Tag Archives: Free

How to Use Facebook for Social Recruiting Messaging

 

When it comes to sourcing and recruiting, you should not ignore the potential of Facebook given that it has 1.38B monthly active users and 890M daily active users.

Also, you should know that according to Jobvite’s 2014 Job Seeker Nation Report, 76% of social job seekers found their current position through Facebook.  Jobvite also found that while job seekers flock to Facebook, recruiters prefer LinkedIn when searching for potential candidates.

Jobvite 2014 Job Seeker Nation Report

That’s understandable, as LinkedIn is a professional social network and some profiles are as detailed as resumes. While Facebook users seem to be adding more professional information on a daily basis, that information is quite limited.

As I’ve written recently, even though Facebook’s Graph Search isn’t as powerful as it once was, finding people to recruit on Facebook is remarkably easy. If you want even more information on using Facebook to find people, check out Todd Davis’ Ultimate Guide to Sourcing and Recruiting on Facebook.

However, one thing that isn’t being written about much is using Facebook to reach out to potential candidates. Some people simply may not know all of the ways you can message people on Facebook (there is more than meets the eye, as you will see), and many sourcers and recruiters seem to get caught up on thinking that people will be “weirded out” by getting messages from them on Facebook – I’ll be addressing this as well. Continue reading

LinkedIn Recruiter Search Result Discrepancies Explored

 

LinkedIn Search Results can be different across free and premium accounts, including Recruiter

LinkedIn search results can be different across free and premium accounts, including Recruiter

Irina posted an interesting piece on discrepancies in search results between LinkedIn Recruiter and a free LinkedIn account which prompted me to do a little digging as I don’t think I’ve ever come across materially different results in actual use.

While the discrepancies are definitely interesting, and I would love to know exactly what’s causing them, I don’t find them particularly troubling. Read on to learn why.

Even if you don’t have a LinkedIn Recruiter license, you will likely still find this post interesting, as it examines search logic and strategy which can be applied to sourcing via any site/resource.

In the C++ 3D iOS “computer games” example, where a free account returns 150 results and an LinkedIn Recruiter account returns 43, I wouldn’t recommend anyone to search for “computer games” as a keyword as it is too limiting. If the goal is to find people who develop computer games, I would run a broader, more inclusive keyword search than exact phrase of “computer games,” which many people who actually develop games would not use in their LinkedIn profile. Continue reading

View Full Names on LinkedIn for Free with LIPPL

 

Lippl 1I am pleased to share a cool and very practical free Chrome extension that allows you to quickly and easily view the public profiles of LinkedIn members beyond your 2nd degree network, thus showing you their full name.

Victor Soroka first shared Lippl with me back in January. I had the honor of meeting him while at LinkedIn’s Talent Connect 2012 in London and apparently Victor has been busy working on a great way to view the public profiles of practically anyone on LinkedIn.

Once you’ve installed the Lippl Chrome extension, all you have to do is open the Lippl sidebar and click “open.” It works by automatically opening up the person’s public LinkedIn profile in a new Incognito window, so even if you’re logged into LinkedIn, LinkedIn can’t tell whether or not you “know” the person (within 1st or 2nd degree) – as such, you can see their full name. Continue reading

Keep Calm & Message On: LinkedIn Group Messaging Still Free

 

There were a number of tweets, blog posts and online discussions late last week that stirred up a great deal of confusion over whether or not you would soon still be able to send free messages to fellow group group members on LinkedIn. I’ve got the straight dope from LinkedIn and will demonstrate with multiple screenshots what is still free for everyone and what is not going to be free for LinkedIn Recruiter license holders.

I believe the confusion began with emails LinkedIn recently sent out to Recruiter license holders explaining that they will be disabling the ability to send free InMails to group members from LinkedIn Recruiter as of January 14th.

Based on the chatter online, some people seem to have incorrectly interpreted this to mean that no one will be able to send free messages to fellow group members on LinkedIn.com any more (see example image at the bottom of the post).

This tweet from LinkedIn cleared up the confusion for me on Friday:

LinkedIn Group Messaging Still Free

However, as I began to write this post, I came across several examples of people I know claiming they spoke with LinkedIn reps who said free group messaging was being eliminated for everyone. Even though I was quite confident that @HireOnLinkedIn knew her stuff, I decided to check with her one last time:

Question to LinkedIn about free group messaging

Within 2 hours of that tweet (on Sunday!), I received an email from a Senior LinkedIn PMM copying several other LinkedIn folks definitively clarifying that free group messaging on LinkedIn isn’t going anywhere:

As you have noticed (and commented in Social Media), we have disabled the ability send to FREE InMails to Fellow Group Members from Linked Recruiter.  This Change is only applicable to LinkedIn Recruiter customers (not LinkedIn members).

Background: When the feature was launched in LinkedIn Recruiter several years ago, the intention was to provide members with an opportunity to connect and share ideas within groups while enabling recruiters to participate and find talent. Based on a recent analysis, we have noticed that this feature is being used in ways we hadn’t anticipated, often creating negative experiences for both members and recruiters.

Here are some additional clarification points.  

1.  Free Group messaging is and WILL CONTINUE TO BE AVAILABLE to all LinkedIn members

2.  All group members CAN continue to send messages to fellow group members on LinkedIn.com

3.  LinkedIn Recruiter customers CAN continue to send InMails to fellow group members but these InMails will be deducted from their allotted InMail credits.

Finally to answer your tweet:  Free group messaging isn’t going away for any member.

Hope this clarifies any confusion.

It certainly clears things up for me.

Screenshots: LinkedIn InMails to Fellow Group Members

This is what will no longer be free – from LinkedIn Recruiter ONLY, as of January 14th:

LinkedIn Group Messaging from Recruiter

Prior to the change LinkedIn is instituting, this is what you would see when attempting to send a message to someone with whom you have a group in common:

LinkedIn Messaging Free to Group Members

After the change, this is what it will look like to LinkedIn Recruiter users even if they do have a group in common with the person they are trying to message:

LinkedIn Message Costs 1 InMail

Screenshots: Free LinkedIn Group Messaging

When you’re on LinkedIn.com and in a LinkedIn group and you want to send a message to someone, even if they aren’t connected to you in any way other than sharing the same group, you will still be able to send free messages to anyone who hasn’t disabled the ability.

LinkedIn Group Messaging Example

When you click “send message,” here is what you will continue to see:

Free messaging to fellow LinkedIn Group members

So keep calm and message on.

I should remind you that LinkedIn group members can elect to not allow other group members to send them messages via LinkedIn. Here is where users can find this group messaging setting:

LinkedIn Group Messaging Option

 

Free LinkedIn Profile Optimization and Job Seeker Advice

I watched a YouTube video the other day in which someone was charging job seekers for LinkedIn profile optimization.

It bothered me.

While I appreciate capitalism and don’t fault people for recognizing and seizing an opportunity, I think that in today’s economy, job seekers deserve all of the help they can get, and the currently unemployed certainly don’t need another expense.

Seeing that YouTube video inspired me to create a series of six videos sharing my knowledge of LinkedIn Groups, Jobs, Companies, profile optimization and Internet research to help people make better use of LinkedIn in their current and future job search efforts. Continue reading