Over the years, LinkedIn has proven to be a valuable resource for both job seekers and employers. After all, it was the first social media site specifically for the professional realm and not the personal realm. That alone made it stand out.
However, as with all social media sites, LinkedIn has continued to evolve over the years, and that evolution has brought with it certain consequences.
Below are three ways that LinkedIn is making it more difficult to hire top talent:
#1—LinkedIn caters to and attracts active job seekers.
This makes sense, of course, because this is LinkedIn’s purpose and its business model. Active job seekers, a group that often includes unemployed job seekers, tend to use LinkedIn to a far greater degree than passive job seekers. This is due in part to the fact that the members of the latter group are already employed, are fairly satisfied with their employment situation, and are more than likely being kept quite busy at their current job. In many cases, top talent is found among the passive job seekers as opposed to the active ones.
#2—Information overload.
More and more people participate in LinkedIn every day, which is good for LinkedIn. The site wants as many users as possible. However, if the majority of those new users are active job seekers as opposed to passive ones (and they would be, if the ratios hold true), then it becomes that much more difficult to first find and then selectively target the best candidates. In this case, more is not always more. More is less, including fewer opportunities to interact with top candidates in meaningful ways. Speaking of which . . .
#3—Top candidates are getting “LinkedIn fatigue.”
Because there are so many people on LinkedIn and because it’s more difficult to connect with top candidates in meaningful ways, it means those candidates are swamped with general requests that are sent to multiple candidates. Not only are these candidates not likely to respond to such requests, but they are also far more likely to get annoyed by them. That’s because the requests are not personal and they are not perceived to hold any value. As a result, top candidates will “mentally shut off” requests they receive through LinkedIn.
Don’t get me wrong. LinkedIn is a great social media site that offers a ton of value for the majority of people who use it.
However, when it comes to locating and connecting with top talent, LinkedIn leaves something to be desired, and that’s why a company’s hiring process must include additional strategies. Those strategies should be centered upon identifying and engaging the best candidates in a way that will entice them to leave their current employer and pursue that organization’s opportunity.
Top candidates must be actively “sold” on why they should leave their current job for another one. They must be actively sold on both the opportunity and the company offering it, and they must be proactively pursued. An experienced recruiting firm in your niche can provide this type of value. They can locate the best candidates, recruit the best candidates, and then sell them on all of the benefits of working for your organization and not somebody else’s.
We help support careers in one of two ways: 1. By helping to find the right opportunity when the time is right, and 2. By helping to recruit top talent for the critical needs of organizations. If this is something you would like to explore further, please send an email to stacy@thevetrecruiter.com.