Founder of Selling Made Social: Coaching entrepreneurs on how to turn LinkedIn™ into a non-stop, lead generating sales funnel!
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The employment and recruiting agencies industry in the USA is worth some $28.5 billion. Essentially, businesses are paying out $28.5 billion to a third party to find talent for their organizations.
The reality is that these businesses have some of the same access to talent that recruiting agencies have: LinkedIn and the 850 million profiles there.
Now more than ever on LinkedIn, CEOs and key leaders have an incredible opportunity to reduce recruiting costs and turn LinkedIn into a renewable talent pool.
LinkedIn should be seen by leadership as the virtual version of “meeting up for a coffee.” Back when I was a partner at an executive recruiting firm, I would have CEOs work with me to keep a “bench” of next-to-hires warm via regular check-ins and, where appropriate, coffee meet-ups with the CEO. These were incredibly effective for the CEO to build a real relationship with the “candidate” and always be top-of-mind for that individual when the time came to make that career transition. The major issue for my clients and me was its scalability.
That is all resolved on LinkedIn. CEOs and leadership can easily maintain hundreds of relationships with candidates that could reduce recruiting costs substantially. Consider hiring an executive today on a salary of $200,000 to $400,000, plus benefits. Based on my experience, you are looking at a $60,000 to $120,000-plus recruiting fee alone. It’s easy to see how recruiting can cost mid-size firms in the multi-seven-figure range during growth periods.
CEOs and leadership can have a significant impact on recruiting specific talent via LinkedIn and applying some basic social selling strategies.
Making social selling and recruitment primary key performance indicators (KPIs) will certainly incentivize time dedicated to social selling. The strategy I share below will not only attract talent but also build the personal brand and corporate brand of your team and company. It’s a win-win no matter how you look at the return on investment (ROI).
First, I suggest building two lists that you can maintain and use to grow real relationships: one of micro-influencers and one of prospective candidates.
Micro-influencers are used to amplify your message, to be seen by an established and cultivated audience and to leverage inbound/referrals. Ideally what you should be aiming to do is to establish a real relationship with a micro-influencer in your space who you will be able to bring into your content. When you make a post on LinkedIn, you can pose a question and then @mention the micro-influencer in your post. This should elicit engagement from them that their network will see.
Based on my own analytics and those of my clients, when we utilize this strategy we typically see a massive increase in viewership compared to base posts with zero @mentions—sometimes as much as a 200-500% increase in views on such posts. Imagine having five to 15 micro-influencers that you can use in every post you put out.
Finding And Connecting With Micro-Influencers
1. Build a list of micro-influencers based on selected criteria. You may decide to find people who are within your industry but are selling non-competitive products/services to yours.
2. Simply search by the title you have decided to use and by the industry filter. I’d recommend using a tool like Lusha or LinkedIn's Sales Navigator (SN) and filtering for "Posted in the last 30 days." And then with those results, check those that are posting original content at least two or more times a week. Further filter for content where you see 20 to 50 reactions (likes and comments).
3. Save these to a Lead List in SN or on a spreadsheet. On the spreadsheet, make the LinkedIn URL to their profile the actual post Share page so you can go straight to their posts. Five to 15 of these micro-influencers will be a great start.
4. Now engage! Every time they post, click, like and comment. On all their posts. Don’t concern yourself about being seen as being “too much.” No micro-influencer is posting on LinkedIn and thinking, “Oh I hope no one sees this and likes or comments on it!”
5. After at least seven to 10 of these engagements, and once the micro-influencer has a clear awareness of you, it’s time to connect and get into LinkedIn's messenger for a quick message about how much you like their content, etc. Just give; no asks.
6. Now as you make posts that are relevant, start to use @[name] and ask a question about your post to elicit their thoughts. As your visibility increases, it drives inbound connections and inbound requests about employment and helps to establish you as an authority. This is a perfect way for your company to be seen by prospective talent as truly a place they should consider.
Building The Next-To-Hire Bench
1. Build a list of prospective candidates who meet the criteria that you have seen be successful at your company. List the criteria you want to filter search results with. It may include certain licenses, academic qualifications, former companies, titles, success stories, length of time in the current role, length of time in the company, etc.
(The ultimate leverage with this strategy is filtering further down to candidates who meet your criteria and are active [posted on LinkedIn in the past 30 days] or hyperactive [posting original content two to three times a week]. Having future employees already engaged in LinkedIn and using it for social selling can amplify your business's footprint on the platform tremendously. Plus, it makes it very easy for new entrants to the company to implement your social selling strategies if they are already active players on the platform.)
2. Repeat steps 2 through 4 as described for micro-influencers above. But now when you get into messenger, it’s time to tell the prospect how much you have enjoyed their posts and to make an inquiry as to their interest in your firm. Something like “We really love bringing talent into our company that like [three awesome things about your firm and what it means for the employees]. If we had a fit for you here, would you be opposed to evaluating it as a next career step?”
Utilizing these strategies can make your CEO stand out on this premier business-to-business (B2B) network and impact the recruiting budget—while at the same time, bring in talent that already feels connected to the company! A win-win!
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