can all be extrapolated from a robust LinkedIn profile.
Even the types of companies they have worked for can be very important information. What is the reputation of these companies? Do they have a similar business model to your company? For example, if you represent a large bank with a strict structure in place and their work history is with small entities in which the loan officers are fiercely independent, this might not be a match.
Even the professionalism of their profile is important. It can tell you whether they are serious about using social media and also may be a reflection of how they approach other aspects of their business. Would their present profile even pass compliance tests within your company?
The testimonials posted on their site would also supply you with pertinent information. What their customers and referral sources say will speak volumes about the way they go about their business. If they have no testimonials published, this raises questions. Are they not using this tool the way it should be used, or are they not providing great customer service?

2. A look at their work background and connections can also give rise to potential references. Perhaps you know one of their connections well. These references might be checked after interviews or before a potential interview to determine whether you should meet with this candidate. In this regard, a call to a connection may prevent you from wasting your time.

3. The search feature on LinkedIn can also give you information about those with whom you might have experiences or backgrounds in common. These commonalities facilitate connections with potential candidates. Perhaps you went to the same school, came from the same hometown, or worked at the same company as a potential candidate. Your request for a connection should cite that commonality with statements such as — I see we both went to the University of ABC — do you remember _______________? These commonalities can also give you more to discuss when meeting candidates. Remember, recruiting is about developing relationships and trust.

Social media provides a great tool for social networking — if you go about it in the right way.

The key to successful use of social media is to deliver value to your connections and potential connections. That means posting statements such as “come work here” is ineffective compared to posting valuable articles that will help your connections do more business.

Going back to our initial premise regarding networking providing the best basis for recruiting — we will acknowledge that recruiters often use LinkedIn to facilitate cold calling. I have gotten calls from recruiters who quite obviously did not read my profile carefully. This is a scatter-gun approach and is not likely to be effective. Good quality producers don’t have time to take a cold call, and if they do, they are not going to be swayed by a cold call. Therefore, those you would attract would trigger a process of adverse selection by attracting lower-quality candidates who are not likely to stick at your company as well.

The same concept applies to advertising for candidates on LinkedIn. What good loan officer is going to respond to an advertisement? Great loan officers have plenty of choices without searching. Again, your best vehicle for finding quality candidates is through the networking process, and social media provides a great tool for social networking — if you go about it in the right way.