Best Practices To More Effectively Leverage Your LinkedIn Account

If you work in HR or recruiting, my guess is that you have a LinkedIn account. If you don't have one, I suggest you sign up for technology startup jobs one.


With more than 50 million users worldwide, LinkedIn has evolved into the largest online business networking platform. It is powerful and efficient on many levels, and is leveraged by its users in a multitude of styles and capacities. Some people use it as merely another way to connect with friends online, while others take it so far as to rest a large portion of their job responsibilities upon it.


So, technology startup jobs sure, you probably have a LinkedIn account, BUT are you leveraging it to its fullest capacity? Are you sure that you're making your incumbent HR technology (i.e., Technology Startup Jobs your applicant tracking system) integrate as well as it possibly can with your LinkedIn initiatives? Did you know that using LinkedIn directly impacts your organization's bottom line, and if so, are you impacting yours?


Whether you're a corporate recruiter, work for a staffing agency, or you're the VP of HR at your organization, read on to learn how to get the most out of your LinkedIn Account.

Using LinkedIn to recruit? Here are some essential tips

o Profile! Remember when your 3rd grade teacher always had to remind you to write your name on your paper before handing it in? This is the same concept and ironically enough, technology startup jobs a lot of kids are still forgetting the basics. Complete your LinkedIn Profile entirely. That includes an appropriate photo, your name, position, skills, technology startup jobs past experiences and more. Do you want people to be able to contact you? Then be sure to include your contact information. Write yourself a summary and make it as keyword-rich as possible so that you'll appear in more search results.


o Groups. Just like in high school, the more groups you were a part of, the more activities you did, the more sports you played- the more people you knew, were connected with and could leverage. The same goes for LinkedIn: join as many online groups as possible, when relevant. There are a number of HR and recruiting groups you should join (like ERE, SHRM and Linked:HR), but be sure to join niche groups specific to your industry, as well.


o Search effectively. LinkedIn has over 45 million profiles. That means there is a wealth of information, but it also means you need to be able to effectively mine that data. Are you using complex search queries? Are you sorting your results by keyword, relevance, location? These are all important things to consider. If you're not sure how to create powerful searches on LinkedIn to yield the best results, I suggest you check out the Boolean Black Belt blog, dedicated to sharing best practices for startup jobs leveraging Boolean logic to search for talent discovery and identification.


o Learn more about candidates. There are a number of legal issues cropping up around HR's use of social media and the possibility of more discrimination claims to come (see what Workforce Management has to say about it.) So when I say use LinkedIn to learn more about potential employees, I do not mean use it as your built-in background check or to figure out a candidate's age or race. Doing so will get you in trouble, and there are companies specifically created to do that for you (like iCIMS' partner EmployeeScreenIQ). But you can certainly use LinkedIn to learn more about someone: do you know any people in common, technology startup jobs are they connected to anyone from your organization? how well-connected are they? do they have a blog? what groups are they a part of? And the list goes on.


o Post out job openings. Use your status to announce job openings that you're currently recruiting for. You can also post job openings to the groups you're a part of, all at no cost. I personally have 170 connections on LinkedIn, which links me to almost 3 million professionals online. That is a powerful number, so be sure to use it to your advantage!


o Enhance your organization's brand to find active and technology startup jobs passive candidates. You can leverage LinkedIn in a number of ways to draw attention to your company, its culture and technology startup Jobs its latest developments. Use your status to link to the company's latest blog post, add the events application to announce what events you're attending so you can meet in person with some of your connections, or let people know the latest book you're reading. You're a recruiter, but you can also do a bit of PR work with your LinkedIn account. By showing your connections what a great company you work for, technology startup jobs therefore making careers at your organization more appealing, it ultimately makes your job easier.


So you have all this information from LinkedIn... now what? (LinkedIn and your HR technology are friends!)


It's estimated that about half of all mid-sized companies, and almost every large corporation, technology startup jobs use some type of applicant tracking system (ATS). If you're fortunate enough to work for a company that leverages an ATS, make sure you're utilizing LinkedIn and your ATS hand in hand. LinkedIn can facilitate your HR and recruiting processes, while the ATS automates and streamlines your candidate management. If you have any kind of questions pertaining to where and the best ways to utilize technology startup jobs, you could call us at our web site. Make sure you have the two talking to one another so that you can truly maximize the value of the two. How?


Let's go back to the bulleted list, because everyone knows that's the only way to get readers to pay attention!


o Source: technology startup jobs If you follow my fifth tip in the section above and hyperlink to job openings at your organization, startup jobs use a URL shortener (like bit.ly) to determine exactly how many candidates, and who, startup jobs landed at your careers page from LinkedIn. This, in turn, helps you determine how effective jobposting to LinkedIn is for you personally.


o Track: Leverage your ATS as a central database to store, startup jobs track and manage all the qualified talent you find on LinkedIn. By importing LinkedIn contacts into your ATS, you also ensure that no top candidates get lost in the shuffle of LinkedIn or paper piles on your desk, because the information is in a single, online repository.


o Communicate: Once you have your LinkedIn contacts added to your ATS, the Talent Platform's powerful mass communication tools can do a variety of interesting and valuable things to help you build and maintain the professional relationship. Also known as Candidate Relationship Management (CRM), these tools facilitate communication with candidates, not only making your life easier, but also vastly improving the candidate experience by keeping the lines of communication open. A best practice is to keep these connections attracted to your company by sending them your most recent press releases, newsletters or blog posts. This way, they stay abreast of what's going on at your organization, and also stay interested.


o Manage: Piggybacking on these communication tools, you can use different folder statuses within your ATS or Talent Platform to manage this pipeline of top talent from LinkedIn. Your 'hot" prospects can be grouped in one folder status to receive certain notifications, such as, for example, the latest job openings within your organization. Other, perhaps lesser-qualified prospects, can be designated to a different folder status, in order to receive other information more appropriate to that relationship, like the company's latest newsletter.


o Measure efficiency: Sure, LinkedIn is great for a number of things, but how effective is it proving to be for you in your sourcing and recruiting? Leverage your ATS's analytical reporting tools to find out this vital information and determine its absolute value. These reporting capabilities determine how effective a source LinkedIn proves to be compared to your other sources, whether or not it's delivering you top talent, if it's helping decrease cost-per-hire or time-to-fill, and more.

Big Picture: How does LinkedIn impact the bottom line, especially during the recovery?

How do you get the absolute best talent, and how do you get it as cost-effectively as possible? These are two big questions that have an enormous impact on your organization's bottom line. Fortunately for you and your organization, the answer to both these queries can often be: LinkedIn.


Where can you find top talent? Star employees and the Bill Gates' of the world are not pounding the pavements or sending out their resumes to the job boards. Leading company performers can be found just there- at their companies, performing. While job boards can help you find talent for a variety of positions, sometimes the absolute best talent is not actively looking for a new job.


LinkedIn is one of the best ways to open the door of communication with these passive candidates that can bring vital thought-leadership and strategy to your organization. Fifty-percent of average LinkedIn users have a household income of more than $100,000 per year, while over eighty-percent are college graduates. Half of LinkedIn users are decision-makers within their organizations-- the statistics speak for themselves. Leverage LinkedIn as your first step in the networking process with these passive, yet extremely valuable, candidates that you might otherwise not have access to.


Connecting with the absolute best of the best- must cost a fortune, right? Wrong. Fortunately, this ability to find talented professionals is free, and every professional knows that financial cost is one of the most important factors in a business decision. Just like all the other social networking tools like Facebook and Twitter, setting up and using your LinkedIn account comes at no cost. You can upgrade your account for certain additional features and added functionality for just $25 or $50 a month. While there are advantages to doing this, you can find and engage contacts equally well with the free account.


So whether you're a recruiter, a manager of talent acquisition or a VP of HR, there is something for everyone by leveraging LinkedIn. If you want to gain better access to top talent, at no cost, while having it seamlessly integrate with your existing HR technology, LinkedIn is the solution you're looking for.