4 Steps to Make Your Hiring Process More Effective Using LinkedIn

The essence of online recruiting is establishing a connection with your potential candidates, and social media is the best environment for that. However, it’s worth underlining that among platforms, LinkedIn is probably the most suitable one to attract professionals. 

LinkedIn has well over half-billion registered users, which makes it the most prominent professional community on the planet. However, that on its own will not grant you a straightforward hiring process. There are important principles that need to be taken into account in order to make your hiring process effective. 

In this article, we’ll take a look at the steps you need to make to increase your visibility and attract the most promising talent on LinkedIn.


1. Join LinkedIn groups.

According to LinkedIn’s Talent Trends, nearly 90% of recruiters use LinkedIn to attract talent, and LinkedIn groups are a great way to do that, especially the ones relevant to your industry.

Specialized communities host hundreds and sometimes thousands of professionals in specific niches, which are basically pools for high-quality talent. Engaging with them and distributing your content in those groups will allow you to considerably increase your exposure and amass more significant numbers of applications. 

More importantly, building relationships within these groups will considerably broaden your network and potentially attract additional applications from recommendations. 


2. Leverage LinkedIn’s advanced search

A cool feature that LinkedIn’s search offers is “Finding Similar Profiles,” which pretty much lets you find “clones” of your ideal candidates. The platform has created an algorithm that allows recruiters to find professionals that have the same experience, occupation, social graph as a “source” candidate. 

For instance, your company is looking for a senior developer, because the person in that position has been promoted, and you need someone that has the same experience and background as the former senior dev, this is the ideal feature for you. 

Another beneficial feature called Spotlights can provide you with a list of potential candidates that are somehow associated with your LinkedIn profile. That means that Spotlights will compile a list of people that fall under a certain set of criteria, like if they liked your company’s page, interacted with your organization’s posts, or previously submitted their resumes for a position in your organization. 

To a certain extent, Spotlights is similar to Referrals. However, it doesn’t ask your current workers to engage with potential candidates. On a similar note, it’s worth mentioning that Referrals is one of the most effective search tools on the platform. LinkedIn themselves published an insightful article about how they use this feature to attract the right candidates. 


3. Invest in video content

There is a sizable body of research that underlines the staggering growth of video content on the web, especially on social media. There is more video content uploaded to the internet within the last month, compared to what major American networks have produced in the previous 30 years, and 87% of online marketers use video content

Using pre-recorded videos for interviews hasn’t yet grown much of popularity so this feature will make you even more attractive in the candidates’ eyes. What’s more, it saves time as all team members can have access to the candidate’s responses and make a thorough decision.

Videos are also a great way to engage your potential candidates by showcasing job openings, communicating your corporate culture, show off your offices, and so forth. As a result, this will allow you to considerably increase the probability of them applying to your project. 

The importance of video content as part of the hiring process is defined by the fact that people aren’t necessarily looking for a job. People who use LinkedIn regularly are typically open to new opportunities, but not necessarily actively looking for a job. Considering that people engage with video content much more than with any other format — your video may pop up in the right person’s LinkedIn feed. 

Here’s a great example of an entertaining video that explores the corporate culture of a business, which still being catchy and humorous:

More importantly, your content, whether it’s video or text, needs to be calibrated to your audience’s taste. Consider hiring a specialist to outline a strategy for your articles and clips, so that it appeals to your potential candidates. There are now various writer sites that have a reviews page, where you can find the most suitable writer for your niche. 

4. Ever heard of Apply Starters?

We all know that people abandon their applications very frequently. LinkedIn is well aware of that, which is why recruiters can now enable a function called Apply Starters. It allows your organization to see the people that started submitting their application. As a result, you’ll be able to see the entire pool of potential candidates, even if they didn’t actually submit an application. 

Having access to this information will allow you to enable individual candidates to submit their applications by reaching out. This allows you not to miss out on a high-quality candidate. 

Conclusion

Building an efficient hiring process via LinkedIn will take time. Rome was not built in a day. However, it’s safe to say that by investing time and effort into this platform will undoubtedly yield great results and enable you to attract top talent that your business needs. We hope you found this article helpful. Good luck!