Announcing 3 New Talent Products and Enhancements to Drive Opportunities for Recruiters and Members

We know the life of the recruiter is no easy road. Securing top-notch talent is harder than ever, and the relentless pressure to get the best-of-the-best does not let up. Our research shows that 83% of recruiters say that talent is the #1 priority in their organization, and 56% expect their hiring volume to increase.

For many years, recruiters pursued passive candidates with the goal of enticing them with the opportunity of a lifetime, or had active candidates come to them looking for work.  But the reality is, most people don’t generally fall into the “active” or “passive” category exclusively. There is the idea of “open talent,” somewhere in the middle of the spectrum where most of us fall.  

Today, I’m excited to introduce Open Candidates, Apply Starters and the next generation of LinkedIn Career Pages, new additions to our Talent Solutions portfolio which make it easier for recruiters to find open talent and build a better pipeline of highly qualified candidates. Here’s how each works:

Open Candidates and Apply Starters

There was a great a joke made on the HBO series Silicon Valley where one of the main characters signaled on LinkedIn that he wanted to leave the fictional startup. Within seconds, he was hearing from recruiters. This is exactly the experience we want each and every one of our members to have.  

Now through Open Candidates -- a spotlight feature within our Recruiter product -- we’re making it easy for LinkedIn members to privately raise their hand to say “I’m open to being recruited” for the first time ever.

Who among us hasn’t, at some point, tried to find work without our boss finding out? This is the reality for many, and now job seekers can show they’re open for business in a way that is only viewable to recruiters. It will, however, not broadcast this to recruiters at their current employer. Recruiters can:

• Quickly zero in on leads who are 2X likely to respond to outreach
• Learn interests up front, which typically wouldn’t be evident until the phone screen
• Disqualify candidates who aren’t a fit, and focus instead on the right ones

We currently have nearly a million members signaling they’re open and expect that number to grow significantly as we expand markets through 2016 and beyond. To date, we’ve rolled this out in the U.S., Canada, Australia and the U.K. For a deeper dive check out our featured-focused blog post here.

In the same vein, we want recruiters to be able to find candidates who show their interest by starting the application process even if they don't complete it. There are no shortage of reasons that applicants get distracted or feel discouraged, ranging from cumbersome mobile application process to lengthy questionnaires. As many as 74% candidates don't finish the application process on company career sites.

We are launching Apply Starters to combat this issue by giving members the ability to share their profile with recruiters when they start applying. This will give recruiters access to at least 2X as many candidates for their jobs, and those candidates are 4X more likely to respond to outreach from a recruiter.

LinkedIn Career Pages

That said, having greater access to talent isn’t enough for recruiting them, especially if the company’s brand awareness is low. This is where LinkedIn Career Pages comes into play.

We believe that how a company presents its employer brand on LinkedIn directly correlates with how our members engage with them for jobs. If fact, when people view LinkedIn Career Pages, they are 2.8X more likely to respond to an inMail from a recruiter, and 1.3X more likely to apply to open jobs. Key features include:

• Job recommendations tailored to every page visitor
• Employee-created articles and photos
• Information on similar employees and/or people they may know at the company
• New design and navigation organized around candidate interests
• New robust analytics and premium insights to track hiring goals

We piloted LinkedIn Career Pages with more than 30 charter customers including Apple, Shangri-La Hotels and World Vision, and what we’re seeing is promising. Early results show LinkedIn Career Pages visitors are engaging more with content and viewing jobs with 60% increase in pageviews per-visitor, and 175% increase in the number of job views. LinkedIn Career Pages is launching globally and more feature details can be found here.

Lastly, in our effort to create greater efficiency and productivity for recruiters, we are introducing Recruiter System Connect, a reimagined way of how Recruiter integrates with customers’ Applicant Tracking Systems. This integration saves time by reducing the need to toggle back and forth between systems to access candidate information, and makes it easier to seamlessly collaborate while getting the most accurate and up-to-date information on any candidate.

Our mission is to break down the walls that stand between job seekers and recruiters, and give companies the insight they need to attract the cream of the crop. We continue to be motivated by this mission, and look forward to sharing more news as we make progress on our goals.

To receive blog posts like this one straight in your inbox, subscribe to the blog newsletter.