Getting Hiring Managers Ready on LinkedIn

You’ve recruited a great candidate, and now she’s scheduled to meet the hiring manager and some key team members. To prepare for her interview, naturally she’ll be doing her homework on who she’s meeting with, especially the person she may soon be working for.

The first place she’s likely to check: LinkedIn.

Have you looked at your hiring manager’s profile on LinkedIn? What impression will it leave candidates? Most LinkedIn profiles tell the story of our careers, how we’ve gotten to where we are and what we’re currently responsible for. The profiles are written primarily for two audiences: business contacts and future employers. But if you’re recruiting, what about the audience of future employees?

Who’s Practicing It

Network security company Tenable is always recruiting engineering talent, and its VP of R&D had this in mind when updating his LinkedIn profile. His profile shows his experience and skills, but uniquely speaks to candidates who may want to connect with him or apply for a job. As a hiring manager, he’s written the experience description at Tenable not about his personal experience but about the experience that a candidate will have on his team.

What We Like

That Tenable’s VP of R&D describes the work experience at Tenable from the perspective of candidates. He talks about “why” someone would want to work at Tenable, a little about the work his team does and includes media links to recruiting videos showcasing teamwork and culture. (Well done Tenable talent acquisition team, including our own RallyRM Mentor Audra Knight!)

Top three things that make content effective: Audience Relevance (58%); Engaging and Compelling Storytelling (57%); Triggers a Response/Action (54%). (LinkedIn Technology Marketing Community)

Recruitment Marketing Strategy Behind It

Lets your employees answer “why” candidates should work at your company, not just you
Keeps the employer brand message consistently represented on social and professional profiles of company leaders
Amplifies your recruiting videos by inviting employees to share them with their networks
Supports the Always Be Recruiting approach. Even if you currently don’t have any job openings, Recruitment Marketing will help build a talent pipeline so that you can hire the right people faster when you’re ready.

Making it Happen

You just need to ask! Create some sample messaging for your hiring managers to use. Your hiring managers might need a little convincing, so be ready to explain the benefits of speaking to candidates through their LinkedIn and social profiles.

Why stop at making the work description candidate-ready? Do you have a hiring manager who’d be willing to record a message using LinkedIn Video? If you want to go one step further, ask the team members who work for the hiring manager to update their LinkedIn profiles by describing team culture and their career advancement at your company.