LinkedIn has been experiencing considerable growth as more recruiters are using this platform and more executives are putting their information on LinkedIn. Recruiters use LinkedIn 93% of the time to find candidates and 77% of all job openings are posted on LinkedIn; 48% of recruiters use LinkedIn exclusively. Recruiters are actively building their followings with the average recruiter having 616 connections on LinkedIn. And, that is only going to increase with the advent of LinkedIn Recruiter which is their flagship product and generated half of LinkedIn’s revenue in the first quarter of this year.
The advantages for recruiters are significant:
- They have access to all of the individuals who are on LinkedIn
- They can view profiles and follow executives behind a firewall that cannot be seen by executives
- LinkedIn provides a very well-designed database for tracking their assignments, productivity and potential candidates.
Thus, blue chip executive recruiting firms are beginning to turn to LinkedIn Recruiter exclusively as their CRM and internal recruiters are finding that they can run a search without having to hire an external recruiter. One example is the experience of an executive who I spoke with recently. He was looking for a President position in the retail industry and was contacted by an internal recruiter using LinkedIn Recruiter. He got the job. In addition, we have heard recently from our clients that they are being told by recruiters to not email their resume to them, but that the recruiter will just get their resume from LinkedIn.
So, what are the most basic implications of these changes for the executive who is engaged in a job search?
1. Join LinkedIn – a basic, free account is enough for most people.
2. Make sure that you have a complete and current profile and summary that reflects not only your background, strengths and career interests, but uses search terms that are common for your industry.
3. Make your contact information easy to find.
4.Upload your resume so that potential recruiters can have a more formal background document to review and save.
We believe that LinkedIn will only become more important for executives who want to improve their career management, so don’t delay … get on LinkedIn today!