Without question, having a large LinkedIn network is a competitive advantage for any recruiter working on hard-to-fill positions and hard-to-find candidates. This advantage is lessened dramatically with LinkedIn Recruiter, since it includes complete visibility to the 70mm+ people in their network. Since this full-visibility product is off-limits to TPRs, it levels the playing field somewhat for corporate recruiters. But this is not as significant a disadvantage as it would seem to those of us who have to find top candidates the old-fashioned way — networking. Getting pre-qualified referrals from people who will call you back is the real secret of recruiting passive candidates.
With this in mind, I’d like to offer a few of my favorite passive candidate recruiting secrets.
What’s great about LinkedIn and its Recruiter product is it gets you in the major leagues on day one. This is an invaluable gift. Regardless, since everyone will soon have access to the same information, your ability to convert a list of names into hot prospects and great hires is the real difference-maker. In my mind, this is the essence of great recruiting.