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Recruiting is on everyone’s minds these days. Nothing will throw a wrench in your organization’s growth plan like not being able to find the right talent. But let’s be honest – recruiting is hard. And unless your leadership team members have great networks and you have access to an even greater applicant tracking system, knowing where to even find your next rock star employee is really quite challenging.
Many companies are considering LinkedIn Recruiter as a recruiting tool option. I’m probably biased because I work in it every day, but I think it’s exceptional. It has given me open access to do what I love the most – meet new people and uncover why they do the work they do.
But not so fast! LinkedIn Recruiter is not a tool for everyone. In fact, we actually do not recommend it to most organizations that are considering the hefty annual price tag.
If you’re looking at your 2019 hiring forecasting and wondering if LinkedIn Recruiter is a good option for your organization, first think through these important considerations:
Do You Have a Team Member That Can Manage Recruiter?
LinkedIn Recruiter provides open access to the LinkedIn network. With this tool, you will be able to access every member Profile in the LinkedIn universe. It’s a ton of fun, a ton of access, a ton of information and a ton of work. I spend roughly 3-4 hours a day simply searching Profiles on LinkedIn. I’ve honed my system and my skills – I’ve learned Boolean search, I have an intricate structure of projects laid out, I’ve networked nearly 20 hiring managers to these various projects to share Profiles and receive their feedback, I have over 100 InMail templates saved and ready for personalization.
Is there someone on your team who has the bandwidth and the willingness to manage this tool? This person needs to be open to constant learning – just like LinkedIn.com, Recruiter is constantly changing and evolving. This person also needs to highly project-oriented in order to really build out a system that will work for your company. This person also needs to be a good writer. Receiving InMails from recruiters that are poorly executed or generic will stop a promising candidate dead in her or his tracks. It can cause folks to pass judgment about your company before you’ve even picked up the phone.
The bottom line: Recruiter is only worth the investment if there is someone on the team that can work it, every day.
What Types of Roles Are You Looking To Fill?
We’ve worked on a number of searches where recruiting on LinkedIn is actually rather challenging. Most recently, we worked with an agriculture company who had several positions in plant maintenance, machine operation, and plant floor operations open. We searched and searched LinkedIn. The Profiles available in these fields were few and far between. The response rate for those that we did find and reach out to was roughly 20%.
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For professionals that do not check in on LinkedIn or access a computer regularly, the chances of them reading your message and getting back to you during your active search are slim to none.
So, you have to take a look at your industry or the types of jobs that you are primarily focused on hiring for and consider if LinkedIn is the right tool.
Some industries and fields where we’ve experienced longer response times or less activity on LinkedIn are:
Medical
Engineering
Information Technology
HR + Recruiting (Don’t even get me started…)
Manual work or industrial-related roles
I always say that 50% of recruiting is timing. Honestly, I think the other 50% is equal parts project management and people skills. Knowing what tools to utilize and when, having the right strategy in place for starting conversations and following through, and making sure that all of it is happening at the right time is a dance like no other. Carefully consider your options, your budget and, most importantly, your time when you are evaluating LinkedIn Recruiter for your organization.