According to the latest figures from LinkedIn, over 20 million professionals use the social media platform in the UK. This roughly equates to around 33% of the population!
Furthermore, the UK is ranked as the fourth most connected country in the world. That's with the United Arab Emirates, Netherlands and Singapore topping the table.
Naturally, this presents a whole host of opportunities for recruiters, HR personnel and businesses to pick up some of the best talent in the country.
LinkedIn is not only relevant, but it can be cheaper than posting on multiple job boards and be perceived as being more personal.
As a social media outlet, you can utilise the connections of your current employees, their connections and their connections’ connections to spread the word about a job opening.
In essence, free and effective advertising.
However, like most means of advertising, there are ways to do it more effectively.
Here are my top tips on how to do this.
1. Set up a free company page
Let’s start off with the basics. If you haven’t already, make sure you set up a LinkedIn company page.
Just like Facebook, you’ll need a hub where you can post relevant content and encourage customers, prospects and everyone in between to like your page.
It’s free and will only take a few minutes.
Recruiter pro tip The little things make a big difference. Don’t put a potential customer, candidate or business off by adding pixilated images to your company page. LinkedIn is always changing their banner and profile image dimensions, so be sure to keep tabs on the latest sizes here.
2. Get your employees connected
Once your page is set up, utilise another free essential by encouraging your employees to like it. This way, they can then share any future job openings that you post.
This will drive awareness and lead to other candidates landing on your company page.
Think of it this way, if you only have a handful of followers to start with, getting one employee to share your job advert to their 400 to 1,000 connections will already expose it to 100x more potential candidates.
And then it only takes one of their connections to like the advert, for it then to be seen by all of their connections – and so on.
3. Target ideal candidates
Now for the fun and highly effective part. LinkedIn offers a lucrative advertising service which you can capitalise on to maximise your job posts.
Unlike Facebook and other social media channels, LinkedIn is used solely for professional use. Meaning you are almost certainly going to reach the right type of audience.
The price of using paid ads on LinkedIn can vary, depending on how many people you want it to potentially reach, how broad/bespoke your criteria is and how much you have to bid to get it noticed.
If you are new to this process, the bidding aspect works like pay-per-click (PPC) where you have to compete against other companies to get your message or advertisement seen by a certain target demographic.
The LinkedIn platform will allow you to break down your desired audience into an array of categories, including education, industries, experience, location and so on. Where the true value lies in LinkedIn ads is the recent development of their built-in algorithm.
This algorithm studies profiles and puts your job advert on their LinkedIn feed if it matches. This way, they don’t have to search for you.
It’s also highly effective at head-hunting candidates who might fancy a change in direction or are open to offers.
As a top tip, if you think you’ll only be recruiting a couple of candidates a year, you should always advertise via LinkedIn on a pay-per-click basis.
Whereas if you are growing rapidly and think you’ll be recruiting for at least 12 new job openings over the space of a year, Job Slots provides excellent value.
For a set fee, you’ll be able to swap one job ad out for another every month, ensuring you keep a reserved spot that will be seen by relevant candidates.
4. Go hunt for yourself
Another top way to effectively use LinkedIn is to tap into the possibilities of LinkedIn Recruiter or Recruiter Lite.
These tools are a fantastic way to source skilled passive job-seekers instead of just looking for the active ones. Think of it as a highly-charged alternative to emailing potential candidates.
You can connect and message highly-skilled professionals without having to worry about GDPR or face the harsh reality of a poor open rate.
Like LinkedIn ads, to choose the right tool for you depends on your recruiting needs. For instance, if you’re planning on posting a series of job ads over the next 12 months, LinkedIn Recruiter is the best option for you.
This package allows you to access every profile (first, second and third connections), use premium search, explore hiring workflow tools, access analytics and send up to 150 InMails to non-connections.
On the other hand, Recruiter Lite is better suited if you’re only going to recruit a handful of people or if the positions aren’t hard to fill. This package lets you send 30 InMails and get unlimited access to all 3rd degree connections.
Warning: LinkedIn Recruiter is fairly expensive. That means it’s really important to track your results and make sure you’re getting a significant ROI. Check this blog out to find out how to measure your success rates properly: 6 Recruitment Metrics to Help You Measure Post-Hire Success
To summarise
The true value of LinkedIn comes when you optimise it on all fronts.
For example, if you just use it sporadically to post only job adverts, you probably won’t get the best results. To truly see the benefits of free advertising and the paid, you need to build a following.
This includes posting relevant content every week, such as blogs, to encourage people to follow you.
Offer professionals value and they’ll reward you with a loyalty (or like) to your page.
However, if you’re a small company, it might not be feasible to carry out such an extensive social and marketing strategy.
In this case, using the Recruiter packages could give you the opportunity to tap into this vast network when you want to fill a vacancy.
Another alternative is to use a recruitment agency. They’ll have all the said tools and resources to do this for you.
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