5 Ways to Identify the Right Candidates on LinkedIn

5 Ways to Identify the Right Candidates on LinkedIn LinkedIn is a social network for professionals. According to Forbes, it is in direct competition with traditional recruiting agencies and a lot of people will turn to the platform as their first point of call when seeking a new career opportunity. This social network site allows members to share their experience, skills and past achievements  on their profiles, and gives employers an opportunity to screen the candidates before they make contact. But how exactly can recruiters identify the candidates theyre after, in such a huge online network? Here are several ways that recruiters can use LinkedIn to find the top candidates: 1. Use LinkedIn groups to build  a community of talent: LinkedIn groups are great for building a community of top candidates. You can post job listings, informative content, polls, as well as questions to encourage conversation. You can open the group to current employees and potential candidates. Don’t just join or create a LinkedIn group so that you can spam the forums with your job postings, however, as you are at risk of irritating other users and tarnishing your reputation. Instead, you should participate and make yourself a valued member, through sharing interesting content that other group members will be interested in and engaging in conversation with  others. Build the trust with your prospective candidates, and it will be easy for you to introduce yourself. 2. Identify  passive candidates: Passive candidates are people who are not actively looking for jobs, however this does not mean that they would not be open to discussing an opportunity if they were to be approached with one. They are usually part of the workforce, which means that they have already proved that they know how to do the job and therefore could be the person that you are looking for. Recruiters can sift through LinkedIn profiles using the LinkedIn groups or advanced search options to identify relevant experience and skills, then connect with these candidates, and lure them in with great opportunities. 3. Do your research: LinkedIn offers tools that allow recruiters to conduct research on their candidates career backgrounds. You can use job description keywords to come up with a list of candidates that possess the required skills and narrow down your search. You  can also check out their LinkedIn endorsements and recommendations to see what others have to say about them. Lastly, you should look for any mutual connections, as these connections can act as your referrals, which will usually help you a lot in the recruitment process. 4. Build your network: Your LinkedIn contacts can be your primary source of candidates. Although a lot of your contacts  may not be suitable for the role you are working on themselves,  you never know who they might know and be able to recommend.  Some of their contacts may be a prefect fit for your job, but you wont know unless you ask. Therefore, having a large network of contacts can be  an extremely helpful tool for you as a recruiter. 5. Ask for referrals: As it happens, top talent tend to know other  top talent, whether it be a past colleague or even a client of theirs. Therefore, reaching out to your contacts to ask them for referrals can be a great way to get in touch with some potential candidates. If you think it is too time consuming to sift through all the LinkedIn profiles out there, there is  recruiting software that aggregates and analyzes information about  candidates on LinkedIn, producing a list of qualifying candidates for recruiters.