LinkedIn is being increasingly used as a recruitment tool by Australian employers and recruiters to source passive candidates. It allows users to search the profiles of over 70 million professionals to find those that are a perfect fit. Employers can also use LinkedIn to post job openings, engage potential candidates, build their employment brand, and conduct targeted advertising. While recruitment agencies have traditionally relied on LinkedIn, it is a valuable tool that can be used alongside traditional methods to source talent.

1. RecRuitment online professional networks
The
desert
island
solution

2. RecRuitment passive candidates
Advocates of LinkedIn as a recruitment tool call it to reach out to all those members on LinkedIn
via an in-mail. This protects confidential contact
the ‘desert island solution’ – the one sourcing tool information for LinkedIn members, but also allows
they would need if stranded on an island. While it’s an employer or recruiter to contact anyone who is a
taken off overseas, Australian recruiters and HR perfect fit for a job opportunity.
A second solution is the Jobs Network. Barham
professionals says employers are finding it useful to post their
H
are just R professionals have likely been using
openings to LinkedIn. “We’re not a job board but
we do have tens of thousands of job postings,” he
starting to professional networking sites such as says. “The unique advantage of putting a job posting
realise its LinkedIn for several years, primarily as a onto LinkedIn is that it’s really the only place where
networking tool, and also possibly to engage with you can post a job opening and have it viewed by
value colleagues. Increasingly, however, it’s being used passive candidates. If they’re on a job board, they’re
as a recruitment tool. This is also nothing new – one of the 5–10% of the workforce that is either out of
professional recruiters have counted LinkedIn as a job or wants a different
perhaps the most valuable tool in their armoury for n 63% of job. Posting a job to a job
some time. FORTUNE 100 board is only going to
For those not yet ‘in the know’, how can LinkedIn companies in attract that audience.”
be used to optimum effect? the US are using Job postings can be
Steve Barham, director, Australia & New Zealand, LinkedIn Hiring matched to best fit the
LinkedIn Hiring Solutions, says that one of the Solutions to members, so when a user
company’s three business lines – LinkedIn Hiring attract talent logs onto their LinkedIn
Solutions – is dedicated to helping employers find homepage that day
specialised passive candidates. they’ll be presented with
The flagship product in this line is called the three best job opportunities that fit their profile.
LinkedIn Recruiter. This product, which launched in The third portfolio of solutions encompasses
Australia in April 2010, gives employers the ability employment branding. Companies can create a
to search across the entire LinkedIn membership careers page, which is essentially their portal within
network (over 70 million professionals). It allows the LinkedIn community. They can talk about their
their team to collaborate on an enterprise platform, EVP, create polls, have links to their other social
which looks quite different to the LinkedIn site media sites, and they can also host video. “It can
that everyday users see. The teams can build also be targeted to different audiences so you can
projects – through which they can easily pipeline have different content being viewed depending
candidates – as well as collaborate with colleagues, on whether that candidate is a sales person, IT
and set up search alerts. For example, when a new professional, or whatever,” says Barham.
Java Developer joins LinkedIn in Sydney, the team Targeted advertising can also be used to get a
is alerted immediately. It also provides the ability brand or key message out.
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3. RecRuitment passive candidates
Of course, while all of this costs money, Barham
remains optimistic that local employers will be keen Engage – but use discretion
to sample at least some of these options. “There’s Cherie Curtis, head of psychology at Onetest, provides some insights
no such thing as a standard offering,” he says. “For into online/social media recruitment.
pricing we work directly with each employer and
recruiting organisation to create a solution that’s Social media provides two great opportunities:
right for them. It’s not one-size-fits-all.” 1. It improves the scope and quality of applicant pools by extending
the geographical reach of recruitment activities, allowing recruiters to
effortlessly reach candidates both nationally and internationally.
Changing the way we recruit 2. It allows employers to improve brand awareness and employment
Unsurprisingly, Barham believes LinkedIn has marketing reach. As a result, we can expect to see increasingly transient
changed recruitment forever. “Employers need to workforce coming from non-traditional markets – for example, candidates
look beyond just posting on job boards and in print,” from rural areas and overseas applying for positions in different regions.
he says. “LinkedIn enables sourcing teams to be
more proactive, to do the jobs they were hired to Social media also changes the scope of the candidate pool:
do – to find the right talent. Previously they didn’t • It allows for more people to be ‘passively’ reviewing other opportunities
have that capability – they would either have to post while still employed. This highlights the importance of ensuring a positive
and pray, and wait for a good enough candidate to and consistent brand image is maintained and current employees are
treated well at all times, as it will be increasingly easy for people to
respond, or rely on external agencies which can be
‘jump ship’ as they hear about other opportunities, even when not actively
quite cost prohibitive.”
job seeking.
The search capability of LinkedIn is directly tied • Employee engagement is therefore more important than ever. As a recruiter
to the robust, comprehensive profiles that users are this means that you should also be considering ongoing passive sourcing
creating every day. “These profiles list their roles, so that every opportunity to source potential talent is optimised.
specialties, the experiences they’ve had – even more However, in order for social recruitment to be successful, HR will need
so than you might find on a traditional resume. So to work closely with marketing departments to effectively leverage the
you’re able to search across all that information opportunity that social media channels provides. It is important to be mindful
on Recruiter, and stack it one on top of the other to that these channels are very different to traditional channels and some ‘out of
narrow the 70 million down to the 12 who are your the box’ thinking is required to be successful.
perfect target in little over a minute,” says Barham. Also be mindful of not intruding on people’s personal space – Onetest’s
2009 Graduate survey identified a degree of concern amongst some
Where does this place recruitment agencies? Are
graduates that the overuse of social recruitment marketing could intrude
they out of business? It’s a question Barham is often
on their personal space. One specific comment summarises this well:
asked. “My response is that recruiting agencies have “Employers need to recognise that MySpace is ‘my’ space, not ‘YourSpace’.”
been using LinkedIn for years – they’ve found it the
most powerful tool in their arsenal as well. It’s a rich
landscape of candidates for recruiters to engage with.
With 70 million members, there’s plenty of fish in the
sea for recruiters as well as employers. If recruiters
can offer their clients a widely sourced selection of
candidates it works for them, too,” he says.
Also handy for…
Barham also sees the division between social place for that professional research to happen is your
networking and professional networking widening LinkedIn profile.”
as time goes on, and he believes people join LinkedIn HR professionals are not only networking and
for very different reasons to why they’ll join other finding talent using LinkedIn but they’re also
social networks. building communities using LinkedIn groups.
“They join LinkedIn to manage their professional Company profiles can be used to create forums for
brand,” he says. “What the world has now come to existing employees. In addition, it’s also possible to
realise is that whether it’s a potential employer, a create alumni groups, which are a handy way to keep
potential client, people evaluating whether they up relationships with former employees. Hc
want to come work for you, or anyone who’s about
to meet you for business purposes, they’ll all do a Additional information on how to utilise LinkedIn more
quick check to find out more about you. The de-facto effectively can be found at http://talent.linkedin.com
26 www.hcamag.com