This document provides an overview of LinkedIn and best practices for using it for recruiting and sourcing candidates. It discusses LinkedIn's features like structured profiles, company profiles, messaging capabilities, and groups. It then gives tips for advanced searching, using Boolean operators, refining searches, and identifying and contacting candidates on LinkedIn. The document emphasizes that LinkedIn is the top business network and accounts for all of the author's placements in recent years. It also provides resources for further LinkedIn learning.

1. By Irina Shamaeva,
Partner, Chief Sourcer, Brain Gain Recruiting
http://www.linkedin.com/in/irinashamaeva
http://twitter.com/braingain
http://bit.ly/gplus-irinashamaeva
Blog: http://booleanstrings.com
Certification http://sourcingcertification.com

2.  eGrabberTM data capture software
quickly capture and process
unstructured data
such as Sales Leads, Resumes, etc.
http://www.egrabber.com

3.  LinkedIn: Bird’s Eye View
• Global Statistics
 The Basics
• Concepts
• Basic vs. Paid Accounts
• Best Practices
 From a Job Description to Identifying and
Contacting Candidates
• Research on LinkedIn: Identifying Competitors
• The Proper Use of the People Search Dialog
• Messaging and InMailing
• Finding People to Message
• Shortcut to Messaging
• Last Name Search Tip
 Demo and Q&A

4.  (Potentially) rich professional profiles
• Structured Search
 Company profiles
 Messaging/InMailing system
 Discussions:
groups, answers; signal;
search for content = BIG DATA

5.  Drawbacks 
• Bugs
• Confusing UX
• Shallow profiles
• Duplicates
• Expensive
 Is THE top business network, as a fact of
life
 Accounts for 100% of our placements in
2011-2012

6.  (Log out to see this)

7. A member’s network consists of:
• 1st, 2nd and 3rd degree connections
 Basic users see less info on the 3rd level
• Those who belong to the member’s groups
• People who have OpenLink accounts
 i.e. Business accounts with the option selected
 (note: search for the “open link” is broken)
7

8.  Groups =
• Forums
 Open =
• Content
Is visible

9.  Always use Advanced Search
 Use Boolean
• AND is implied
• OR needs to be capitalized
• NOT can be written as the minus
• Use “” for phrases

10.  The fields in search are called facets
 Refine your search, based on the
results

11.  Paid features
• Extra Search Facets
• Extra Inmails (messages to members)/ worth it
• Other extra features
 LinkedIn Recruiter: different UX
 LOTs of InMails; mass InMails /useful
 Team collaboration /maybe
 UI /inconvenient
 Expensive
 VERY promising: pipeline

12.  LI Recruiter ~ Member’s View

13.  LinkedIn is not a Job Board
 Members see you as a member, so:
• Fill out your profile
• Connect with others; join groups
• Post good content
• Send messages with care

14.  From
a Job Description to Identifying
and Contacting Candidates
• Research on LinkedIn: Identifying Competitors
• The Proper Use of the People Search Dialog
• Messaging and InMailing

16.  Move keywords between “keywords”, “title”,
and “last name”
 Use different words to express the necessary
skills and industry
 Don’t use every requirement to search

17.  Both are messages to members
• Messages can be sent to group members and
1st level connections for free
• InMails can be sent to all others (unless they
have blocked the InMails)

18.  Messages/InMails
get 10x better
response than emailing:
• The recipients can (and will) check you out
• Safe, within the trusted network
• Doesn’t land in their junk email folder

20.  Bit.ly/messagemembers
• Add the LinkedIn ID
• Press Enter

21.  Use degrees and certifications and see
full results from any type of account

22.  Bloghttp://booleanstrings.com
 Largest Sourcers’ Online Community
• "Boolean Strings" Group on LinkedIn
• Boolean Strings Network
 People Sourcing Certifications
• http://sourcingcertification.com