7 Points About Being Approached by Candidates on LinkedIn

You’re a recruiter.  You’re in social media.  You source in LinkedIn.  You probably have a good idea of what you like and what you don’t like when you’re in there.

That was the topic of a recent article on Quora.com titled, “Do Recruiters Dislike Being Approached on LinkedIn or Facebook by a Candidate?”

Granted, the author of the article is an internal Engineering recruiter for a large company with national recognition (as opposed to an independent, third-party recruiter), but both types encounter the same basic challenges on LinkedIn.  The author’s short answer to the question posed by the article’s title is, “We like being approached as long as the candidate is showing their relevancy.”

However, that’s just one of many points that the article brings up.  Below are six more points about being approached by candidates on social media (especially LinkedIn):

1.) Being a recruiter is a lot like being a top candidate, since recruiters have to deal with and sort through multiple requests from job seekers and top candidates have to deal with and sort through multiple requests from recruiters.

2.) Not many recruiters use Facebook as a sourcing tool for candidates . . . or to communicate with candidates at all, as a matter of fact.

3.) Recruiters have a love/hate relationship with LinkedIn.  The author calls LinkedIn “not particularly intuitive or well-designed” and says that “more and more recruiters I talk to view LinkedIn as a ‘necessary evil.'”

4.) Recruiters typically receive between 30 and 40 LinkedIn connection requests per day, with plenty of accumulated requests that have yet to be answered.

5.) Some of the (misguided) approaches that candidates use are specific to internal recruiters, but one that is common to both internal and third-party recruiters is the “How can we help each other?” approach.  The author draws a parallel between that and the “One of my New Year’s Resolutions is to reach out to more of my current connections to see how we can help each other” quasi-click bait.  The author’s assessment is both insightful and accurate: “Can we all collectively throat punch the person who started that trend?”  Amen.

6.) The overriding point of the article, besides the importance of candidates showing why they are relevant and worthy of the recruiter’s time, is that candidates should keep it short and brief and provide any information that will allow the recruiter to take immediate and quick action.

Click here to read the Quora article in its entirety.

Have you been approached by candidates on social media, and when I say social media, I mean LinkedIn?  What’s been your experience with this?  Do you believe LinkedIn is a “necessary evil”?

Do you use Facebook to source candidates?  Or do you use it strictly for personal reasons?  Exactly how much of your recruiting strategy does social media comprise?