How Use LinkedIn Recruiters in the Hidden Job Market
When you have massive amounts of unemployment which historically this is the most we’ve ever seen I think in the entire history of the country, and it’s sort of long-term. This wasn’t people were this would be sort of V depression but, it’s not we know this is going to go on for a long time. Companies shift gears they don’t post jobs anymore now that doesn’t mean they’re not hiring. It just means they’re not publicly posting jobs on sites like Linkedin, and Glassdoor and Indeed, and some of these other sites.
When there’s low unemployment and companies are having a hard time finding them they have to increase their marketing so, they actually post the job on all sorts of different platforms just hoping that maybe you will find them but, now they can’t do that. They physically can’t do that so, what they do is they’re still hiring, but they essentially hide the job or make them more difficult to find. So, they only post them on their company website, that way only people that have been following the company and are really passionate about working for the company will actively go find them there. Even then sometimes they won’t post the jobs at all, and recruiters will actually proactively go out and find candidates.
Now, why is that, let’s talk about why they might do that. Because, just because there’s no job posting doesn’t mean they can’t keep hiring in fact, and people are shocked to hear this. But, I promise you, we have watched this we call the second job apocalypse hit in the last couple of weeks, and that is now that the in US, the PPP has run out. Companies realize that this is new normal that their business isn’t going to come back, and that their business has to shift.
So, most companies literally most companies are doing some form of restructuring, and I put quotes around it restructuring. People call them layoffs but, it’s not always, just a layoff, restructuring means we’re going to look at the company and decide whose jobs are still relevant. Which departments are still relevant, and we keep those we get rid of everything that isn’t relevant in order to free of cash to stay profitable pay off debt, and fund new types of people that we knew, a new type of things that we need to compete in this marketplace. It’s very common that companies go restructuring right now; we’re seeing a lot of restructuring they couldn’t restructure during PPP because they have given loans to keep people employed. But now, that’s over they figured out their restructuring, and they’re laying people off in order to hire. Now, they won’t hire as many people. But they will hire people so, all these companies that are laying off, don’t think that they’re not going to hire for months and months more of than are already hiring.
If, you can believe that go check out their careers pages on their own company sites they have job openings companies have job openings hiring is going on right now. But, you’re just not seeing it at such a massive scale as you do in a law unemployment time. So, you need to understand that right now, anybody out there going well, there’s no point in looking for work anybody’s hiring that is not true that is absolutely not true. Here’s what you need to know though about linkedin and this is why this session became so important today. Recruiters use Linkedin to proactively search for the right candidates, so that, they don’t have to reactively deal with thousands of the wrong candidates. So, what to do I mean by that well if I’m posting my job posting on all these boards you know.
What happens to everybody applies to my jobs even if, they’re not a fit. So, in a time you know in low unemployment I might get 100 applicants in a time like this. Companies can get thousands of applicants if, they post them on sites like indeed and all these other places instantly overnight, and they can’t handle it. They can’t handle going through the mall, and looking at them and rejecting people, and trying to deal with messaging people. So, they don’t do it, they hide the jobs and instead of a hiring manager say this is what I’m looking for a candidate. A recruiter gets Linkedin, and uses Linkedin’s recruiter tool to identify a group of people a group of profiles that come up in a list a shortlist. They go through those profiles and then, they chose just a few people to reach out to and say, “Hey, are you looking for work can we have a conversation” that’s how it works.
So, the best way to give you an analogy around this is Linkedin is the yellow pages and your profile is your listing in the yellow pages business of one. So, this is why you have to pay close attention to what you’re putting on your Linkedin profile. In order for it to be found in you know professional yellow pages aka Linkedin. Very important we do this and what’s interesting is there’s now well over 700 million people on Linkedin, 700 million. So, Linkedin has to work a lot like internet search, and it has to create ways to sort. 700 million profiles to determine which 20, 30, 40, 50 are most relevant to what the recruiter is searching for. So, hopefully you see where I’m going this going with this what you choose to put on your Linkedin profile and specifically where you choose to put it will impact what kind of searches you show up for in linkedin which means this is how you can get yourself to get on recruiter’s radar screens.
This is how you can get recruiters to contact you or as we say make recruiters come you so, even in a pandemic, even in a crisis if you properly optimize your profile. You will increase the chances that those companies that are hiring for the hidden job market, will find you, I hopefully sense to everyone because it’s a very important concept. All right, and the other thing, you need to know about this is that recruiters use the platform to skim profiles of candidates. That much the criteria so, even with that algorithm they put in their keywords. They get 50, profiles that match they’re going to click on each on one and do the skims test. They’re going to look at it very barely quickly and decide whether or not, they want to spend more time on this particular candidate researching them and giving them a call.
So, today we’re going to talk about things that you could be doing wrong on your profile that are hurting you one not only in getting found. But, two as that recruiter is doing that skim test, are you making the cut that’s what we’re going to work on, and here’s what I want you to keep in mind about that. Your profile needs to be factual so got to have numbers in there you got to really able to validate. Easy to read, you can’t have it be overwhelming, and we’ll see more about that and c only give them enough information to make me want to reach out to you to get more. You need me to take action so if, I’m a recruiter if, there’s not enough information on your profile I’m not going to bother. Because it means you haven’t invested time and you’re not that interesting. If you’ve given me too much information you’re visually overwhelming me, you’re sending the wrong message, you’re making my job harder, so I’m not excited about your profile. But, if you give me the just right amount, I feel like I’m talking about the three little bears right. If you give me just right, then I’m going to go, “well these person looks like they have all the things that I’m looking for but, I need more information so, I need to reach out to them” this is how you make recruiters come you and this is basic marketing folks.
Anybody that’s in marketing knows there’s a fine balance that you have to create, your marketing message has to resonate and has to work for the audience in order for them to take action and engage it. So, that we’re focusing on today. All right, so I hope that back story really helps you understand the power of linkedin and gets you excited about the fact that. There are things you can actually do on your profile to improve the chances that people are finding you and then contacting you.