Linkedin Vacancy Distribution - Status Updates

We put a lot of effort into searching the millions of profiles found on linkedin when we're recruiting for those more demanding roles. It's a topic I've spoken about on this blog before and cover in depth in my Linkedin Training Webinars, but what about the other side of the coin? What can be done to help candidates searching Linkedin for job opportunities to find your vacancy?

This week I'm going to take a look at some quick and easy methods you can use to get your vacancy in front of the right people. Starting with an area of your Linkedin profile that most visitors see first, your status update.

Updating the status on your linkedin profile is a quick and easy way to immediately broadcast a vacancy to the Linkedin network. Simply log in to linkedin and fill in your status update box (see above) to immediately broadcast your vacancy. This displays in the network activity section on the homepage of your connections and in the email update they receive from Linkedin.

Making it easy for applicants to apply is a key issue, and ideally you want to provide a link that will take them somewhere they can both get more information on the role, and apply online with the minimum of fuss. While your hands might be tied slightly by where your vacancy has been posted, the link provides a great opportunity to implement a little "meta-analytics" and see how people are reacting to your post.

Using Bit.ly

What is bit.ly? bit.ly allows users to shorten, share, and track links (URLs). Reducing the URL length makes sharing easier (useful for the limited space of a status update).

Producing a bit.ly link is easy and can be done in seconds at bit.ly, sign up to a free account and you will also be able to track the number of hits your link receives and where they come from.

If your link is getting a large number of hits you'll know that you have a great opportunity to grow your network in that area, widening the audience for future vacancies. Of course the ultimate metric is "did you hire from this method" but as this method is one that take seconds and delivers a relevant candidate occasionally, you will likely have to do it over an over again until you get a hire. 


This is why bit.ly is important, because the potential of success with this method largely depends on the strength and relevance of your network. If you are advertising a Software Developer role when your network is full of bankers the chance of success is greatly reduced and will largely depend on them referring your status update on to their network or to someone they know (see here to see how Linkedin is encouraging its network to share). Bit.ly will give you a good indication as to whether anyone is actually clicking on your update.

Tomorrow, I will show you how to post jobs within groups, a simple but effective strategy to get your jobs in front of the right people for FREE.

On Saturday, I will finish this little series of blogs by showing you how to get your jobs to dynamically update in your profile via the BlogLink application. So you profile automatically shows your organisations latest roles (see example below).

Linkedin Recruiter Professional Services - Review

Linkedin has recently announced that they are rolling out their Recruiter platform to recruitment companies. Initially this product was only available to corporate recruiters. I have spoken to a number of corporate recruiters who have spent a reasonable amount of money on this product and in general their feedback has been very good. So I signed up for the first of the webinars demonstrating it.

Now I need to make an important point. If you contact Linkedin and ask them what profile do I need to upgrade to in order to "see the entire network" they will point you in the direction of the Recruiter Platform, which is their most expensive product. This is wrong and their sales staff are being very canny in how they answer this.

The good news is if you have a linkedin profile, regardless of what account type you or how many connections you have made, YOU CAN ALREADY SEE THE ENTIRE NETWORK. Yes all 52m. I have tested this myself. If you don't believe me do a search of the network just for UK profiles. If will show you a number just over 2.7m. We all see the same number of profiles. The difference being as a corporate account user I can see more of the individual's profile. However, even this is a mute point as in 99% of searches the basic account will show enough data for a recruiter to be able to make a well informed decision on whether the linkedin member is worth contacting about the vacancy.

Right, I feel better now I have got that off my chest.

The RPS (Recruiter Professional Services) is essentially the same product that corporate recruiters have been using for over a year. It looks really good and is very easy to use, and aside from being a nice and simple product it actually has lots of nice features which will enhance your average Linkedin sourcing strategy.

Including:

• You can "pool" inmails. So if multiple users are on RPS all their inmail quotas are shared in one big pot.
  
• Your search results are listed in a summarised format so you can see where the hits are against your search and easily scroll down through multiple profiles on the one page.
• You can shortlist profiles to a folder and then send inmails in batches of up to 10 (Linkedin is very careful not to make it easy for someone to spam inmails, hence the limit of 10).
  
• You can see 1,000 profiles in your results (if you get 1,000 results you are not searching correctly, but technically this is still a benefit if you really want to wade through that many profiles).
• Multiple users can share project folders and collaborate together on campaigns.
• You can add notes against profiles that stay within RPS.
  
• All individual consultant activity is logged in the account. So if someone leaves your employment you do not need access to their Linkedin account to see what roles they have been working on, what inmails they sent and notes they made.

All in all, I was a little sceptical to start off with but in the end I was impressed. It's not meant to be an ATS, although it has many similar features. If you use linkedin on a shoestring as most recruiters seem to, then it probably won't interest you. If like me you use Linkedin as a primary recruitment tool and you send a lot of inmails, then I would give serious consideration to making a purchase.