With some 800 million users spread across 200 countries, LinkedIn is the largest networking portal for professionals and organizations. The company claims that at one person gets hired through LinkedIn every eight seconds.
According to LinkedIn figures, some 25 million professionals find jobs through the portal while two million companies choose LinkedIn as their recruitment channel of choice.
The above figures clearly indicate that hiring through LinkedIn is on the rise. And this poses a major challenge to jobseekers.
The challenge is: How to reach out to a recruiter on LinkedIn? How to message a recruiter on LinkedIn and get response?
Reaching Out v/s Application
This is where most excellent candidates fail. Instead of reaching out to a recruiter, they merely send an application with a covering letter and Curriculum Vitae (CV) or Resume.
Therefore, I will explain the difference between the two.
Messaging a recruiter with an application and CV or Resume is a standard procedure that any jobseeker has to do. In fact, recruiters expect a proper application and there’s nothing new about it.
Reaching out is a skill. When you reach out to a recruiter, you’re actually addressing their particular need and indicating your willingness to offer your services. It implies you’re interested in the job as a mission and not merely for employment.
How to Reach Out to LinkedIn Recruiters
This brings us to the vital question, how to reach out to recruiters on LinkedIn. Actually, it’s not difficult, if you’ll exert a little effort in understanding recruiter’s need and addressing it. There’re five different ways to reach out to LinkedIn recruiters.
In this article, I will briefly discuss these five ways to reach out to recruiters on LinkedIn.
1. Stand Out Among the Crowd
Obviously, there’ll be quite a few competitors for the job with all sorts of impressive qualifications, experience and skills. Therefore, the best way to reach out to a recruiter on LinkedIn is by making your application stand out among others.
How does one do that?
Fairly simple. Start your application covering letter and CV or Resume with something about your profession that would draw immediate attention. It could be something from the latest news and developments of the industry or some new rules, regulations or even a process.
Starting an application, Resume in this manner usually work well. You can also send LinkedIn note to recruiters. The recruiter will usually read your CV or Resume with greater detail and view you in different light than other applicants.
Such opening of applications, Resume also impart an excellent impression. You’re letting the recruiter know that you’re aware of the latest developments and take the career seriously.
2. Address the Recruiter’s Needs
One more way to message a recruiter on LinkedIn is by addressing their specific need for your skills. Use this method only if you’re sure about meeting every requirement of the employer. Else it can impart a poor impression and disqualify your application instantly.
If we look at most LinkedIn job posts, one thing would be obvious. They’re rich in specific details. The recruiter usually specifies everything such as key skills they’re looking for, job description, roles that an incumbent is expected to fulfill and the necessary experience and qualifications.
In brief, LinkedIn job posts are explicitly clear. They leave no room for ambiguity. In the same spirit, your application and Resume should also be very precise and to the point.
Match your skills, experience and qualifications with those a recruiter is looking for. To do so, it’s important to comprehend fully what the recruiter exactly needs. And go about addressing those needs, point by point.
3. Use Common Ground
A major advantage with LinkedIn job posts are the employer or recruiter generally doesn’t remain anonymous. Therefore, it’s possible to get a clear idea about the employer by doing some research. And once you know more about the company, it becomes very easy to find common ground.
I use the term common ground to highlight similarities between your career goals and the company’s business objectives, your skills and their needs as well as the necessity to grow together.
Point out on your covering letter that both the company and you have a lot to gain from one another, if they hire you. When you create a common ground, you’ll be actually reaching out to a recruiter. The employer needs people that mean business and you mean business too.
4. Common Connections
If you and a recruiter has common connections, it’s best to pitch those. Usually, LinkedIn recruiters will readily accept and assess your application because common connections help build trust.
In most cases, a common connection also overrides the need for providing references to a LinkedIn recruiter: the mutual contact also plays this role.
Furthermore, you can leverage a common connection to your advantage if that person has worked at the organization or holds a responsible position there.
When a recruiter checks your LinkedIn profile with the application, they’ll clearly see one or even more common connections, which can help as a reach out resource.
5. Appeal a LinkedIn Recruiter
Generally, the appeal is a technique that helps fresher and first-time applicants get jobs through LinkedIn. Obviously, a fresher wouldn’t have as many professional connections on their LinkedIn network.
However, a fresher, you can link up with former faculty members, batch mates and people with whom you’ve done internship or traineeship.
Having faculty members as LinkedIn connections helps because the recruiter could also have been their student.
To reach out to LinkedIn recruiters, write your application letter, CV and Resume in the form of an appeal. By doing so you’re calling the company to take some action for growing business and appealing that hiring you would help their goals.
In Conclusion
Applying on LinkedIn is very professional way of seeking jobs, either as fresher or seasoned applicant. However, to do so, ensure that you have an excellent LinkedIn profile that’s updated frequently with your career path and some posts.
Fresher applicants can use posts only because they might not possess a career record as such. In any case, the above five ways to message and reach out to recruiters on LinkedIn should help.