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With the advent of professional social networks, LinkedIn has become an indispensable tool for recruiters looking to optimize their sourcing efforts.
What is sourcing on LinkedIn? Its advantages and disadvantages? How to do it well?
Whether you’re a beginner or looking to refine your techniques, I offer you a comprehensive guide designed to guide you through the different stages of the sourcing process on LinkedIn, from identifying potential candidates to effectively engaging with them.
What is LinkedIn Sourcing?
For recruiters, sourcing on LinkedIn refers to the process of using LinkedIn, a professional networking platform, to identify, engage, and recruit candidates for vacant positions.
This method is a key element of modern recruitment strategies, especially in areas where the demand for qualified professionals is high.
Here’s what sourcing on LinkedIn typically involves:
- Candidate Search: Recruiters use LinkedIn’s advanced search features to find candidates based on specific criteria such as job titles, skills, location, industry, etc. LinkedIn’s algorithms also suggest potential candidates through features like “People you may know” and “People also viewed”.
- Profile Evaluation: Recruiters assess candidates’ profiles to determine their suitability for a role. This includes reviewing their professional experience, education, skills, recommendations and endorsements, as well as any shared content or participation in discussions.
- Engagement: Once candidates are identified, recruiters often contact them directly via LinkedIn messages (and not only). Engagement can also be indirect, such as liking or commenting on a candidate’s posts to gradually establish a connection.
Pros and cons of LinkedIn Sourcing
Sourcing on LinkedIn is a common practice in the modern recruitment world, offering many advantages but also some disadvantages.
Here’s an overview of the main advantages and disadvantages of sourcing on LinkedIn:
Advantages
- Large Candidate Pool: LinkedIn provides access to a vast pool of professionals worldwide, including passive candidates who are not actively looking for a job but may be open to new opportunities.
- Targeted Search: Advanced search features and filters allow recruiters to precisely target candidates based on specific criteria such as industry, skills, experience, and location.
- In-depth Evaluation: LinkedIn profiles offer a detailed overview of candidates, including their professional experience, education, skills, and sometimes recommendations and projects, thus facilitating preliminary evaluation.
- Employer Brand Building: LinkedIn is also a powerful tool for building and promoting employer brand, allowing companies to share information about their culture, values, and what they offer to employees.
- Networking and Recommendations: The professional network on LinkedIn facilitates connecting with candidates through mutual contacts or recommendations, enhancing candidates’ trust and interest.
Disadvantages
- High Competition: Given LinkedIn’s popularity among recruiters, the most sought-after candidates may receive numerous offers, making it more difficult to capture their attention and stand out.
- Variable Profile Quality: Although many profiles are well detailed, some may be incomplete or exaggerated, requiring thorough verification of the information provided.
- Cost: While LinkedIn offers free features, access to advanced search tools and InMails is limited without a paid subscription to LinkedIn Recruiter, which can represent a significant cost.
- Spam Risks: Mass messaging can be perceived as spam by candidates, damaging the company’s image and reducing the effectiveness of recruitment efforts.
- Platform Dependence: A strong reliance on LinkedIn for sourcing can limit the discovery of candidates outside the platform, where unique talents may not have a LinkedIn profile.
5 Steps to source amazing candidates on LinkedIn:
Let’s get to the meat of the matter. In the next parts, I will be presenting you with the steps you need to take in order to find your ideal candidate!
Each of these steps can be taken and applied as a separate strategy in and of itself. However, I highly suggest you combine them to get the most out of your sourcing efforts:
Step 1: Define your criteria
First things first..
Before you launch yourself into countless LinkedIn searches, one major best practice is to sit down and decide the criteria you’re looking for in the candidate you’re recruiting.
You should have as clear an understanding as possible of the role you’re hiring for.
How many years of experience? Where did they work before? What industry? How old are they? etc.
The answers to questions like these👆 will later become the segmentation criteria you use as filters with your LinkedIn search.
Step 2: Use Advanced Search
The second step is to use LinkedIn’s advanced search in order to find candidates:
Here, you have a plethora of filters:
- Connection levels:
A small reminder 🔔
- 1st-degree connections: These are the people you’re directly connected with on LinkedIn.
- 2nd-degree connections: Include the people who are connected to your 1st-degree connections, but not you directly.
- 3rd(+)-degree connections: These are users you aren’t connected with, but someone in your 2nd-degree network is connected with them.
- Location
- Current & Past Company
- School
- etc.
You can even add custom keywords if you can’t find what you’re looking for in the suggestions by LinkedIn:
Follow the article I linked at the beginning of this section, it’ll show you exactly what to do and how to use Advanced Search on LinkedIn.
Step 3: Leverage Boolean Searches
Using Boolean operators can significantly enhance your recruitment efforts by allowing you to identify candidates with precise qualifications.
If you’re not familiar with it, it can be scary, but Boolean searches are actually quite simple.
Boolean Search is a logic-based search process that allows you to combine:
- Operators: AND, OR, NOT
- & Punctuation: Parentheses () and Quotation marks ” “
… to filter down the results of your search more accurately.
But… why? 🤔
- More Precise Targeting: Boolean operators help you create very precise searches. This is useful to find candidates who have the exact skills you’re looking for.
- Customized Criteria: Boolean searches give you the flexibility to customize your criteria. You can combine multiple skills, specify the level of expertise, and even exclude certain skills, allowing you to fine-tune your search.
I wrote a full guide on how to properly use Boolean operators with Sales Navigator, so follow that for an in-depth analysis of each use case.
This approach not only saves time but also increases the likelihood of finding highly qualified candidates who are actually suitable for your job posting.
Step 4: Utilize LinkedIn Sales Navigator
Using LinkedIn is just the tip of the iceberg… LinkedIn Sales Navigator is where the true power of LinkedIn lies.
And I’m not just talking about getting a premium subscription, I’m talking specifically Sales Nav, not Recruiter Lite, not Recruiter Pro.
I explain in this article my whole logic as to why LinkedIn Sales Navigator is better for recruiting than LinkedIn Recruiter. Ironic, right? 😅
LinkedIn Recruiter vs. Sales Navigator⚡
Here are three compelling reasons why you should choose Sales Nav:
- Price: A professional LinkedIn Sales Navigator license costs 99€ per month, whereas LinkedIn Recruiter Lite costs 154€ per month.
- Better filters: Sales Nav’ has filters that are actually relevant to the job market like Years in Current Company, in Current Role, etc.
- The ability to network: With Sales Navigator, you can find and contact your 3rd-degree connections.
We at La Growth Machine, are convinced that Sales Navigator is simply the better choice for recruiters!
Step 5: Don’t Underestimate the Power of Your Network
Referrals are still one of our best ways of hiring new people at LGM!
Seriously, we even include it in our outreach campaigns:
It just makes sense… You talk to people you trust i.e. your colleagues, oldest clients, partners, etc. and ask them for recommendations, just like the screenshot 👆
People don’t give out recommendations easily, so whenever someone recommends a candidate, you know for a fact that they’re competent because no one stakes their word on someone who isn’t worth it.
Final Thoughts
That was my full guide on how to source on LinkedIn!
We’ve gone through the different steps you need to take in order to find better candidates and detailed them.
You can definitely take each step and perform it on its own because each one really is a strategy in and of its own.
However, the idea is really to combine all of them (yes all) and execute them as a unified strategy. This synergy not only boosts your ability to uncover top talent but also streamlines your entire sourcing process.
So, blend them, tailor them to your needs, and watch your LinkedIn sourcing game soar to new heights.
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