If You Were a Recruiter, You’d Do It, Too (LinkedIn, That Is!)

I’m sitting in the Minneapolis airport when this tweet came in from Erin Perry, Student at St. Cloud State University, with this cute doodle. I guess this is something I must have said at yesterday’s talk on campus, “LinkedIn is crack for recruiters”

I told the story of how I had to hire two people this winter and got a great opportunity to step into the shoes of a recruiter.

I had just finished writing a social media job search training curriculum for Portland’s Workforce center (think unemployment benefits) and they wanted me to train it. With my busy speaking schedule I had to decline but didn’t want to pass up a great business opportunity. So I decided to hire two trainers.

This was the first time I took a recruiting role in my own business. And I thought that after years of interviewing recruiters and dissecting the hiring process it should be fairly easy to do. Boy! Was I wrong about that.

I write up a sexy job description, advice I give to recruiters all the time. And send the description to my network for leads, more advice I tell recruiters.

Nothing happens.

So I try again. This time I use a few job boards, something I tell recruiters not to do. And I get a ton of spammy resumes.

Finally, I turn to LinkedIn, pop in a few keywords and find several choice candidates. In a few days, I’d interviewed and hired my team.

In the past I had been critical of recruiters simply doing keyword queries in LinkedIn, and not bothering to build a strong community. Yet there I was doing the exact “lazy” thing I judged recruiters for doing.

And it dawned on me, LinkedIn really DOES make finding the best candidates easy. No wonder recruiters can’t get enough of the network. (maybe it’s also why LinkedIn’s stock is doing so much better than Facebook…)

So first, let me apologize to any recruiter I misjudged. Your job is hard enough. Use what ever tools you can to make it easier.

Second, let this be a lesson to job seekers, there is a reason why you are using LinkedIn, and that’s to make a recruiter’s job easier. Now, with 200 million profiles, having a profile isn’t good enough, it has to be amazing!

So yes, Erin is right, LinkedIn is crack for recruiters. And who can blame them!

So what is one thing you can do to your profile right now to make it easier for those busy, over worked, LinkedIn addicted recruiters to find you?

Comments, tweets and Likes welcome.

Joshua Waldman

Joshua Waldman is an Author, Speaker and Trainer specializing in helping people re-gain control of their careers in today’s economic and technology climate. As the author of “Job Searching With Social Media For Dummies”, he enjoys presenting keynotes and workshops on personal branding, online reputation and advanced LinkedIn strategy. With the mission of helping professionals break away from outdated and ineffective job-searching strategies, he runs CareerEnlightenment.com, a successful career blog. Joshua has been featured on ABC News, Mashable, International Business Times and Simply-Hired. For more information about Joshua or his book visit: http://careerenlightenment.com/book