Best Practices for LinkedIn Recruitment Marketing
Even those who don’t own a LinkedIn account can pretty accurately tell what this network is about. And it’s two things:
- Connecting the professionals, and
- Making them more productive.
The first bullet point primarily refers to the topic we are interested in this article - finding the best possible workforce for the best possible job openings.
And there’s no better place to start this journey, than LinkedIn. So, keep reading to learn about those little nuggets of recruiter knowledge you probably see every day, but don’t recognize as such.
Think Outside the Box
No great knowledge and experience is needed for us to understand that to land a proper candidate for a vacant job, we need to have a nice-looking LinkedIn page posting witty and pretty ads for this job. But, what we need is to go one step further.
Many proven techniques and practices are at our disposal when we want to attract candidates for our job openings. Some of those practices include storytelling, gamification of ads, influencers, virtual reality, personalization, and the use of LinkedIn tools such as LinkedIn Live.
Each of these marketing techniques contributed to LinkedIn becoming to this date the most widespread and efficient social network within the employer community (77% of employers use it).
Vlog Storytelling
Other than salary, what is the thing that interests us the most when applying for a job? It’s probably not whether this workplace has a dynamic and vibrant environment, but what this actually means. What’s it like to work down there?
Well, there is a way for us to learn about that in advance. It’s called storytelling through employee vlogs.
You, as a recruiter, can encourage current employees to simply start filming their everyday experiences in the workplace. These video logs should include both important and challenging, as well as mundane and boring pieces of their work day.
You can of course try to make these vlogs cast a light on all the positive aspects of your workplace. But, you shouldn’t ’exaggerate.
The purpose here is not to attract the wrong, but the right people to your firm. The way to do it is to give them a proper sense of what it means to work there. Giving them a false impression could quickly lead to disappointment and a lack of motivation.
The best person for your job vacancy is always the person for whom your company is the best fit.
Gamification of Job Ads
These aren’t for everybody’s taste, but those who take up answering a gamified job advert are usually a 100% perfect fit for your job vacancy.
What’s it about? Instead of running a standard “we offer, we ask” ad, you create an interactive job posting that consists of various challenges, quizzes, or tasks. If crafted correctly, you get two pools of data:
- How knowledgeable are your applicants, and
- How motivated they are.
While assessing their skill set, at the same time the candidate is given a peek into your company's daily tasks. So, when the time for hiring comes, the new employee knows a thing or two about the new work environment.
For example, if you are looking for a software developer, you may want to post an ad with the following segments:
- Candidate should first register,
- Candidates proceed to showcase their knowledge by writing a code, or solving a problem,
- They can check the leaderboard according to their actual success in the previous stage,
- They are informed about all the perks and benefits they’ll earn if they get this job.
LinkedIn Live
LinkedIn offers a wide range of quite useful tools when looking for jobs or candidates. One of those tools is LinkedIn Live.
As the name suggests, it’s a way to connect a candidate with a worker in your company via LinkedIn. This way, potential candidates can interact with current employees, ask questions, and learn about the company and the tasks that lay ahead.
These live sessions can also take a more formal turn in the shape of:
- Panel discussions,
- Q&A sessions,
- Virtual office tours.
The difference to vlog postings is the interactiveness of this medium. Once again, this way we can provide the candidates with a glimpse into the real life of our company. This saves everybody a lot of time, energy, and resources.
Personalized Messages
Once in the process of candidate assessment, we should pay special attention to the way we communicate with them. Those who apply for this vacancy, and particularly those who pass the first, second, or even third interview, are with each stage closer to being our colleagues soon.
A good business treats all those interested in working there with the same respect and attention, within reason. This means that messages during the assessment process should be personalized one way or another.
Even If you reject a candidate, if you do it by a video message, he or she will almost certainly leave with a desire to eventually join your company. Not to mention the praise that will surely follow.
By communicating with personalized video messages, you are making the conversation more personal, expressing gratitude to candidates for wanting to join your firm.
Their response and a general positive attitude towards your company, regardless of the interview outcome, will contribute to building a good reputation for your business.
Also, personal customer relationship management software is a must nowadays. As the name says, a personal CRM is a piece of software specifically designed to put customer communication on a whole different level when it comes to organizing contacts and tracking the correspondence with each.
We cannot overstate the importance of such software in the recruitment business.
Working With Influencers
In recent years a whole new marketing force has emerged. These are the influencers and each social network platform has its pool of them.
Their power lies in the fact that they are more than often - the voice of the generation. Their job is to entertain, inform, and push products to their audience. This can be utilized when looking for new candidates to start working in our company.
Not only would the ad be distributed much further than you could do by yourself, but it is at the same time a big plus to your company’s credibility if you hire a big name in the influencer business to do it for you.
In Conclusion
These techniques we just covered do more than just fill vacancies - they ensure you attract and retain the right talent for your organization.
So, whether you're an experienced recruiter or just starting out, keep in mind that the best candidates are not just found - they're inspired. And the way to carry out your headhunting is to use these best practices we just covered.
Because at the end of the day, the goal isn't just to hire someone, but to create a thriving, dynamic workforce that propels your company forward.