LinkedIn is a unique phenomenon in the world of recruiting. The platform is massive, with millions of active users and a vast network of international professionals. It provides a golden opportunity for recruiters to discover qualified candidates who might not be visible on traditional job boards.
However, if you’re new to using LinkedIn for sourcing, the sheer volume of options may seem overwhelming. How do you sift through millions of profiles to find the perfect match for your open roles? What should you even start with?
Luckily, there’s a systematic approach to streamline your LinkedIn candidate sourcing. Here’s how to get started.👇
Narrow Down Your Search
The first step in effective candidate sourcing is to clearly define what you’re looking for in your candidates. Start by outlining your ideal candidate profile.
- What skills should they possess?
- What level of experience is necessary?
- Do they need to have worked in a particular industry or held a specific role?
Here’s a quick checklist of criteria to consider (of course, you should enrich the list based on your company’s specific needs and requirements):
– Job Title: Identify roles that align with your open positions.
– Skills: List essential and desirable skills, like programming languages, certifications, or soft skills.
– Experience Level: Determine the minimum years of experience required.
– Location: Decide whether the role is remote or if candidates need to be in a specific geographical area.
– Industry: Consider which industries provide the most relevant experience. Perhaps include multiple overlapping industries.
Defining these criteria upfront allows you to apply targeted filters later, making your search more efficient and focused.
Leverage Sales Navigator Search Filters
For those serious about LinkedIn recruiting, Sales Navigator is an invaluable tool. As a paid plan, it offers advanced search capabilities that go beyond the basic LinkedIn search. Sales Navigator allows you to use highly specific filters such as years of experience, company size, and even those who’ve recently changed jobs.
This level of sophistication helps you zero in on candidates who perfectly match your criteria. Taking advantage of this sophisticated search functionality allows you to narrow down a list of potential candidates who are more likely to be a good fit for your roles.
Use Boolean Search for Fine-Tuning
Even with advanced tools like Sales Navigator, sometimes you need to get more granular. That’s where Boolean search comes in. Boolean search is a powerful LinkedIn functionality that allows you to combine keywords with operators like AND, OR, and NOT to refine your search results. The basics go like this:
– AND: Use this to include multiple criteria. For example, “Software Engineer AND Java” will find profiles that mention both terms.
– OR: This operator expands your search to include candidates with either term. For instance, “Marketing OR Sales” will pull up profiles with either keyword.
– NOT: Exclude certain terms from your search. For example, “Developer NOT Junior” will eliminate profiles that mention junior developers.
Implementing Boolean search can help you fine-tune your queries, ensuring you capture a broad yet relevant pool of candidates. The key with this is to balance inclusivity with specificity, so you don’t miss out on potential fits.
Enhance Your Sourcing with LinkedIn Recruiter AI
LinkedIn Recruiter’s AI tools are designed to augment and simplify candidate sourcing by letting you start searches with natural language. When you describe what you’re looking for, AI-Assisted Search translates it into precise filters like job titles, skills, and locations.
It also suggests additional candidates based on your criteria. You can manually tweak the filters or skip the AI entirely if you prefer. This feature is optional but can significantly enhance your search efficiency.
Automate Connections
It’s hard to find the right candidate without a system that consolidates all the necessary data in one place. Additionally, manually connecting with candidates makes it harder to find candidates massively and discuss important details with right ones. A prospecting automation tool is ideal for reaching out to multiple candidates, tracking your conversations, and expanding your network.
Closely is designed for sales teams seeking to expand their outreach on LinkedIn and via email while streamlining their prospecting and sales processes. However, it’s also a game-changer for recruiting teams, offering an easy and cost-effective way to find candidates, manage them within a single platform, and close positions.
Recruiting agencies leverage Closely as a platform for candidate sourcing. It’s a combo of accurate data, safe automation, and price-quality ratio that will boost your efficiency and let you get the most out of LinkedIn. Rest assured, Closely will handle your candidate sourcing needs, leading to reduced expenses and increased vacancy closings.
By simply adding a link to your LinkedIn search results, you can launch a campaign targeting the list of desired candidates. Include steps for sending a connection request, a follow-up message, liking posts, and visiting profiles.
Detailed insights into campaigns help to refine your messages and track progress for each candidate. 👇
Want to try it? Book a demo call and we will help you out! 💪 🚀
Look Till the Very Bottom
Don’t stop at the top search results—many recruiters miss out on qualified candidates buried lower in the list. By exploring all results, you may find overlooked talent who perfectly match your needs but haven’t been approached by other recruiters. Digging deeper gives you an edge in finding the right fit.
Don’t Keep Your Search Too Rigid
Of course you should have clear-cut definitions and keywords you should base your searches on. Though, it doesn’t mean you should completely exclude potential candidates whose profiles don’t exactly match your quieries. A rigid search can exclude great candidates.
Profiles may contain misspellings, alternative job titles, or emphasize related skills rather than exact terms. For example, someone ideal for a “Content Manager” role might list “Content Lead” instead. Broaden your search criteria to include adjacent terms and skills to capture a wider pool of potential candidates.
Conclusion
Effective LinkedIn sourcing hinges on a well-rounded approach. Getting the basics set up is a huge help for candidate searching: defining what you’re looking for goes a long way.
On top of that, leveraging LinkedIn-specific features and functionality allows you to get a good grasp of how results are shown on LinkedIn and what you can do to tailor them to better fit your needs. Employ an automation tool for LinkedIn to streamline your sourcing and expand your reach. For recruiters looking to optimize and refine their LinkedIn efforts, these strategies offer a starting point and a strong foundation for an efficient sourcing process.
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