With the power of the internet, mobile apps, and social media platforms – it is only going to get harder to recruit top talent with all of the demand being generated. Long gone are the days however of putting up paper job ads or leaving your inbox open for hundreds of resumes.

With over 575+ million users, LinkedIn is the place where professionals go to update their job profiles, leave personalized work updates and connect with others. This social media platform acts as a front door to a business, with all of the current employees typically being present in some fashion within the organization on LinkedIn.

LinkedIn has tried to make the often grueling process of hiring much easier, more efficient and ready for recruiters to start using today!

Follow these tips on LinkedIn to help you acquire top talent more efficiently as a recruiter:

Make sure your profile is updated regularly

Creating a strong professional profile can be tough at first, but after some work, it will be well worth it. Some best practices to keep in mind are:

• Have a professional headshot as your profile picture
• Have descriptions of your jobs/roles in your experience section
• Keep an accurate headline at all times to ensure people know your current role
• Engage with posts at least once per week, to show up in your connections feeds!

One of the most important things you can do on any social media platform is be who you are. With so many people, it can be an overwhelming place for people to be. Especially if you do not know your connections or you are planning on connecting with strangers, you’ll want to represent who you are.

To make sure you do just that, you should ensure that your profile is kept up to date and professional. Once you have covered the best practices, you can start to put testimonials or even your own content onto your LinkedIn profile for people to share.

Make a Group and Keep at it!

Often, it can be really beneficial to create groups with people who you share similarities with. These similarities could be in schooling, interest area, outside hobbies, etc. It could really be anything.

However, creating a group and sticking with it is the first step. Once you have a group, the rapport can only grow from there. With blog posts or other content shared between the likes of you, it can help you establish credibility with any number of people in your group.

As a recruiter, this can even become a gold mine if you are sharing job orders and candidates. Using these can be really beneficial if you are in a split recruiting network!

Use InMail to Reach Candidates

Inmail is a feature LinkedIn has to allow people to send messages to people outside of their connections. Typically now, you can purchase InMail credits for a certain rate to be able to send these messages outside of your circle.

According to LinkedIn’s research, the average response rate to LinkedIn InMail is 85%. Compared with email open rates, this can be pretty high and almost a guarantee that you’ll get some sort of a response. If you are out trying to recruit a candidate you found – this can be something that gets heavily used!

Use an Applicant Tracking System to gather Candidate Information

As a recruiter, an ATS can be really beneficial to your efforts. One that can utilize LinkedIn is even better. Applicant tracking systems such as TAM have the durability and space to be able to save these candidates you find for future reference and contacting. Utilizing one can save you time and effort in the long run in making sure that your outreach is as effective as possible!

Conclusion

With these tips you can be sure to gain some success in using LinkedIn as a tool for recruiting success. By using these with both active and passive candidates, you are able to make sure you always have a pool of candidates ready for positions. As your network and connections increase, so will your ability to make these placements easier!

The number of job openings have reached a 15-year-high, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In fact, there are an estimated 15 million active job postings on LinkedIn alone. With so many postings online, it can be a challenge for yours to stand out—especially as it’s currently a candidate-driven market. Just having a simple job posting is not enough to attract a suitable candidate. Rather, you need to be smart and creative about how you write your posting. By following the provided best practices, you can ensure that your job postings will stand out and attract qualified candidates.

Effective Job Posting Guidelines

A job posting may be the first interaction that a candidate has with you. For that reason, it’s important that your posting is concise, descriptive and well-written. To help your postings meet those standards, review the following guidelines:

• Don’t use any extra words with the job title. For example, Graphic Designer.
• Don’t use “spammy” job titles, as these can cause you to be flagged by some job boards and restrict how many posts you can make. For example, “URGENT NEED !! Project Manager !! Boston MA !! Long Term contract”
• Don’t use special characters (such as &, ! and $), as these can prevent the posting from being identified by search queries.
• Don’t use buzzwords as part of the job title, such as “Wizard”, “Guru” and “Ninja”, as candidates are less likely to search for those terms.
• Don’t use internal titles, which could mislead or confuse candidates. For example, using Senior Graphic Designer instead of the in-house title of Graphic Designer III.
• Don’t use job titles that are connected to a “general application” posting, as these can impact how your posting is ranked on the job board. The keywords to avoid include the following:
  • Opportunities
  • General interest
  • General application
  • Inquiry

Job Descriptions

• Be concise and provide enough information in a job description to avoid ambiguity or follow-up questions.
• Capture the personality of your client’s business (such as why the staff enjoys working there and the kind of work that they do) and why the position is worthwhile (such as what sort of projects and impact will it have) within the first paragraph.
• Be honest about the expectations and responsibilities of the position, as this will reduce potential turnover. This should include details about how the position operates within your client’s business and who the candidate would report to.
• Include all education, years of professional experience and certification requirements that are necessary for the position. In addition, ask that candidates only apply to the position if they meet all the requirements, as if they don’t, their application will not be considered.

Job Locations

• Be specific about the job’s location. Most free job boards will not accept the posting if you do not include the country, city and state, which would make the job board unable to index your job posting in its search results.
• Don’t post multiple identical jobs to different cities in the same state, as many job boards will flag this as location spamming and can result in your jobs being blacklisted.
• If you post telecommute and work from home positions, some job boards require that you use the following guidelines:
  • The job title and description must clearly indicate that the job is “telecommute” or “work from home”.
  • The job needs to be advertised in a specific location.

Job Post Formatting

• Include line breaks between paragraphs.
• Use section headers (such as “Job description”, “Day-to-day responsibilities”, “Company description” and “Qualifications”) to help break up the flow of information.
• Use bullet points to easily list required education, professional experience and certification requirements.
• Include a link to your client’s website.

An Example of a Well-written Job Posting

How an ATS can Help with Job Postings

A staggering 60 percent of job-seekers say they stop filling out an application if it takes too long, according to employee engagement software company Officevibe. This drop-off in potential candidates can exacerbate the already lengthy recruitment process, making it even more difficult to find the best candidate for the position. Designed to automate your recruiting process and dramatically reduce your time-to-hire, your applicant tracking system (ATS) should be able to help your job postings to stand out.

The most effective applicant tracking systems are those that have a career portal integration. Which a career portal, you are able to craft effective and well-written job postings and distribute them to various job boards. While each career portal integration may include different features, the most beneficial include the following:

• A mobile-friendly job portal, which can enable candidates to find and apply to your job postings using any device.
• The ability to tailor job applications with specific questions to help you collect all the necessary information to find the ideal candidate.
• The ability to automatically post to Google for Jobs to ensure that your job posting is seen by as many candidates as possible.
• The ability to swiftly parse information from a candidate’s resume to complete their application.

If you’re curious about what features TAM offers that can help with your recruiting, you can view our features page.

Ensure that Your Job Postings Stand Out Every Time

There are millions of active job postings online and unfortunately it can be far too easy for yours to get lost. If you want candidates to not only see your postings but apply for them as well, you need to be smart and creative with how you handle them. With the right practices, you can ensure that your postings are effective and well-written.