What do recruiters think about LinkedIn?
August 25th, 2010 | by Jason Alba |I’m always intrigued to see how a specific group uses or thinks about a tool.
Job seekers think about LinkedIn a certain way, while wondering if their target audience (hiring managers, business owners, recruiters, HR) will find them and see their stuff in the right light.
Recruiting Tools has a nice collection of LinkedIn posts that are interesting to recruiters.
I have to say, I don’t agree with the concept of many of them… like “get 4 million free contacts on LinkedIn.” That *might* help a recruiter (it might not), but I think most people will get zero value from indiscriminately growing their networks to the million+ range.
Another one talks about a mailing app which, if I understand correctly, violates the ToS of LinkedIn and has the potential to get you locked out of your LinkedIn account.
There are really interesting ideas/concepts in these posts but I’m not necessarily endorsing any of the ideas/strategies presented… I just thought you’d like to see what recruiters think about this crazy/amazing tool.
The article, with links, is here.
3 Responses to “What do recruiters think about LinkedIn?”
By John E. Bredehoft on Aug 25, 2010 | Reply
While some recruiters think in this way and go the LION route, I don’t think that this is common to all recruiters.
Several years ago, I made contact with a particular recruiter (I believe that she found my resume on Monster, if I remember correctly). Some time later, when we both had joined LinkedIn, we reconnected via that service. This recruiter uses LinkedIn as part of her overall online strategy (which includes a newsletter), and while she does have over 500+ connections, she doesn’t seem to be campaigning for the million-connection milestone. Obviously, this particular recruiter leaves a better impression than those who seem to be linking to new people every five minutes.
By Jason Alba on Aug 25, 2010 | Reply
John, you bring up some good points.
I don’t think all recruiters think in the way that that post talks about - there is a lot of recruiter training and info sharing going on… so these are just some ideas, and some of they are kind of out there.
Regarding the network size, I bet the 4M refers to the first three degrees of separation, not the first degree contacts.
Thx for sharing
By Saul Fleischman on Sep 1, 2010 | Reply
When they stop misusing LinkedIn, I believe the reputation of headhunters will improve. At least, they will no longer be the scourge of the near-60M users SNS that LinkedIn is.
As for misuse, I have time to only suggest the two main issues I take with (the vast majority of) recruiters’ use of LinkedIn:
1. They join groups, spam all members - because they have read the TOS-violation how-to advice, “since you can’t message many people, join groups for access to their member-lists,” and then promptly leave the group (because LI limits the number of groups we can be members of) to move on to troll other groups, and spam their entire memberships;
2. I get several requests per month asking that I consider all who I know and recommend just the most-qualified 2-3 people for a position that the recruiter copy/pastes the requirements for. My gripe: So, where is your offer to share your commission, and a contract binding you and your employer, to do so? After all, if I find someone - for you - and you turn around, speak with him/her, introduce them, and… then I made it possible for you to earn thousands - tens of thousands of dollars for your employer and yourself. DON’T OFFEND ME BY SUGGESTING THAT I DO THIS, SIMPLY TO ‘HELP OUT THE APPLICANT!’ What, am I supposed to be unaware of what YOU are in it for…?
** For what its worth, with the two LinkedIn groups that I launched, when a recruiter requests entry, I ask that they speak with me. I need to be assured that they will not misuse our groups.