I was approached a while back by Suzanne Shinnie, Vice President of JCI Edinburgh about the Social Media Academy JCI wanted to run in collaboration with Civic, a leading Digital Agency based in Edinburgh. At that time, I was unable to find time to help organise the event, but was given the opportunity to speak at the event on how employers use LinkedIn, what they are looking for and how that differs from direct recruitment and give the insider tips to get the job or the staff you want.
In both my previous and current recruitment roles, Linkedin has been an invaluable tool to search for and communicate with potential candidates and clients and I am more than happy to give advice and tips on how to utilise Linkedin to improve recruitment from a company point of view and for individuals to build their personal brand to become attractive to potential employers.
Before we look at how you can improve and build brand ME, it’s worth looking at Linkedin key stats:
There has been real hype around the growing number of employers using social media to connect with recruits and to gather additional information about potential candidates. It is true that linked in users are not joining to look for a job per se, but to interact, ask questions, build your profile and essentially market brand “me”. However, the implications and scope this has for recruitment is endless.
Despite the evidence presented, I’m not saying by any means that Linkedin can be a replacement for traditional recruitment and would still very much encourage job seekers to look at ads in newspapers, on job sites and through agencies, but I would highly recommend using Linkedin as an additional method to secure your next role.
One of the biggest advantages of LinkedIn over traditional recruitment is the fact that people who are not necessarily looking for work but are in demand are picked up.
“Only 10% to 20% of LinkedIn members are actively looking for work, but businesses that are looking want access to 100% of members”, Ariel Eckstein, Managing Director, Linkedin, European Recruitment Services.
The Recruiter & Brand ‘ME’
No matter how happy you are in your current role, chances are that at some point in the future, we are all going to be looking for a new role and fresh challenge. Traditionaly, job seekers would begin their search by looking at newspaper ads, classifieds, shop windows and use Recruitment Agencies. More recently, job seekers are looking at online job boards, uploading their CVs and advertising themselves using Social Media. JCI Edinburgh and Civic have opened the Social Media Academy to educate and encourage people to use social media to build their personal and company brands using a variety of social media.
Linkedin is the place to go to build your personal brand, advertise your services and connect with useful people within your industry. It’s therefore an obvious place for employers to go when recruiting for potential candidates and vice versa. The cartoon below may seem far fetched, but it does illustrate how Linkedin can work. Your profile can basically act as your CV and so long as you ensure all your details are kept up to date and are visible, then it can be out there working for you and it may be that a recruiter will stumble across it and get in touch about potential job opportunities without you having to do very much at all.
Linkedin differs from the likes of Facebook and Twitter in that it is essentially a ‘professional network’ as opposed to a social network, with over 75 million members, Linkedin truly is the largest online database of professionals. A profile is created approximately every second on LinkedIn. It is therefore no surprise that it is now the most popular employment/ training site, but also the most popular social media network for recruitment.
Below are some helpful tips on maximising Linkedin for jobs.
Top 5 Tips to Finding a Job on Linked In.
1. Build your Profile
If an employer or recruiter is searching Linked In for potential applicants, they will not waste their time (or money) sending inmails or referrals to people who have no contacts, a hidden private name and no information on their profile. Aim to get your profile status to 100% by building a professional and informative profile and then demonstrate that you are using the site by joining discussions, updating your status, connecting with people.
2. Make your Profile Available
There are an unbelievable amount of profiles on the site that have their interest set to “career opportunities” and then have their privacy settings on maximum. How can anyone inform you of career opportunities if you do not allow them to connect with you?
3. Build your Network & Personal Brand
Promote your personal brand & build your connections by joining groups, answering questions & promoting what you know. If a recruiter is looking at two similar profiles and one has shown in depth knowledge of the industry by answering questions, this candidate is going to stand head and shoulders above the other one.
4. Engage with Employers and Recruiters
Find out who they are & where they are, become one of their contacts, join their company or industry groups. You will usually find that most smart recruiters are Open Networkers and are willing to connect and with most people as it widens their network and helps them too
5. Don’t Give Up
Linked In is another tool to help you find a job and help promote yourself to future employers. Keep active and keep up the momentum. The more you use the site and the more you engage with your connections the more you will get from it, hopefully the job of your dreams!
just be careful with some recruitmet agencies because some of them are scammers too”