Using Social Media to Track Down Talent For Your Next Job Opening

By: David Craig
linkedin for hiring
Finding qualified employees to fill open positions can be a challenge. This is true whether you’re part of a corporate HR team or you run a small shop or office. It’s especially tough when your need is for a person with specific skills or experience.
You can post the opening on job-sites and your organization’s website. You might ask people in your organization and contacts in your industry for good candidates.
You scan the resumes that cascade into your inbox. But none are the right fit. Frustration ensues.

Don’t Panic—LinkedIn Can Help!

What if there was another way to find candidates that gave you access to millions of resumes? A way that allowed you to filter your choices and narrow down your list to the most qualified of the bunch? LinkedIn may be the solution to your hiring dilemma.
LinkedIn’s Recruiter is a premium tool that helps you find the potential hire you’re looking for. While Recruiter may be too costly for some small businesses, a much less expensive version is Recruiter Lite.
As you streamline your search via these LinkedIn premium tools, your candidate list may include people who may not be actively looking for their next opportunity and would be unlikely to respond to your posting on a job site. LinkedIn also provides a way for you to directly contact the best candidates.
Other LinkedIn business products that can help with ongoing recruiting include Job Slots, Career Pages, Work With Us ads, Referrals and Job Posts. These tools can save you significant time and reduce your stress level.

But My Budget Can’t Afford Upgrades

Want to do it on the cheap? Let’s say you’re looking for a social media specialist who has experience in health care and is in Missouri or Illinois. In the LinkedIn search bar, enter “social media specialist.” Voila! LinkedIn has 86,625 results for social media specialist. Click the filter button that narrows the field down to those in the U.S. Now there are 51,658 results.
Add “health care” to the search bar. Now we are down to 6,873. Further filtering is less precise. Adding in “Missouri” and “Illinois” may include those who attended college in either state along with residents. At this point, your rejiggered search result may also list “specialists” in other disciplines. Nonetheless, a scroll through remaining candidates may lead you to the man or woman who is best for your job.

A Nice Place To Visit But You Wouldn’t Want To Live There (Maybe)

You did remember to post your opening on LinkedIn Jobs, didn’t you? If you choose, that listing can be viewed by the cream of the crop in your field, including the people who are working at top organizations, making the big bucks in the nation’s biggest cities.
But why would someone working and living in New York, San Francisco, Seattle or Boston prefer to live in, say, St. Louis? Cost of living, shorter commutes and quality of life are among the reasons that people abandon the coasts to live in “fly-over” country.
By posting on LinkedIn Jobs, your gig can be seen by those who may not be actively looking for a new job, but are merely scrolling through to see what’s out there.
One final note: It is important that your company maintain an up-to-date LinkedIn profile with current information. Prospective hires are checking on you just as actively as you are checking on them.