Blogs by tag - LinkedIn

Social Media Tips to Help Recruiters Earn More

Recruiters suffer so many distractions in their jobs - and they have so little time to make that placement and sale. 56 interruptions a day / checking your emails 36 times an hour! How on earth are you supposed to sell anything? You have more tech than ever, more data than ever, but less time! I have a passion for sharing time-saving and sales hacks to help recruiters save time, so that you can make more of those crucial phone calls and have more interviews.As a recruiter, you will know the importance of using social media as part of your recruitment strategy, but do you know how to do this effectively? And how can you use social media systems like LinkedIn, Twitter, etc… to recruit without spending too much time online and not on the phone? This blog will help you to generate more inbound leads through social media, spend less time on job boards, and more time managing your pipeline.I am the founder of Barclay Jones, have worked in recruitment for nearly 20 years and coach recruitment businesses and their teams to generate better leads, opportunities, and sales. I have compiled my 5 top tips for utilising social media in recruitment. Read them below:How Recruiters Can Generate More Leads from Social Media1. Spend 5 minutes a day cleaning your LinkedIn notifications and checking for leads – this will ensure that LinkedIn only shows you genuine leads, and only shows your face to genuine leads. This is a great hack for improving speed.2. Use LinkedIn SSI to understand where you need to improve your LinkedIn profile – You need to maximise your time, so need your profile and activity to really work, even whilst you’re sleeping.3. This is one of my favourites. Use Awards in your niche sector to generate warm calls – Have a calendar of the awards in your sector and be ready to congratulate/mention the awards in your messages to prospects and clients.4. Grow your connections with content (add a link to one of your blogs in your LinkedIn invites) or find content online which really nails any issues they may have in their jobs/sector. If you have nothing on your blog which does this, give your marketer the Paddington Bear stare.5. Use Calendly to give your candidates and clients the opportunity to fill your diary with calls, then get on the phone!Your time is really precious – you have candidates to source, clients to keep happy, jobs to place, and pipelines to protect. The recruiter tips above should really speed up your day and make you more effective. What tips do you have for using social media to recruit and sell?HIIT Us, Recruiters!Our high intensity interval training - Recruitment HIIT - helps recruiters source, convert quicker and develop healthy pipelines, and helps marketers generate more of the 3Cs. We aim to save every recruiter and marketer at least 1 hour per day - more billing time, more fees!TRY RECRUITMENT HIITBOOK A CALL TO DISCUSS MARKETING TRAININGREAD ABOUT OUR MARKETING TRAINING
A 9-Minute Inbound Sales HIIT for Recruiters Who Need to Get on the Phone

Recruiters! “Get on the phone!” That’s what was said in the early 2000s, and continues to be said in every recruitment office across the globe.But with so many systems (Bullhorn, Adapt, LinkedIn, Job Boards – and a plethora of other systems designed to help you source, scrape, spy), where on earth should a recruiter start? How are you supposed to get on the phone when you are surrounded by tech? Here are some tips recruiters love from my Inbound Sales Training Workshop. How to Get a Recruiter on the Phone – HIIT Them! Recruitment Leaders want their teams on the phone more. Recruiters often want to be on the phone, but need a purpose for the call, and they’re being distracted by systems and software. They need some inbound sales to kick start the sales process.I’ve been talking about HIIT (high intensity interval training) for a while. I am a Joe Wicks devotee, a gym fanatic with a PT who has made me sweat in places I didn’t know I had places. I’m addicted to logging my workouts – my Garmin is one of my most useful bits of tech. As a multi-tasker HIIT is a gift.We use HIIT in our recruitment training to help recruiters get value from their time – we’ve found that this new approach to recruitment training is a massive improvement. You just don’t want to be away from your desk for 4-6 hours. The forgetting curve is a recruiter’s enemy. You need a high intensity, passionate training session to get the blood pumping and the sales coming – and to make your training stick!I have created a 9-minute HIIT for Recruiters to help you get on the phone. It’s nine, 1-minute hacks to drive more purposeful calls. Get in for 08:30, get a strong coffee, warm up, set your watch, and get started!3-2-1 Recruiters! Go!1. Check your LinkedIn SSI (social selling index) – it’s free, and has tips to help you improve your approach. This takes less than a minute. Quickly check – don’t get distracted. Make a note of where you need to improve, then, move to exercise 2.2. Now you need to spend 1 minute attracting attention from the people you want to sell to (and get the CV of). You claim you are a niche recruiter – now’s the time to prove it. Spend 1 minute sharing some content that they are likely to look at, that once they have looked are likely to look at your profile. (And you’ll see them do it and can add to your call list.)3. Repost your top jobs in 1 minute. No-one is staring at your profile all day, so you’re unlikely to wind anyone up by sharing jobs every day. Get cracking – you need job applications and you won’t get them by posting them once and walking away for 30 days!4. Whilst you’re posting content and jobs think about my hack for getting the damn things read and actioned! Spending 1 minute whispering will get you nowhere. Be smart and get noticed – try my LinkedIn posting hacks:“The doctors in my medical community with love this post about the best apps for medical professionals – I especially love # 5”.Trust me, recruiters! This will attract doctors, market your brand and get them wanting to know what # 5 is. Click bait!“This a great job for IT Managers who want to work in a business with the best hardware and a bought-in board of Directors who really get what IT can do for a business”.Recruiters – mention the pain points of your community and they’ll read your job adverts. (More job advert hacks here)5. There’s plenty of things a recruiter can do one-handed ;-)! And sourcing is one of them. You do not need lengthy boolean strings to pickle your brain and test your patience. There are at least 13 places in LinkedIn where you can source with one hand (and two eyes). Try areas like your home page, the pages of your ideal candidates – look for “people like” etc… and who has liked the content of your competitors / clients. These are warm gifts, not cold calls! damn! Get on the phone and source one-handed at the same time… it’s possible!6. Right – I know you think know how to connect, but I have a hack for you to get you super-effective. When you send your ideal connection an invite, add some content which gets your contact hooked. If it’s from your website, rock n’ roll! Ask your marketer to set up something like Leadfeeder – this tells you who has been to your website. You should have a target list of people you want to convert. Send them your content, see if they bite. Add them to your call list if they do. Rinse and repeat if they don’t!Try this TURBO in your HIIT, recruiters! I have worked with a few recruiters using Calendly… a really cute (free) bit of kit that shows your prospects areas of your diary that you want them to book for a call. Send them a link with some call date options. Let them know (think) that that they are in charge. Without lifting a finger, fill your diary with your target’s interview appointments! This is one of my favourite Recruiter Hacks. “Hi Uzma, I’m sending you this link as I have a role that I know you’ll be great at and it has such a great benefits package and training and development opportunities. Feel free to book a call with me at a time to suit you.”7. Spend 1 minute getting under the skin of your prospects. Use Crystal Knows to study the profiles of your prospects, and use the tips it gives you for how to convert them. It’s a scarily accurate profiler!8. We all know that video is the biggest thing to hit the web, and its going to the biggest thing to help you convert. Try Loom to record a 30 second “hi” video that you can send to your prospects.Get an ideal client’s job advert on your screen and talk to them about the candidates you have for them. “Hi Luke, I see that you’re looking for a Project Manager. I work in your field and understand how crucial this role must be fore you. I have currently got 5 candidates that I know would be a great asset to your business.”Get your prospect candidate on your screen and record “Hi, Emily. I can see that you are a ###, and that you get a kick out of ###. I’d love to talk to you about ###…”Sending someone a video about themselves, with your face in the bottom left, and you’re talking to them – they’ll be hooked!9. Spend 1 minute checking your LinkedIn notifications (bell, top right!) Look for birthdays, promotions, who’s viewed your profile, who’s liked your content. All of the stuff you’ve done above will be reaping rewards. Grab these leads. Add this to your call list.Recruiters! It’s not even 09:00 and you’re ready to rock!Get on the Phone and Sell, RecruitersWe deliver these recruiter hacks as part of our Inbound Sales Training Workshops. Contact me if you want to not only get your recruiters on the phone, but also generating some genuine and convertible leads.arrange a call About Inbound Sales TrainingHIIT Us, Recruiters!Our high intensity interval training - Recruitment HIIT - helps recruiters source, convert quicker, and develop healthy pipelines, and recruitment marketers attract, engage, and retain candidates, generate leads, and colleagues (3Cs).TRY RECRUITMENT HIITREAD ABOUT OUR RECRUITMENT TRAININGBOOK A CALL TO DISCUSS RECRUITMENT TRAINING
5 Tips for LinkedIn Jedi Masters (and Recruiters)

Recruiters need more of the 3Cs – candidates, clients and colleagues. Jedi need more rebels to help them defeat The Empire! I often compare Recruiters to Jedi – they both use dark forces to control the universe! And they both have some significant tech at their disposal which can make a massive difference.Follow these Jedi tricks for Recruiting Smarter with LinkedInBeing a Star Wars fan at Barclay Jones may not be a prerequisite, but it goes along way if you hate movies 1-3! And with Star Wars Day being an annual event (like International Recruiter’s Day) I’ve penned some power user (Jedi) tricks for Recruiters using LinkedIn:Get your Profile Headline actually saying what you do rather than what’s on your business card – Recruiter at ABC Resourcing means nothing and is likely to be missed in favour of “Specialist in SAP Recruitment, working across the UK with SAP Contractors” – god forbid you actually come up in candidate searches…!But how could they be jamming us if they don’t know… that we’re… coming?Increase your sector-specific contacts – the global average for recruiters is 650… poor “must try harder”. Spend 10 mins a day looking for the coffees you want to have with clients and candidates and make it happen – don’t just source for the vacancy you have today. Your clients and candidates expect (and pay) you to be better than them.Do, or do not do. There is no try.Running a crap group? Shut it down or gear it up – don’t let it dangle.What a piece of junk!Attract the followers of your clients’ company pages – 71% of them are candidates wanting to work there (according to stats from LinkedIn). Post something there or comment on their content.Travelling through hyperspace ain’t like dustin’ crops, boy!Save your searches (3 for people, 10 for jobs and if you have paid for accounts even more). Get the data coming to you – you’re not measured on how long you spend on LinkedIn!The ability to speak does not make you intelligent. Now get out of here.Then read my Inbound Sales Blog – some flipping fantastic hacks in there for recruiters who want to jump to light speed, but don't have a Millennium Falcon (or a Wookie!)I was going to end this blog with “may the force be with you” but that would be just too obvious, instead,This is Red 5, I’m going in.(If I’m honest, I feel a little dirty now!) “And I thought they smelled bad on the outside.” #StarWarsWe run LinkedIn for Recruiters courses for time-starved recruiters, who think they have a handle on LinkedIn, but want to improve their profile, increase their relevant application response and place more jobs.HIIT Us, Recruiters!Our high intensity interval training - Recruitment HIIT - helps recruiters source, convert quicker, and develop healthy pipelines, and recruitment marketers attract, engage, and retain candidates, generate leads, and colleagues (3Cs).TRY RECRUITMENT HIITREAD ABOUT OUR RECRUITMENT TRAININGBOOK A CALL TO DISCUSS RECRUITMENT TRAINING
How to STOP Using Only 10% of Your LinkedIn Recruiter Licence

Recruiters spend a fortune on LinkedIn - either in time or cash! Both is great if they can demonstrate ROI from LinkedIn. But the recruitment industry is not known for focusing on ROI from recruitment systems - being focused on the placement means that often recruitment leaders are left frowning at end of year at the costs associated with running a recruitment business. This blog highlights some ways to measure the ROI from LinkedIn.We’ve been talking a lot lately about what recruitment leaders should stop doing; how they can STOP messing up their critical job adverts and START getting real, decent applicants, as well as how marketers need to STOP delivering tactics instead of strategy.A theme which links all of this together is my new acronym:FORMO – Fear of Recruiters Missing OutWe have become a generation of tech / app / extension / data proliferation and the process is screwed up. This has never been more so than with LinkedIn Recruiter (RPS Licence). I’ve written before about how recruiters do not expect ROI (return on investment) from LinkedIn. I often see this when I work with recruiters to help them confidently purchase / renew the licence.Yes, they have the LinkedIn Recruiter training to get the ball rolling. Yes, they run the reports on usage… but they often don’t analyse data what I feel is critical to seeing ROI. They also don’t check in with recruiters and how they plan to implement their LinkedIn Recruiter Licence.When I work with recruiters, I’m not into ‘wham, bam, thank you ma’am’ training. I’m into ROI. It’s sustainable and as cheap as chips!70 20 10 – Recruiters Only Retaining 10%?Imagine if you studied your client and talent (and staff) retention figures and realised that you were at 10%? You’d faint, scream, hide… But as humans, there is the theory that we retain 10% of the training we receive and the rest is a split between watching others and on the job challenges. I’ve been in training in some form or another for 20 years and I totally agree with 70 20 10 training this theory.Aiming to Get (at Least) 100% ROI from LinkedIn RecruiterWhy is it that we often only “do the math” at the end of the day? We often use finance figures from previous activity. We look back at last month and what do we do differently this month? We possibly don’t have enough predictive analysis to help us predict success (or failure).I often get told by recruiters that they need help understanding how to measure ROI from a LinkedIn Recruiter Licence and waiting on placement data is too long a wait (AND this assumes either success or failure, rather than a journey which needs constant management and focus).Here are some data points I feel are critical to helping you understand the ROI of LinkedIn Recruiter:LinkedIn Recruitment Company Page Metrics:LinkedIn Company post ImpressionsLinkedIn Company page followersLinkedIn.com Recruiter Profile Metrics:Followers not connectionsNumber of ConnectionsWeekly profile viewsLinkedIn Recruiter (RPS Licence) MetricsLinkedIn Recruiter Usage and Success:InMail Acceptance Rates – I would clarify that this needs measuring against sends/ declines tooActivity – LogIns/Searches/Profiles Viewed/In-mails sent – plus projects and alerts setupRecruitment Website Metrics:Hits to Website from LinkedIn and which pages were the most popularFlow to website and applications – I would add referral rates in Google AnalyticsRecruitment CRM Metrics:Placements – Value by month – have a think about LTV too (life time value)Opportunities – In CRM with LinkedIn as sourceLeads – In CRM with LinkedIn as sourceCandidates / Contacts – source = LinkedInYou don’t need me to tell you that buying a system, especially LinkedIn Recruiter, is not the goal – using it “well” and happily paying the invoice is the goal. Saying “of course we’ll renew” to LinkedIn is a great statement to make, as opposed to FORMO.Your FD telling you that you’ve spent a fortune on tech just to stay the same, is not what you want to hear at year end.Telling your clients that you have every bit of tech going and still you’re having issues finding talent is not a sales pitch, an excuse or even a USP.Stop waiting for placements to happen / not happen before you measure ROI. Habits will have been formed and the system perhaps devalued by then.Start to measure the effectiveness of your LinkedIn Recruiter licence and take action (Recruitment Training) on how effectively and successfully it is being used.READ MORE ABOUT OUR LINKEDIN FOR RECRUITERS TRAININGHIIT Us, Recruiters!Our high intensity interval training - Recruitment HIIT - helps recruiters source, convert quicker, and develop healthy pipelines, and recruitment marketers attract, engage, and retain candidates, generate leads, and colleagues (3Cs).TRY RECRUITMENT HIITREAD ABOUT OUR RECRUITMENT TRAININGBOOK A CALL TO DISCUSS RECRUITMENT TRAINING
“Outrageous” LinkedIn, Bullhorn and Social Media Hacks for Recruitment Directors and Managers!

Recruiters need to be more competitive, and their leaders need them to be super-effective. You can spend a lot of time on LinkedIn but still need to be on the phone to convert. I’ve been asked by cube19 to speak at their User Group Network to share some real-life recruiter hacks to improve talent attraction, lead generation and conversion.The new cube19 User Group Network is dedicated to recruitment agencies that want to get the most from how they use Bullhorn and their data. Ricky from Cube19 says:Come along to the upcoming event in London on 26 March to network, share ideas and discover outrageous hacks to get you working faster and smarter. What are the everyday actions we employ that fuel productivity, brand exposure and agency growth?I will be joining Ricky Wheeler, Sharon Klaver and Brooke Weinberg to talk about how you can raise your profile and attract candidates (including recruiters for your own business) and generate leads more effectively on LinkedIn. As part of the LinkedIn training my team and I deliver, I have some cute hacks to help you use the free and paid for LinkedIn tool more effectively to source and place – and improve your speed and fees.Cube19 Say This About Their Monthly Bullhorn User GroupWith the myriad of tools available to recruiters in this candidate short market, understanding the best tools and techniques to automate processes whilst maintaining a positive brand experience is a clear competitive advantage.In the second instalment of our meetup series, we’ll uncover the real-life marketing and CRM hacks that our speakers employ every day to fuel productivity, brand exposure and growth.We’ll provide food, drinks and the opportunity to learn best practices from recruitment pros and like-minded professionals.On Tuesday 26 March, 18:00-20:30 in London I’m joining:Ricky Wheeler – Marketing Director at cube19Sharon Klaver – Customer Success Manager at cube19Brooke Weinberg – Head of Bullhorn Sales at EbstaWe’re talking about:Raising Your Profile and Marketing Yourself on LinkedInIntegrating LinkedIn with Bullhorn CRM4 Automation Secrets Behind cube19’s Social Marketing Function5 Bullhorn Hacks to Get Your Recruiters Working FasterBook Your Place at cube19’s User Group HereTake a look at cube19’s snazzy video from their launch eventHIIT Us, Recruiters!Our high intensity interval training - Recruitment HIIT - helps recruiters source, convert quicker, and develop healthy pipelines, and recruitment marketers attract, engage, and retain candidates, generate leads, and colleagues (3Cs).TRY RECRUITMENT HIITBOOK A CALL TO DISCUSS MARKETING TRAININGREAD ABOUT OUR MARKETING TRAINING
Recruiters Who Need to Sell More (and Have an Ego) Need This LinkedIn Hack

This LinkedIn for Recruiters hack is perfect for recruiters who need to sell and place more – likely all of you? (And great for recruitment marketers who need their recruiters to improve brand and ROI!) It’s a 1-minute hack to help with attracting, sourcing, engaging and building your recruitment pipeline.Recruiters! Sell and Place More!We run the best LinkedIn Training, and publish regular recruiter hacks to speed up recruitment process and make the time you need to spend on LinkedIn really effective. We often find, though, that recruiters who think that they have LinkedIn “nailed” are missing this simple hack to create a profile to help them easily SELL and PLACE MORE!Perhaps you have lots of connections but not enough candidates or clients?Do you have lots of jobs, but not enough applicants?Lots of applicants, but not enough lovely placements, hence not enough invoices and fees?This LinkedIn Hack will really help you focus your time on what you need to do to get LinkedIn delivering candidates, clients and cash! AND will give you a score to compete over in your recruitment office! (Not that any of you lovely recruiters are competitive!)Oh! And if you’re a recruitment marketer, Lisa (who has an SSI of 80!) asked me to make sure that you wave this hack at your recruiters to help them focus on what you need them to do (she knows your pain!)Recruiters! Score!The LinkedIn SSI will score you in 4 areas, all of which are critical to your pipeline and will offer you some really simple ideas on how you can improveEstablish your professional brand – 81% of your candidates and clients are more likely to engage with youFind the right candidates and contacts – 45% more leads were convertedEngage with relevant sector-based insights – 74% more engagement on your postsBuild relationships – 73% of buyers prefer sales professionals who have been referredWe LOVE this LinkedIn hack, and when show recruiters, it really helps them focus on what they need to do to recruit and sell more, and gives them more of that critical phone and face time.READ MORE ABOUT OUR LINKEDIN FOR RECRUITERS TRAININGHIIT Us, Recruiters!Our high intensity interval training - Recruitment HIIT - helps recruiters source, convert quicker, and develop healthy pipelines, and recruitment marketers attract, engage, and retain candidates, generate leads, and colleagues (3Cs).TRY RECRUITMENT HIITREAD ABOUT OUR RECRUITMENT TRAININGBOOK A CALL TO DISCUSS RECRUITMENT TRAINING
How to Remove People from Your LinkedIn Company Page

I bet you have people on your LinkedIn Company Page who do not actually work for you. Maybe they did, but left. Maybe they never did! Here's how you remove someone from your LinkedIn company page.As a recruiter, you’ll know that the lovely staff number you see at the top of the Company page on LinkedIn is not a true reflection of who actually works there. You’ll go to that space and attempt to source from it. You use it to help you head hunt talent and find new clients. If you’re a recruitment leader you’ll use it to source talent for your own businesses.If you’re arecruitment marketeror recruitment leader you’ll get pretty fed up of the fact that you can’t control who appears on your company page. You can’t stop anyone from adding themselves and you can’t nip into a leavers’ profile and redact your company. We all know that someone’sLinkedIncompany profile is theirs and not even LinkedIn have the right to edit it.Removing Randoms from Your Company LinkedIn PageThere is hope! You can actually get these "random" people who don't work for you removed. It takes a little time and effort, but it’s worth it.I get that this depends upon the size of your business. If you employ thousands of people across the globe, keeping track of your company employees on LinkedIn is a big ask. I’d at least suggest you have a more robust starters and leavers process – and ensure that someone (anyone!) has responsibility for this task. I often go into businesses (either staffing companies or business with in-house recruitment teams) who have no idea who this job would sit with, and the page is out of control.If you come across someone who doesn’t work in your business, you can begin the “removal of randoms” process by clicking this "Removing People from a LinkedIn Page" link.Have a Process for your LinkedIn Company PageThere’s nothing stopping you from having a monthly process for checking your company page and looking for those randoms. Be sure to spend a little time on this. Random staff can make your business look random. They can make your business look bloated with fakers, have sector specialisms which are not appropriate, and overall have a negative impact on your ability to be taken seriously and trade.We run LinkedIn for Recruiter training for time-starved recruiters, who think they have a handle on LinkedIn, but want to improve their profile, increase their relevant application response and place more jobs. HIIT Us, Recruiters!Our high intensity interval training - Recruitment HIIT - helps recruiters source, convert quicker, and develop healthy pipelines, and recruitment marketers attract, engage, and retain candidates, generate leads, and colleagues (3Cs).TRY RECRUITMENT HIITREAD ABOUT OUR RECRUITMENT TRAININGBOOK A CALL TO DISCUSS RECRUITMENT TRAINING
HIIT for Recruiters! 10 One-Minute Hacks for Recruiter Success

This hack is for recruiters who want to make more placements, money, be smart with their time, and impress their bosses (we’re hoping all of you!) And if you’re a recruitment marketer or a recruiting leader, please share this with your lovely teams.—All recruiters want more time and more placements:They want to source fasterThey want to be smarter with their timeThey want to work the right jobsThey want to get their boss off their backs (and impress them)And the Obvious – You Want to Bill MoreBut you get into work, log on and it all goes Pete Tong. When it gets to 5pm you’re logging off (yeah right!) and are nowhere near achieving these critical objectives. But boy, have you been busy (but your boss is still not happy!)Adapt, Bullhorn, LinkedIn, and of course job adverts and eshots are designed to improve speed and cost of hire… BUT – and this is a BIG BUT you are all too often getting bogged down in what you may see as admin and you will need the odd tip / hack to focus you attracting, sourcing, engaging and converting.10 One-Minute Hacks every Recruiter Needs to do to Bill More (and Dump the “Admin”)See this as a HIITs workout for recruitment! High intensity interval training. Each one of the below is a one minute strength exercise – “eat my dust” Joe Wicks!Check three of your clients’ LinkedIn pages and look for jobs / content. You never know what information / jobs/ movers and shakers you may see. You may even see some candidates!Go into your notifications menu on LinkedIn, and check through your contacts. Look for birthdays, movers and shakers, job changes, job anniversaries (people with itchy feet?)Check just one LinkedIn group and see if there are any new jobs / discussions. Stop deleting those group digest emails – they have jobs in!Find 5 contacts on your CRM that you need to get into your active pipeline and send them something from your LinkedIn news feed. Keep in their mind’s eye.Open your task list in your CRM and ensure you tackle key items for today; interview feedback, chasing up CVs sent, organising candidate registrations…Check your LinkedIn home page newsfeed and like / comment / share other’s content (it’s not all about you!) And don’t forget to Press the All Updates filter – you won’t have time to read everything.Nip into the Jobs part of LinkedIn and hunt for jobs that you can work, curse your clients for advertising without you, and curse your competitors for working on. And note, that you’ll even find talent in some jobs (oh my!)Make sure all of the leads you picked up yesterday logged into your CRM ready for today’s business developmentHead into the Barclay Jones blog and read the latest content – grab one idea and work it baby!Nip into one of your target companies on LinkedIn and attract attention by engaging with their latest updates; 71% of people who follow a company are job seekers – so get to the party and show your face on the dance floor.Get focused and have a 10 minute routine to get your day started.I’m off to start point one!HIIT Us, Recruiters!Our high intensity interval training - Recruitment HIIT - helps recruiters source, convert quicker, and develop healthy pipelines, and recruitment marketers attract, engage, and retain candidates, generate leads, and colleagues (3Cs).TRY RECRUITMENT HIITREAD ABOUT OUR RECRUITMENT TRAININGBOOK A CALL TO DISCUSS RECRUITMENT TRAINING
Recruiters! Don’t Expect a Return on Investment from LinkedIn

Recruiters need to make money from LinkedIn - they spend enough time on it! And I am often asked by Recruitment Leaders about whether LinkedIn Recruiter (and other LinkedIn licences) are with the money. So, what kind of ROI should you expect from LinkedIn?Do You Know How Much LinkedIn Is Worth to You?I am a massive fan of Return of Investment (ROI) when using social media, and I’m not talking about silly and vain “like”, “follower”, ”share” metrics. I get why marketers think these are important (I know they are), but the majority of my agency recruitment clients want £$€ stats.Now if you are a good boy / girl, you’ll know that what you find on social media in terms of leads needs to be recorded on your lovely CRM (no excuses, it’s your job!) If I came in to your business now and asked you for report on how many opportunities / leads / placements you’ve made from LinkedIn, would you be able to tell me? And would you know how many grade A candidates you’ve found on this platform? Would you know how much £$€ you’d lose if the CEO of LinkedIn pulled the plug, or worse made your free license totally chargeable?Most of the recruiters I work with are working on that metric (phew), but many more out there are not. They see using LinkedIn as a given; they don’t measure its success apart from the “it just takes one placement…” (yawn… I’ve heard this mantra since the early 2000s when job boards were a massive expense to recruiters, and it didn’t wash with me then).Placement Fees Are Down – Cost of Hire Is UpI have a horrid feeling that just like placement fees have been going down in recent years, the cost of hire has gone up (or worse recruiters don’t know what their cost of hire is). This is not good when you consider that most users of social media are not even paying for the privilege. Worse, they are spreading themselves so thinly with more systems / processes / devices, and their leaders have low expectations of these things that it’s just a total mess and the risks are massive. Time wastage, data loss, brand erosion is common.So, I think that the average recruitment director lives in the following world:Your staff are simply “on” LinkedIn – zero strategy for what they need to be doing with itYou have little idea what activities your staff are undertaking onlineYou are not measuring these activities (input or output)You have a low expectation of their online activityYour CRM has no clue that LinkedIn existsYour risk is massive – lots of recruiters behaving like hair dressers renting chairs, zero visibility over the data they are collecting on your watch and an assumption that your contract covers this (rumour control: the data they collect belongs to LinkedIn, not your recruiters or you!)If this is you, how do you feel about this? Are you are happy or do you think you deserve better? What would you do if LinkedIn removed free licenses? Are you actually in a position to constructively evaluate the value of LinkedIn Recruiter license without focusing on the cost? (Rumour control: I’m totally impartial but am nagging all of my clients to review the LinkedIn Recruiter product so they are better educated and ready for the inevitable change that their business faces).Although I don’t think that recruiters will ever be forced to pay for LinkedIn, I do feel that you get what you pay for. After all, there’s a reason why many recruiters don’t rate free job boards! There are some pretty decent functions in the Recruiter system and they are giving many a recruiter a competitive edge.I think that the era of “free” social media is coming to an end. The time spent on using it needs quantifying (many recruiters measure phone calls, sendouts, in branches, placements). Recruitment directors need to raise their expectations and implement business-process-led activities which are visible, measureable and the output of which belongs to the business. This will not only help the progression of the business in the digital world, but will also help with business cases for the competitive use (not free use) of social tools.What do you think? Are you a recruitment director/manager/leader? Do you have social media “nailed down” in your business? Do you know its £$€ value? What are your expectations of it? Please share your thoughts and comments below.(See part two of this LinkedIn series here)HIIT Us, Recruiters!Our high intensity interval training - Recruitment HIIT - helps recruiters source, convert quicker, and develop healthy pipelines, and recruitment marketers attract, engage, and retain candidates, generate leads, and colleagues (3Cs).TRY RECRUITMENT HIIT FOR FREEREAD ABOUT OUR LINKEDIN TRAININGBOOK A CALL TO DISCUSS RECRUITMENT TRAINING
I’m a Recruiter, I Don’t Ask for Recommendations! (Especially on LinkedIn!)

As a recruiter you need "social proof" - people in your network who think that you're ace and are prepared to recommend that others work with you. You need candidates telling other candidates, and clients telling other clients:that recruiter is really trustworthythat recruiter was really helpful and made sure I was kept in the loop at every stage of the interview processthat recruiter sent me some great candidates - candidates that I could not have found myselfGold dust!Getting a recommendation? Easy peasy!Getting the right ones that will elevate your LinkedIn profile to the top of searches, get your profile looked at by more of your ideal clients and candidates, getting it seen by Google - that's what this blog is about.Recruiter! Be 1 of the 90%9 out of 10 purchases happen because of peer recommendations. You may think you have LinkedIn ‘nailed’ – lots of connections, the odd status update and countless job updates, and lots of time each day trawling for new candidates… sound familiar? You may even think you have some great testimonials on your website...Well, it’s definitely a start but what would REALLY thrust you into the LinkedIn / Google limelight in front of current and prospective connections (candidates and clients)?Well how about a nice big, fat, juicy recommendation, full of persona-led keywords and content which demonstrates your niche and how you take away the pain?LinkedIn Recommendations, Skills Endorsements, Case Studies and TestimonialsFor those that don’t know, a LinkedIn Recommendation is not one of those one-click-skills-endorsements. A LinkedIn Recommendation is found in your LinkedIn profile (below your current and previous roles) and is usually written by someone that has had a great experience of working with you – NOT a random work colleague! As nice as it sounds, the image of you sat on a colleague’s lap whilst stroking each other’s hair is all I see when you recommend each other…A recommendation is social proof of you. It is proof that you are a good recruiter and that you deliver solutions to candidate and client pain.Plus, back that up with a decent keyword stuffed case study - AGAIN what the pain is and what you did to take the pain away...Grow a Pair and Ask, Recruiters!You will find that most clients and candidates will say they will recommend you but then never find the time to actually do it. No problem – you write it!I am of course not recommending that you blow your own trumpet – the client and candidate need to tell you / remind themselves of how awesome you really are! Ask them for their help (they’ll say yes!) and then ask them these 3 simple questions over the phone when they are in their happy place (normally when they have both accepted each other and have big smiley faces):Why did you work with me?How did I help you?Would you be happy to work with me again?Draft a very brief 2-3 line paragraph and email it back to the candidate/client via the ‘Ask to be Recommended’ button on their LinkedIn profile.When they receive the LinkedIn message it will be clear that all they have to do is copy the text, hit ‘Recommend’ button, paste the text and hit ‘Send’. Simples!Recommendations = MASSIVE Technology Explosion!As soon as your contact adds the recommendation it is visible in their timeline, waking up the contact database of your contact (and these people are likely to be just like them…)The recommendation also appears in your timeline (if you remember to accept it when you receive the LinkedIn message). Boom! Your contacts are woken up too! Your profile views will increaseYou will have excuses to get back in touch with people, grab a phone call / coffee / job / CVYour face will be forever on the person who has recommended you LinkedIn profile (and their face on yours!)So recruiters. Don’t be afraid to ask for a recommendation you deserve it! Promise yourself to ask for a recommendation from the candidate and client on your next placement – just do it! And then rinse and repeat.My final tip? Timing is key – ask for it straight away!HIIT Us, Recruiters!Our high intensity interval training - Recruitment HIIT - helps recruiters source, convert quicker, and develop healthy pipelines, and recruitment marketers attract, engage, and retain candidates, generate leads, and colleagues (3Cs).TRY RECRUITMENT HIIT FOR FREEREAD ABOUT OUR LINKEDIN FOR RECRUITERS TRAININGBOOK A CALL TO DISCUSS RECRUITMENT TRAINING
Recruiters: Don’t Expect a Return on Investment from LinkedIn (part 4)

LinkedIn has changed… recruiters are going mad! And at a time when Trump and Brexit are causing a storm online… Well, these things happen in threes!Or do we need some perspective?So, the web (and every meeting I am in with recruiters) is full of:“how dare LinkedIn make these changes?” “What a disaster… I want to boycott LinkedIn!”Now, I’m not deriding the fact that LinkedIn’s changes have caused disruption in the recruitment market, but to be fair, this has consistently been the case and has also been a while in coming.Some perspective about LinkedInHow about we stop and think about something…?Both you as a recruiter and your lovely clients have access to LinkedIn – and your clients often have more budget to spend on a LinkedIn Recruiter Licence.So why are you stressing about the playing field being levelled out, and not being resourceful and looking for opportunities to be competitive?As a recruiter you’re a problem-solving-resourcer-negotiator-clever-being… Oh! And the technology exists for you to create talent pools, warm candidates lists, market your niche…Your recruitment CRM is a pretty critical (and often undervalued) bit of kit.3 really good differences between your recruitment software and LinkedInOnly you have access to your recruitment CRM data. Why are you not seeing this as an opportunity to get your clients queuing up and pay through the nose for your warm talent?When you come (or your recruitment boss wants) to sell the business, your recruitment CRM will be valued (or laughed at by the auditors)… No-one will be looking at your LinkedIn network and valuing it… If anything they will look at your empty/out of date database and frowning as to why you have spent so much time not creating a talent pool that you can sell.Creating a warm list of candidates and clients, that hear regularly from you, that value you, that look at your jobs, that respond to your emails and calls – the fact is most recruitment CRM do this for breakfast (and if yours doesn’t… time to change?) and the same for clients and leads/opportunities – this is what clients and candidates want – a speedy recruiter who doesn’t need to advertise/source… perhaps (for those that can remember) like recruitment used to be?Not burning your LinkedIn bridgesNow, I am a massive fan of LinkedIn. Anything that helps me improve my brand, attracts talent and clients for my recruitment clients, and speeds up sales conversions – I’m in… and paying for it… well, nothing in life is free.I don’t fill up with petrol and drive off… I totally see the value of Tesco and don’t expect a free trolley of shopping either. Plus, spending lots of precious time using free stuff is crazy… especially when the average recruiter screams that they have no time to talk to clients and talent.Don’t expect ROI from LinkedInI have talked before about how recruiters don’t expect ROI from LinkedIn:Recruiters: Don’t Expect a Return on Investment from LinkedIn (part 1) – aka – do you know its value?Recruiters: Don’t Expect a Return on Investment from LinkedIn (part 2) – aka – do you know its cost?Recruiters: Don’t expect a Return on Investment from LinkedIn (part 3) – aka – Is LinkedIn Recruiter Really that Expensive?Are recruiters finally expecting a return on investment from LinkedIn and that’s why they’re edgy?HIIT Us, Recruiters!Our high intensity interval training - Recruitment HIIT - helps recruiters source, convert quicker, and develop healthy pipelines, and recruitment marketers attract, engage, and retain candidates, generate clients, and colleagues (3Cs).TRY RECRUITMENT HIIT FOR FREEFind out how we help recruiters and recruitment leaders get ROI from their time on LinkedInBOOK A CALL TO DISCUSS RECRUITMENT TRAINING
Recruiters: Don’t Expect a Return on Investment From a LinkedIn Recruiter Licence (part 3)

Lots of recruiters have a LinkedIn Recruiter Licence. Indeed many of my clients do, or are considering investing. I’ve written several blogs about recruiters not “getting” the value of LinkedIn:Recruiters: Don’t Expect a Return on Investment from LinkedIn (part 1)Recruiters: Don’t Expect a Return on Investment from LinkedIn (part 2)And now I’m about to go into a 3rd episode and talk specifically about LinkedIn Recruiter. (And if ever there was a time to discuss the placement of the colon.)Having a LinkedIn Recruiter licence – Just like having a PorscheWhen I work with recruiters on their social media strategy I tend to get a bit car mad (Lewis Hamilton has done me some favours this year). I often equate having a LinkedIn Recruiter Licence to having a Porsche. I’ve done my research too and many recruiters would love (or indeed have) a Porsche.There’s going to be all sorts of Porsche and car analogies in this blog. Tune your valves and check your mirrors!Imagine this Porsche was a company car. The recruiter I worked for in the early 2000s had one – you “won” it for a month if you smashed target.Imagine if you had a company Porsche:You’d have a flipping huge smile on your face if you got to drive it (but I rarely see recruiters look delighted when they’re using LinkedIn Recruiter)You wouldn’t just give it to your mates to rag (but you sometimes share a LinkedIn Recruiter licence)Your boss wouldn’t let you get in unless you’d got a valid driving licence (but there are 1000s of recruiters using the licence and have not been trained to use it, and no-one is studying their usage reports and holding them accountable for their use of the system)You’d be expected to keep it clean (but any recruiters are not saving searches, setting up alerts or using projects)You’d win the race, rather than draw with the freebie LinkedIn.com recruiters (but I still see a lack of revenue generated by this licence, and a “it’s ok to break even” approach by some who are not seeing or expecting value)LinkedIn Recruiter: Get out of the Porsche and “get on the phone”Technology being disruptive is old news. Never before have the technology options which the average recruiter has access to so paralysed the recruiting process. Recruitment leaders are hoarse with “get on the phone”.When it comes to LinkedIn Recruiter this is often the norm in a recruitment firm:Not enough licences to go around and they are shared amongst the teamThe “all the gear no idea” approach to the licence – barely scraping the surface of what this licence can offerLots of searching and InMailing, not enough clever use of the features such as Update Me, alerts, projects…Nowhere near enough training on the productThe recruitment CRM barely getting a look in on the talent contacted / placed via the LinkedIn licence. Hence no real understanding of the source of the fee…and with many recruiters handing the licence around like a tray of chocolates after dinner there’s not enough buy-in to the product for it to make its mark.Then the renewal comes around and some recruitment leaders renew due to fear of missing out rather than tangible return on investment.Buying a Porsche seems a lot more exciting!Breaking even does not buy you a Porsche!I also regularly hear that a great measurement of LinkedIn Recruiter is “breaking even”. As long as the recruiter makes a placement, and hence paid for the licence, then all is well with the world.This clearly goes against the average recruitment leaders’ approach to making money. Breaking even does not buy you a Porsche!The strapline on the LinkedIn Recruiter landing page on LinkedIn’s website is “Find and Engage the Best Talent”. I would imagine if Porsche could be that direct, they may use the same strapline for their cars? 😉Indeed many recruiters have that goal day-to-day, and in the pub on a Friday / Saturday night.How to treat your LinkedIn Recruiter licence like a company PorscheGive it to the people who demonstrate that they deserve it – not simply because they have asked for it. (Want a Porsche? Earn a Porsche!)Train, train, train. (Driving test / licence)Set goals for how it should be used – never assume that if you give someone some tech they’ll organically slot it in to their already stretched workflow. (Highway code)Study usage reports monthly and either nip bad behaviour in the bud with training / alignment of expectations, or take the licence away. (Servicing / MOT / Mileage check).How are they currently using social and sourcing tools? If they are pretty shoddy and don’t connect to the CRM enough, having a LinkedIn Recruiter licence won’t change their behaviour. (Are you about to give your Porsche to a recruiters with a bashed-up, dirty car?)Get users to sign a contract with you – you wouldn’t hand over the keys to your company Porsche without s signature and a sanity / driving licence check.The LinkedIn Recruiter licence is often seen as an “expensive” bit of kit, but it is a tiny fraction of what the average recruitment leader spends on their IT / advertising / salary budget.Having higher expectations of what a LinkedIn Recruiter licence can do, and asking your team to deliver, is crucial if you are to engage well with this product and not just see it as an inevitable cost of running a recruitment business. The investment is not just about the invoice you pay. It’s the time you spend on it and whether you can really attribute an improvement in your bottom line to it.Using it well could even help your recruiters buy that Porsche (perhaps even a 918 Spyder.)(See part four of this LinkedIn series here)Get ROI from LinkedInWe run LinkedIn for Recruiters courses for time-starved recruiters, who think they have a handle on LinkedIn, but want to improve their profile, increase their relevant application response and place more jobs.HIIT Us, Recruiters!Our high intensity interval training - Recruitment HIIT - helps recruiters source, convert quicker, and develop healthy pipelines, and recruitment marketers attract, engage, and retain candidates, generate clients, and colleagues (3Cs).TRY RECRUITMENT HIITBook an appointment in my diary to discuss marketing ROI BOOK A CALL TO DISCUSS RECRUITMENT TRAINING