It is #LinkedIn, but not as we know it (Recruiter hangout) #SocialAgency #SocialRecruiting

I’ve just released the latest Colleague white paper on LinkedIn for agency recruiters. This was an interesting study looking at best practice, and the most effective way agency recruiters can get the most out of the channel. Things have changed a lot very quickly. The whole site looks different, the search filters have changed, there is a bigger gap between the paid for and free versions than ever before. Where LinkedIn might have been considered a job board in the past, it is now probably closer to a CRM, or a social channel in its own right, with the functions of LinkedIn divide between:
 Reference
 Benchmarking
 New distribution and consumption
 Engagement
 Advertising
 Personal and company pages
 Branding
 External social plug ins
 Targeted business content
 Data center
 Research
 Recommendation engine (55% of applications via LinkedIn come from the recommended jobs rather than updates or search results.)
 External sign up and application
This is a lot to consider when approaching the channel. Most recruiters are applying an approach pre-2012 despite the significant changes in function, features, purpose and user behaviors in channel. It is a bit like continuing to advertise on MySpace, even though you know that the target audience has long since departed. What the results are showing us is that a pure sourcing approach on LinkedIn is delivering diminishing returns for recruiters, but a source and spray approach still prevails. It is time for a rethink and a change of approach. Forget candidates and clients, and start thinking audience. An audience needs to be entertained!
I will be sharing these thoughts as part of this weeks #SocialAgency Hangout. If you haven’t seen one of the #SocialAgency Hangouts in the past, they are just that, a place for friends to hang out and talk about the topics of the day. You can join in the conversation by requesting an invite on Google+, or watch it on the Colleague blog page.

Full details are HERE
If you missed the whitepaper, here it is:

Bill