We all know how hard it is to get noticed on LinkedIn right now. With so few candidates on the job market, you’re just one of hundreds of other recruiters fighting for attention from the same talent.
This means you need to do everything you can to stand out so candidates actually want to speak to you. I’ve been noticing a lot of recruiters resorting to *ahem* interesting tactics to get attention recently. But it’s worth remembering it’s not just about catching their eye – you need to make them actually want to work with you too!
Here are a few marketing tips that will help you stand out and get noticed for the right reasons.
Add a LinkedIn profile video
Did you know you can now make your profile pic a video on LinkedIn? It displays as an image in the feed, but when someone lands on your LinkedIn profile, it plays as a 3 second muted video. When someone clicks, it unmutes and you can play a video of up to 30 seconds.
You might be thinking, but why would I want to do that? You only get a couple of seconds to capture a candidate’s attention and small details like having a moving profile image can really humanize your personal brand.
Here’s a guide on how to add your Linkedin Profile video.
Note: You can only add your profile video using the mobile app, but it’ll be available to view on desktop too.
Include your pronouns
If you’ve still not included your pronouns after your name on LinkedIn, what’s stopping you?
It literally takes 2 seconds to do and can make you stand out against recruiters who don’t fill in this field on LinkedIn.
Using your pronouns on LinkedIn tells candidates that you respect gender diversity. It’s also just becoming the norm amongst younger generations of candidates - including pronouns tells them you ‘get it’. You can add your pronouns in the bio section of your profile.
Improve your LinkedIn company profile
Your personal profile might look great, but if your agency’s page is bland and outdated this is off-putting to candidates. Don’t let a dead company page bring your personal brand down!
Of course, it’s not your job as a recruiter to improve your agency’s LinkedIn page - that’s up to your marketer. But if you think the page needs work, speak up. We all know candidates like to do their research, so it’s important you cover all bases.
As a recruitment expert, you can also offer to create content that involves sharing your opinion on the current state of the market that can be share on the company page. This ensures the company page stays active and gives you an extra platform to increase your reach across the network.
Handle InMails carefully
If there’s one thing that will guarantee candidates ignore you on LinkedIn, it’s spraying and praying with generic copy/paste candidate InMails.
Only send InMails to candidates you’ve already spent time warming up so they already know your name and profile pic (/video!) and carefully craft personalized messages. Otherwise, you’re just wasting everyone’s time.
Also make sure you check your messages for spelling and grammar – unnecessary mistakes can make you look unprofessional.
Ask for LinkedIn recommendations
If you’ve gone above and beyond for a candidate, there’s no harm in asking them to add a testimonial to your LinkedIn profile. This tells other candidates you’re trustworthy and great to work with.
Annoyingly, there’s no click-to-share option for recommendations but you could screenshot it and share as a post with your network.
And if posting a recommendation on LinkedIn seems like too much to ask of your candidates, a short candidate review sent over email or text will work just as well. You can then write it as a quote in your LinkedIn status update and tag the candidate to confirm they said it.
Post with candidates in mind
A lot of recruiters use LinkedIn to rant about things like candidates not showing up for interview or using the hiring process to get a wage increase. This never fails to shock me. Why would you do this if you’re planning to use LinkedIn for recruiting candidates?
You want candidates to feel like you’re on their side and that you care about helping them. That’s not the impression you’re giving off if you’re constantly complaining about them! If you need to rant, keep it off LinkedIn.
Posting personal updates is great as this shows you are human, but just be mindful about what you post, who your readers are and what your end goal is. If there’s any chance your post could get in the way of that goal - even if it’s likely to get you lots of (the wrong) attention for posting it – don’t do it.
