Sourcing candidates on LinkedIn has become a reflex for more and more employers.

A favorite social network for professionals, LinkedIn has a CV library that can be consulted free of charge and at any time. According to figures from LinkedIn, 70% of users are passive candidates who remain open to new opportunities.

This is why it is vital to put in place a real sourcing strategy to attract the best talent.

Here are 5 tips to help you source candidates on LinkedIn.

What is candidate sourcing?

Candidate sourcing consists of identifying suitable profiles for positions that your company offers. It all starts with the determination of these precise selection criteria .

It is the job of the company’s HR department to define these criteria:

• Level of diploma and technical skills sought

• Soft and hard skills

• level of experience

Some even go so far as to establish a candidate persona in order to have a more precise idea of the profile sought.

Once the selection criteria have been determined, the candidates are then sourced using the web or recruitment services .

In this case, more and more recruiters go directly to LinkedIn to source candidates. The main advantage is thefree access to users’ CVs.

Candidates are then pre-selected and contacted.

This procedure aims to refine the list of potential candidates and then lead to the recruitment of the rare pearl.

Tip 1: Work on your employer brand

To source on LinkedIn, the first thing to do is to optimize your profile in order to attract potential candidates. In a world of strong competition on the job market, it is indeed necessary to know how to seduce the best profiles because competition is fierce on the market.

Optimize the profile of the HR department

Businesses usually have a business page. The best way to approach a candidate, however, is to approach them via a personal account. Candidates generally appreciate talking to a person rather than a company page.

Belonging to the company must however remain obvious at first glance. The HR profile should not look like any personal profile on the platform.

The HR profile can notably stand out with the banner . This must reflect not only the brand image of the company but also its targets.

Composed of good quality visuals or images, the banner must indeed be in accordance with the graphic charter of the company. It must also align with the company’s values .

A good example is this recruiter from Hiring for Good, whose graphic charter is consistent with the type of people sought: talents with a desire to have a positive impact 🌿!

Create a business page

A company page is the second lever to promote your employer brand on LinkedIn. To do so, it must provide the following information:

• A profile picture

• A banner

• A description of your activities in the “about” tab

• Showcase pages

• Company news

• Useful information like address or number of employees

• A link to company employees on LinkedIn

Interesting for prospecting new customers, the company page is also very useful for recruiting. A candidate interested in your offer will certainly seek information about your establishment. You must therefore arouse his interest, make him want to join your team.

Tip 2: Automate your research with a specialized tool

All recruitment generates financial constraints but also time to devote.

In parallel with its primary function as a LinkedIn automation tool, Leadin allows you to automate your sourcing of candidates.

By using social recruitment and multi-channel email, Leadin allows you to build a database of profiles according to the selection criteria that you will have defined beforehand.

Tip 3: Use the right keywords

Once you have a clear idea of the profile you are looking for, you must use the relevant keywords to optimize your search.

The LinkedIn search bar allows you to find people, content, companies or jobs using relevant keywords.

For example, if I type designer, I have access to the profile of more than 8 million designers on LinkedIn.

Then, it is possible to refine the results with a lot of criteria:

• The degree of relationship with you

• The current company

• The place

• school

• Profile language

• Etc.

Playing with filters is an excellent way to precisely target the profiles you are looking for, but it is manual and time-consuming.

So we come back to automation tools like Leadin.

You can also fully automate the sourcing of your candidates .

Identifying the right keywords will therefore allow you to obtain the most relevant search results possible and to find the rare pearl.

Indeed, knowing that LinkedIn has 810 million users, it is essential to get straight to the point! 🎯

You can also broaden your searches with synonym keywords or anglicisms .

For example, to search for a web editor, you can type ” content manager” or ” copywriter ” for the English version. It is also possible to use abbreviations such as ” redac web ” for example.

Tip 4: Leverage Boolean Search with LinkedIn

To optimize your search and to speed up the process, LinkedIn has implemented a practical feature: Boolean operators. These are conjunctions that allow you to combine several searches at once to arrive at precise and refined search results.

On the free version of LinkedIn, you can combine up to 6 keywords .

Here are the most used Boolean operators:

• NOT: this operator is used to exclude or set aside skills or specific titles

• AND: allows you to add titles or skills to your main keyword

• OR: To include complementary skills or synonyms

• Quotation marks: for a precise search while strictly respecting the spelling indicated.

To take the example of the web editor, you can type “ web content editor ” OR “ copywriter ” AND (SEO OR Natural referencing).

It really is one of LinkedIn’s most powerful and useful features!

Tip 5: Use a good teaser message

The first contact with the candidate is important. Since this is about giving him a good image and getting to know him. You must therefore know how to make a good first impression while arousing his interest. We explain how to do it well on LinkedIn.

Make sure the candidate matches your criteria

To avoid wasting time and not wasting the candidate’s time, find out about his profile. Make sure it fits your selection criteria before you start the conversation.

Personalize your message

By clearly naming the candidate, you’ll be more likely to pique their interest and get a response.

If you use a tool to automate your recruitment, you can personalize your messages by adding variables or gifs.

Be brief

For this first contact , you don’t need to stretch yourself too long. Write a short and clear message so that the recipient understands your message at a glance. 2 or 3 sentences will be enough to briefly present your company and clearly explain your interest in its profile.

If you get a response, that’s where you can expand better on a phone call.

In conclusion, LinkedIn is a real talent pool. Unfortunately, most of them are already employed in a company. This is why it is necessary to adopt a real proactive strategy to be effective in the sourcing of candidates on LinkedIn.