Recruiting software blog: Tips for staffing and recruiting professionals on maximizing LinkedIn’s sourcing benefits

Staffing and recruiting professionals who are adapting to the changing needs of the marketplace have a wide range of tools and tricks now available to them. The proliferation of social media and the digital presence of most professionals make the task of candidate sourcing significantly different than it was just 10 years ago.

In fact, new technologies are consistently being developed to increase productivity and efficient practices. In conjunction with the proliferation of social media is the advancement of staffing software and recruiting software solutions made available to recruiters. Industry professionals are better able to investigate the qualifications and expertise of a worker online and then integrate this information into an easy-to-read format in a staffing softwaredatabase. The inclusion of easy-to-search terms and profile organization methods used by a staffing software system and mobile accessibility makes this tool a go-to resource for recruiters.

To better optimize staffing software and recruiting software, a recruiting professional can use LinkedIn for improved candidate sourcing. Here are three tips and tricks for maximizing the candidate sourcing benefits of LinkedIn:

1) Understand the power of social media. The benefits of social media can be immense. According to a white paper from Ace Group titled, “Social Media: The Business Benefits May be Enormous, But Can the Risks – Reputational, Legal, Operational – Be Mitigated?”, in less than a decade, social media has taken over the world. The largest social media network, Facebook, boasts more than 750 million people actively using the site. It is expected that the number of users engaged on the website will soon grow twice as large as the population of the United States, which currently hovers at 311 million. For most staffing and recruiting professionals, quality information will be more viable about workers’ histories on LinkedIn. However, it is important to consider the industry a professional is in. Those who are in the media, marketing or entertainment industries are just as likely to have a professional Facebook presence as a LinkedIn profile. Regardless of what industry a person is in, it may be pertinent to consider a precursory look at a prospect candidate’s Facebook profile to ensure there is nothing that may come back to haunt a potential employer.

According to HH Staffing Services, 12 percent of employers have admitted to finding reason not to hire a potential employee because of something they found on a social media site. After a quick investigation of Facebook or Twitter, a majority of the time a staffing professional spends on social media networks doing research will be dedicated to LinkedIn.

2) Check candidate engagement. A staffing and recruiting professional may be looking for a candidate to serve as a manager or director of a department. As a result, it will be important to identify whether a potential candidate fits the mold for the position. Is this person a thought leader within an industry or do they try and spread information around or encourage engagement? LinkedIn Groups allow a staffing professional to track down whether a potential candidate is an active member of an industry community. Those who are on the cutting-edge of a sector are often participating in future developments. Social media allows for an individual to create and spread his or her voice, insight and information about topics.

“The opportunity to interact with anyone, anywhere, anytime is too world-changing to ignore. It has altered the traditional media expectation of consumers listening passively to radio and television broadcasts, or reading newspapers and magazines, with no hope of an immediate interaction. With Social Media, all that changed,” stated the Ace Group report.

Never before have staffing and recruiting professionals been able to evaluate whether a potential candidate is an active member of an industry community. While a lack of presence on LinkedIn Groups may not necessarily rule out a candidate, poor quality interactions could.

3) Align candidate qualifications. Clients of a staffing and recruiting firm want to hire a professional who aligns experience and job performance with their wishes. The prolific use of LinkedIn allows staffing professionals to engage with those who are not job seeking or who have not filled out an application for a position, but who might still fit the needs of the client. By researching and comparing the qualities an employer is looking for with the experiences and skills listed on a LinkedIn profile, a recruiter could find the right person for a job and contact them, instead of being on the receiving end of applications and hoping for a qualified candidate. In addition, the organized and static format of LinkedIn allows a staffing and recruiting professional to quickly peruse the information he or she most desires to determine if greater investigation into an individual is needed.

Remember, social media is a powerful tool and can provide great insight into the personality and experiences of a candidate. But, according to Karen Rehn, owner of HH Staffing Services, it’s important not to write someone off as a wrong match because of a couple social media posts expressing personal beliefs.

“Although employers can certainly gain some insights into the lives of potential new hires by their online profiles, be careful not to judge or to make hiring determinations solely on the information discovered online, unless it is directly related to the qualifications of the individual. Social media can also be misused and judgments can be made that are not correct or even relevant to the individual’s on-the-job capabilities,” said Rehn.

By searching for potential job candidates online with the use of social media, recruiting professionals are opening up their search to a much wider scope. In addition, the influx of information available may reveal information about a potential candidate that must not be used in the hiring process, including religion, race, gender and health status. Staffing professionals will have to carefully determine why and how they are determining the quality of a worker.