4 Ways to Find the Best Candidates on LinkedIn

2022 sees the ongoing challenge of candidate shortages across industries and rising competition for talent. It is becoming harder to find qualified and skilled candidates as new roles become available. In the interest of staying ahead of the competition, it’s more important than ever for recruitment agencies to exercise best practices in the search to source new talent. A multi-faceted and active approach to recruitment should include the use of the professional network, LinkedIn. 

LinkedIn, as a platform, is a powerful tool at the fingertips of recruiters, with 810 million professionals currently part of their growing community. With member numbers like that, it makes sense that recruiters looking to find quality candidates should be actively utilizing the LinkedIn platform in their search. 

With all that said, we’re looking at four ways you can find the best candidates on LinkedIn in 2022. 

Clearly Outline your Needs

As mentioned, LinkedIn has 810 million users, which can be good and bad news for recruiters. On the one hand, there is undoubtedly an extensive pool of quality talent to choose from. On the other hand, there are too many people to possibly filter through on your search for the best candidate. 

This means that you need to be clear on what you are looking for in a candidate and the critical skills and competencies required for the role you are looking to hire for. Having a clear plan for your staffing needs means that the search for the best candidates on LinkedIn starts on the right foot. 

LinkedIn provides extensive data on candidate pools, including job history and skill set but also awards, courses, interests, etc. This data can be more effectively analyzed if you know what you’re looking for. Moreover, knowing the required skills, experience level, and details of the job description allows you to clearly define search parameters that are relevant to the role you are looking to fill.

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Leverage Keywords in your Search

LinkedIn offers recruiters the ability to search their network with ease. Once you know what you’re looking for in a candidate, you can match your requirements with the qualifications, experience level, and skill set listed on candidate profiles. 

The platform uses a Boolean style search where you can combine keywords with operators like AND, NOT, and OR during your search. This facilitates precision in your search. The search functionality also allows the use of location-based keywords to help you filter results more efficiently for job matches that make logistical sense.

The beauty of the search function on LinkedIn is the flexibility to play around with the search parameters. By adding or removing terms from your search you have full control over the capacity to widen and narrow your search. Recruiters should use this to their advantage to improve their chances of finding quality candidates on Linkedin.

It’s also worth noting that LinkedIn currently has over 12+ million users actively open to new job opportunities. It makes sense then for recruiters to make use of LinkedIn’s #OpenToWork hashtag during their candidate search to easily identify prospective talents that are available and open to job offers. 

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Build and Maintain Networks

As the largest professional network, LinkedIn has always had networking at its core. The platform is designed primarily to facilitate connections between professionals. As a recruiter, you will likely already have an extensive network of professional connections. It’s wise not to underestimate the value that can be unlocked through these connections. We know that building professional relationships and trust takes time. Reach out to people that may be able to point you in the direction of potential candidates, or perhaps put you in contact with fellow colleagues that may have a great candidate in mind for your role.

LinkedIn Groups should also be of particular interest to recruiters. Businesses can create their own groups or join existing groups. They are an ideal place to build new connections that could transform into quality hires. LinkedIn Groups are also great places to facilitate discussions with colleagues that could lead to opportunities to make contact with new talent. 

Beyond building networks, it pays to maintain and nurture existing relationships too. You can’t anticipate the job roles that you may need to hire for down the road, and an old connection could fast-track your search to find the best candidate when the time comes. 

Create a Strong Company Profile

Making it easy for potential candidates to find you and your organization is just as important as actively searching for candidates on LinkedIn. Your company profile is the perfect opportunity to showcase what your company has to offer prospective talent as well as communicate your business values and current job openings. 

To make the most of your company profile, you should strategically use keywords that will align with the candidate’s search criteria and attract the right people for the roles you are looking to fill. A keyword-rich profile will mean your organization is more likely to be found by potential job prospects, allowing them to accurately filter results to best fit their experience and skills.

It’s also important that your job postings are up-to-date and accurately outline the needs of each role. Appropriate keywords are important in job postings too, so ensure you have tailored your job description copy with LinkedIn’s search functionality in mind. 

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Take your Search to the Next Level

LinkedIn offers recruiters a whole suite of tools to improve the efficiency and ease of finding the best candidates and we’ve only touched the surface of the functionality that exists within the platform. 

One way you can level up your search is by utilizing Manatal’s LinkedIn extension and social media enrichment features. The LinkedIn extension assists users in importing LinkedIn contacts directly into their CRM, reducing the need for time-intensive tasks like data entry for individual contacts. Our ‘Social Media Enrichment’ reporting tool allows recruiters to quickly retrieve information from candidates’ publicly available social media accounts. This type of data can help recruiters to paint a holistic picture of each candidate and better assess their cultural fit for a particular role or organization. 

Manatal’s Career Page builder is also perfect for creating career pages easily. The feature allows recruitment professionals to customize content to match their company brand and quickly start receiving applications.

Statistics suggest that there’s a high chance your next quality hire is on the LinkedIn network. We encourage you to meet professionals where they are and leverage LinkedIn as a tool to improve efficiency in finding the best candidates in your next search. 

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