Recruitment is no easy task. In a struggle to find the best fit for an open position in the shortest time possible, recruiters must be gods of sourcing and communication ninjas at the same time.
They turn to LinkedIn, a social platform for business, with its 800 billion user database.
LinkedIn Search Trap
Typically, a recruiter runs a search using keywords only to see around 8,000, 000 of people’s profiles popping up in the search results.
That depends on the network of the LinkedIn account used for searches.
How come there’s 8 million of candidates who fit for the role? There isn’t. For once, LinkedIn shows you only 1,000 (basic LinkedIn) or 2,500 (Sales Navigator) profiles per search.
To see the rest of them, you need to run more searches with slightly varying features.
Second, most of them will be irrelevant. Out-of-network profiles, former professionals who’ve changed roles, and simply people not interested in changing jobs.
You need better tools for the filtering. A better targeting can be partly achieved through a combination of boolean search, keyword filter and paid LinkedIn subscriptions.
How To Better Filter Profiles On LinkedIn
- Boolean – use AND, OR, NOT search operators to precise your search. Try ‘UX Designer’ NOT ‘Graphic Designer’, ‘Talent Acquisition OR Recruiter” and see how your search results become more targeted.
- Keyword filter – if you search by job title or role, try inputting keywords in a special keyword filter
- Personas – If you are willing to pay around 1,000 $ for an annual seat on a Sales Navigator Core, you can make use of Personas, aka Ideal Buyer Profile. Just add a few LinkedIn profiles that best illustrate your candidate requirements, and Sales Navigator will show you suggestions of similar profiles.
- Open to work + Job title– candidates on LinkedIn may use an ‘open to work’ badge, while employers can add a ‘hiring’ badge to their profiles to signal they’re open to job dialogues.
Officially, this badge is visible to Recruiter subscribers, and allows you to quickly cut through the noise and irrelevant leads.
But here’s the hack! if you try to enter #OpenToWork as your searchword, you’ll pretty much find profiles who’ve added these words in their headline.
The Outreach Trap
Well, let’s assume we’ve done our best to filter out only relevant profiles from the ocean of LinkedIn data. What’s next?
We need to get in touch with them. How do we send a job ad to 1,000 of potential candidates?
By visiting each and every profile and clicking the ‘Message’ button? Copy pasting the message?
Apart from the fact that it doesn’t sound exciting, it is impossible, too.
On LinkedIn you cannot:
- Send messages to 2nd, 3rd-level connections. You need to add them to your network first
- Invite more than 100 people weekly
This is how LinkedIn automation tools came to be. They help recruiters build lists of profiles and bulk message people with their job offers.
How Can Automation Tools Save A Recruiter’s Reputation
There’s an army of LinkedIn users out there who get pissed off by how recruiters fail in communication.
That includes confusing names, locations, not getting the expertise and roles, ghosting.
Usually that all results from bluntly using automation tools, failure to invest some time in proper filtering of your outreach list and not reading people’s profiles.
Here’s how at Linked Helper automation tool we address these issues and pitfalls
#1 Build & Save Lists
After running a search, only Sales Navigator subscription allows you to save searches and create lists.
With an automation tool like Linked Helper, you can save searches into lists along with basic profile data.
You own your data. It is stored on your PC locally and there’s no way of losing it.
This will gradually build up your database of potential candidates. You can always revisit your list, mark and delete profiles, add tags, etc.
Remember those 8 million profiles that popped up in our search? We can shuffle this list much faster.
#2 Flexible Message Templates
You may need to test various messages for different audiences, to see which ones yield better responses.
A good automation tool usually has the features of A/B testing, cross-deleting duplicates between lists, and message alterations.
For example, based on a selected criterion (having a mutual contact), you can start your message two ways:
Hello {name},
Option 1. ✅ We seem to share a {mutual_contact} name.
Option 2. ❌ My name is Amy. I hope you’re enjoying your position. Any chance you are considering changing jobs?
#3 Preview & Fix
We give our customers a lot of manual intervention to stop and restart campaigns when they want.
They can preview messages for each recipient in a specific tab. These steps help mitigate risks when something goes wrong.
For example, you made a mistake in composing your message. Before starting your campaign, you can preview and fix it.
Or when it turns out that someone’s already contacted that person from your team, you can jump back to the list and remove that recipient immediately.
#4 Don’t Miss Replies!
When you go hunting LinkedIn candidates full-steam, it is easy to get drowned in tons of messages and your inbox will turn into a nightmare.
There’s nothing more irritating than not getting an answer
With Linked Helper that cannot happen, because it analyzes LinkedIn messaging history, finds replies, and sets them aside in a separate list for your perusal.
Reply detection system is a must in an automation tool
#5 Message Chains
Let’s admit it – a busy recruiter is not capable of studying each candidate’s profile in-depth. What’s the point in automation, after all?
Then, how do you avoid situations when you outrage people with improper job offers? A good tactic might be to spread your communication over several messages. Start with an ice-breaker and ask if they consider job offers at all.
M1: Are you still working with SAP products, or have you taken another career direction? I have a vacancy to share. Do you mind?
Delay
M2: Send vacancy details.
Even if you make a mistake approaching the wrong people, it would look less impolite and at least you are asking and not bombarding them with out-of-line offers.
Drip campaigns in Linked Helper allow you to plan your sequence of messages, sort replies and take action quickly.
What LinkedIn Automation Will NOT Do For A Recruiter
Automation tools are powerful but they are not a magic pill. Neither are they a form of Artificial Intelligence at this stage.
❌Automation tools will NOT be helpful in:
Assessing A Candidate’s Skills Or Ability
It will not decide for you if they are a good fit for the role. They can scrape data and allow you to see how many profiles have the word ‘SAP’ listed in their summaries. But you must make your own judgment.
Apply Search Filters
You need to do the LinkedIn targeting yourself, try different search criteria, but once you’ve collected and filtered your list, you can hit ‘Collect’ and we will save it.
Hack LinkedIn
Good automation tools do not abuse the LinkedIn platform. If LinkedIn doesn’t allow you to send a custom note when inviting someone to follow your company page, neither do we. If a connection note may include only 300 symbols, we cannot make it 700.
To sum up, successful recruitment requires a nuanced approach to both sourcing and communication, especially on a vast platform like LinkedIn.
By adopting automation tools, recruiters can enhance their recruitment strategies, avoid common pitfalls, and connect with candidates more effectively.
