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!