Hire the Right Candidate With LinkedIn Career Pages

Introducing our speaker: Stephanie Jacobsen

[00:00:09] Hi everybody. Welcome today. My name is Robert Day and I'm on the marketing team here at LinkedIn. We're thrilled to have you join us for Hiring with LinkedIn and jobs the candidate journey and beyond. Get a great speaker for you today. Stephanie Jacobson she's a customer success manager at LinkedIn and with that I got to go ahead and turn things over to Stephanie and go ahead and get started.
 
[00:00:29] My name is Stephanie Jacobson. I am a customer success manager here at LinkedIn sitting out in the very cold Chicago right now and it's only going to get colder a little bit about myself. So in my role I work with a variety of different clients different industries and really help them to make sure that they're getting the most out of their solutions with us. I've been at LinkedIn for about two and a half years now in this role and before I joined LinkedIn I was actually a client myself and I was a corporate recruiter utilizing all the same solutions that we're going to go over today. One of my favorites was Willington jobs. So I'm definitely excited to talk with you guys a little bit more about the job seeker journey today. So go ahead and get started. I think it's important that we kind of set up the lay of the land and that LinkedIn network are linked in member landscape really continues to grow every day. Not only do we have the professional level talent pools the annual talent pools on the network but we're also seeing an increase in middle skill candidates which I'm pretty excited about. Middle skill candidates. Just so that you guys know what it means. We define it as those that do not require a four year degree. So we're seeing that number increase. In fact this group's engagement of those middle skill candidates on the site has grown faster than any other talent pool on our site. So pretty exciting stuff. And these are the types of talent pool that the jobs will be going to that we'll talk a little bit more about later today going more into the talent landscape.

[00:02:07] I do think it's important to talk a little bit about the breakdown of the types of talent on LinkedIn. Now traditionally on LinkedIn you may have heard that we have two different types of talent. We have our passive talent we have our active talent our active talent our those who are scouring the job boards really looking for their next move as soon as possible past talent is the talent that is a little bit harder to catch. But in my experience I love finding path of talent because there are typically high quality performers. The retention rates are very strong when you do get them into your company and they're not necessarily looking for that new role but they can be warmed up. If you reach out to them in a thoughtful manner.
 
[00:02:52] Now a brand new one that's just come about is the open talent. And I like to think of these people as the Explorer. They're a little more exploratory. They're open to learning more about your company but maybe they're not going to actively just jump in as soon as possible as an active talent would. And we're going to explore this open talent a little bit more later on. But I do think it's important to just note these three different types of talents on LinkedIn so going into that now that we've talked about the length and members of that lay of the land.

Keep in mind the candidate’s journey to discover an opportunity

I think it's important that we briefly go through touch points along a prospect's journey. We've all been in a position at one time or another where we were either looking for a job or we've been considering a move and really the hardest part I think of that is knowing what's the right fit. It's very hard to determine traditionally will this role will this company be the right fit for me. So we really need to keep that in mind when we're addressing our prospects on LinkedIn. So when we take a look at this actual candidates journey there's an opportunity for you to promote yourself in your company's employee value proposition throughout many stops along the way.
 
[00:04:05] So this is a refresher for some of you but generally we need to remember all the research that goes into deciding whether or not someone would want to take that next step in joining your organization. So typically this is how the process goes when we are a candidate on the LinkedIn network. So we may receive email from a recruiter.
 
[00:04:27] From there I would look every day.
 
[00:04:31] I would want to visit that person's profile. I want to know as much as possible about that person that's sending that outreach out to me you know who do they work for. Who is this person? What are they all about. And you know we're just curious as humans we want to know who is reaching out to us. From there on that recruiter's profile they're going to see that that recruiter is tied to a specific company. So for example if this is a Linkedin Recruiter I'm going to click on to the links in company page because I want to explore it more. I want to know what is this company all about and do a little bit more research on it. From there I'm going to most likely stumble upon some job opportunities and knowing myself I'm going to want to scour those jobs to see what job could this recruiter possibly be reaching out to me about. So in this example maybe it's a product and marketing manager role and I'm going to look at that job opportunity. From there after I get a good feel for the recruiter the company as well as possible job opportunities here she is reaching out to me for I'm going to an opt in or out of that email and I'm going to say reply back and say yes we'll set up a time to talk or maybe I'll just say no now is not the right time.

[00:05:47] But let's keep in touch. So I think it's important that we understand that candidate journey along the way because that really sets the framework for what our prospective candidates will see along the way.

Consider the unique questions and challenges that candidates face along their job search journey

[00:06:01] Now as far as job seeking goes as we've had a shift gears and go in to the mindframe of a job seeker unlink link in one of the biggest challenges facing job seekers is actually finding the right job as we had mentioned before finding a job can feel a little bit like searching for a needle in a haystack or maybe jeans shopping for the first time in a few years. So many options. But is it really anything the right fit for you. And I can say jeans shopping is one of the most dreaded things that I love shopping but jeans shopping is just so annoying to me.
 
[00:06:33] So you can kind of think of it like that. For those candidates on LinkedIn it can be a little overwhelming no matter who you are. What type of candidate you may be. So let's keep that in the back of the mind if we think of job seeking. On LinkedIn that journey is in three different stages. We have discovered and apply different people in different organizations. Maybe they're gonna use other words but more or less this is how that job search is going to work. And each step has its own questions and challenges along the way. So for Discover. Where do I find? Relevant jobs. How do I filter or some of that noise? And with a full time job how do I not miss out on a great opportunity. I don't want to be passed up. How do I know the company culture? If the job is right for me. And do I even have a chance to be considered for this? That's something that will sometimes keep a lot of people. And prevent them from taking that next step forward. So these are things as recruiters we want to be cognizant of. When we're thinking of our recruiting strategy especially how our jobs are presented.
 
[00:07:40] And then applying which jobs do I choose to invest my time to apply. We know. That sometimes. That application process. Can take a little bit of time. So we need to really make sure that as recruiters and Talent Acquisition Team. That we're doing everything we can to make it an easy and intuitive process for them. So today I'm walking through some of the ways LinkedIn helps you to get your job. Out to the right high quality applicants. And how we get these members. To discover that. And your job that is the right fit for them. And then we're going to. Walk through a Hollington helps your top candidates assess and apply for jobs.

How to connect with “Jenny Jobseeker,” a passive candidate on LinkedIn

[00:08:19] So that brings me to my next slide meet job seeker Jenny is a successful young professional. She's currently employed and you know she's open to new opportunities that would build her career. So maybe Jenny a little bit more of our open talent so she's not exactly that active talent she's not completely passive. She's more of an explorer and she's open to thinking about what opportunity may help her take her career to the next level. Sometimes Jenny has time she is going to search. Sometimes she browses and sometimes she just looks at jobs that sound interesting but her ears are always open for a career building opportunity or exploratory conversation. What does your next job look like? While she's not exactly sure but she is looking for it and anyone who has ever searched for a job before the actual searching can be the hardest part. So if we were to type in brand marketing you might end up with a street brand ambassador job or the head of a billion dollar brand out of it major consumer goods company. And this is really where LinkedIn can help. Johnny we know about Jenny from her links in profile and from her search history and we can improve the relevance of her search results so that the right jobs are actually coming straight to her through a variety of different ways in the LinkedIn that work for you are recruiters working to make sure that the jobs you're posting are getting in front of those right candidates so that we can make the process easier for you and help you to find that right person faster. So there are different ways that this can happen. We have a variety of different touch points for to really meet all of those three different types of talent we discussed earlier. Active Passive and open the first is passive discovery on LinkedIn. The next time you're on your LinkedIn network and you're perusing through your news feed I encourage you to take a look see if you can see the jobs you may be interested in module right there.
 
[00:10:22] Usually at three jobs that are targeted to you based on keywords your geography titles in your LinkedIn profile and we're putting that in front of you as relevant jobs. So this is the first way that we can catch passive candidates which I think is very helpful because sometimes people don't even know that there they'd be interested in a new opportunity. But you know what the right opportunity gets in front of them. It looks interesting. They're going to click through it and learn more. Additionally you'll see right here in this iPhone the orange box sponsored jobs. This is sort of turbo boosting the jobs out into the network. So sometimes you'll see a sponsored job that's pushed out to you. And really what that means is we're just turbo boosting the regular jobs through LinkedIn to you by using pay per click modeling techniques. So sort of a marketing technique if you have any interest in that I would definitely always recommend following up with your relationship manager or Account Executive.

LinkedIn now makes it easy for passive and open job seekers to discover opportunities

[00:11:29] The next phase causal discovery with LinkedIn. So for some of our more active job seekers or maybe even open talent they can download what's called the job seeker app through LinkedIn it's a great app. If you've never seen it before and it really just helps streamline the job seeking process for many of those members.
 
[00:11:50] And what this will show is again it's targeting relevant information from their links and profiles and trying to push the right types of jobs in front of them. So this is another way that we're targeting those job seekers out there in the network for more active job seekers.

[00:12:08] This might be where they actually go to seek for a job on the LinkedIn network. And we have a variety of different ways that we're going to ensure that we humanize the experience and we'll and later visit a little bit more just talking about how LinkedIn humanizes the experience and what that means to you guys as recruiters. It definitely has a strong payoff. But this is a little bit about what it would look like when somebody is going to a job discover job on LinkedIn dot com. So we put in different areas like recommendations be pulling from your education maybe from your job experience skills you have listed your own preferences what types of companies you would want to work at the company size as well as your own network and then your activity. And then another thing one of my favorite things actually is showing people that you are connected with. So who can connect you to the opportunity? It's just one of those ways we're trying to take kind of that stale job seeking experience traditionally and make it a little bit more dynamic and humanized where you can see friends you know former colleagues former classmates in those types of jobs. Self-assertion discovery. Let's say that Jenny has moved into more of an active job seeking framework it's the new year she's thinking about new year's resolutions. You know what she wants to find that next job for herself so that she can really you know get 2017 going strong. So as Jenny is reviewing her search results we've added a new feature that we've currently launched which we call flavors to help show her how these job postings are relatable to her. So these flavors may include shared connections at a company and if the company has hired from your current employer or alma mater and this is really helpful because this helps us feel a little bit more comfortable as job seekers say.
 
[00:14:13] If I'm looking at a company and they've hired people out of LinkedIn before I'm gonna feel a little more comfortable pursuing that opportunity because I'll know hey maybe this is a good cultural fit. I can't even reach out to one of my former colleagues to see what is their experience been like there and to learn a little bit more. From a personal touch from someone that I can ask a trusted resource.

Keep job openings updated on LinkedIn to boost the reach of your career page

Now something also that's important to know is that you know whether somebody is an active or passive candidate. They want to know about open jobs. So keeping your jobs on LinkedIn is incredibly important as we know and we've gone through that candidate journey before we started today where someone may get sent an email. Then they go to the recruiter's profile. They go to the company page they look at jobs they are going to be sizing the company up and really the data we track shows just that job EQ2 activity is continuing to increase and grow. And actually 89 percent of LinkedIn members are interested in hearing about new opportunities. So get your jobs out there get them. Keep them posted. Another thing to note is we're going into a high traffic month. January is one of our highest member traffic month. On the linked network. So if you don't have a job host and now make sure that you're getting up there as people start to go onto LinkedIn and really start to think about their career goals regardless of what type of talent they are whether they're passive open or active in fact the most job switchers actually knew about the company long before they heard about the opportunity.
 
[00:15:53] This brings me to ask you Do you have your staff. Are your employees on LinkedIn with well built out profiles are you showcasing your company culture. Maybe perks benefits on a LinkedIn career page regardless of the type of job seeker everyone wants to be informed before they make a decision. When we think about it you know taking that next step in looking into a company and possibly moving job. That's a big step. People want to do their homework before so are you providing them with all of the various touch points that they can use to really do that research and take that next step. And here you can see that you know the biggest roadblock for people when they're considering changing jobs is that 38 percent of them say they don't know what it's like to work for this company. So let's give them some information so that we can get them excited and want to learn more. Now this brings us to our next step when we think about that Chevron of the journey of a job we're going into assessing a job now. So now that Jenny has found a job that sounds interesting. How are you going to know if it's a good fit? How does she know what's needed to do the job? It's what she really wants to do or even if she has a shot at this job. So here is a plain old fashioned job description I'm sure many of you guys have seen this before. Sure it provides a job seeker with an understanding of what they need to have to be successful. But in today's day and age we seek humanized experiences. And again we want to we want people to know as much as possible about a company before making a decision moving forward. So this brings us to how LinkedIn is humanizing the job seekers experience to really answer those questions as they're assessing the company.

Give candidates a humanized experience with LinkedIn’s new job posting assessment features

So let's give them some information so that we can get them excited and want to learn more. Now this brings us to our next step when we think about that Chevron of the journey of a job we're going into assessing a job now. So now that Jenny has found a job that sounds interesting. How are you going to know if it's a good fit? How does she know what's needed to do the job? It's what she really wants to do or even if she has a shot at this job. So here is a plain old fashioned job description I'm sure many of you guys have seen this before. Sure it provides a job seeker with an understanding of what they need to have to be successful. But in today's day and age we seek humanized experiences. And again we want to we want people to know as much as possible about a company before making a decision moving forward. So this brings us to how LinkedIn is humanizing the job seekers experience to really answer those questions as they're assessing the company.
 
[00:17:41] The opportunity at stake so on LinkedIn your job is truly going to go from a stale description to a dynamic and personable personal experience. So what I really want to show you guys on this slide is how people are going to assess your job postings.
 
[00:18:00] Well first they are going to look at their in. So here I may see for this cybersecurity engineer role. I see some people that I'm connected to I can reach out to these people and maybe I can simply just learn more about the company. I can learn more about the role itself and I can even get their recommendation here. Do you think that I might be a good fit for this?
 
[00:18:23] My fit. I'm going to look to see do I have the skills that most people who are applying for this role. Most people who have this job that they have. I want to make sure that I have some of those. And here we can see you can see that we've put this into the job seeker experience so we can quickly see. All right. You know what. I've got you to know three out of five of the required skills. So I'm feeling pretty confident in making that taking the next step forward. I think I might have a good shot at this.
 
[00:18:53] And then you're really what your ads is all about is pulling in those different types of flavors that we discuss.

[00:19:00] So people who went to college in the past maybe people who worked at my former company or my current company I can see these are things that are gonna make me feel more confident as a job seeker and taking that next step in moving forward.

Keep in mind: job seekers will want to meet your team and see how their skills match those of others in the same role

We know that job seeking is about people. So the first thing we do is we're going to show Jenny’s who she knows at the company and these are going to be people that she can quickly message and reach out to find out more about that position. Again another important reason to encourage your staff to get on and dot com and build out robust profiles because any type of job seeker is going to do their homework. They are going to want to look at your employee base and see are those people happy in their roles. What is their background? This is really important information and getting people to build out links and profiles. It's a free it's it's it's really free for you guys and it's just another way that's going to help your recruiting process. Now with the new jobs detailed pages that we launched recently you can meet the team at an open job company. See if any of her network connections work at the hiring company and view how her skills match with other applicants with me the team she can learn about the type of people she would be working with their educational and career backgrounds their skill sets etc. She could also learn more about the company by reaching out to someone she knows there. And lastly she can get a sense of her competitors top skills that are applying to the job. Again this is gonna make her feel like she would have a shot if she is having those same skills that the competitors possess. We have already seen this improve the job experience job search experience in the numbers and more unique applicants are applying to jobs on LinkedIn. This is a win for the recruiter too. We want you as a recruiter to get more relevant candidates for the role by helping those candidates make more informed application decisions in the process. And here's just a quick screenshot of the job detail page pages that really helps sometimes push those candidates over that line and want to take the next step with your company.
 
[00:21:15] When we get to a pie face what we've realized here at LinkedIn is the more convenient and intuitive the job application experiences the more likely the candidate especially those passive and open talent candidates are going to be in taking that next step and applying with a variety of different actions a candidate can take.
 
[00:21:36] For example we can link directly to the company website so we can actually have them apply and be rounded streets here APRC and we have some great new features that you can speak with your relationship manager or customer success manager like me about to see how we are helping to catch people with any application drop off.

Give job seekers more options with a streamlined application process and ‘save’ function

You can have an apply option that's you click apply. That would really allow them to apply what their LinkedIn profile. Making it very easy and convenient for job seekers who are on the go. Job seekers can save the job come back to it later if they need a little bit more time to think about it and they can also go back and view the history of the jobs to which they've applied to so we're doing many different things to keep it as easy as possible for job seekers in the process. What does this mean for you as a lengthened customer as a recruiter as a talent acquisition professional? Well this means that we are bringing your jobs to life with your people in your culture. We're connecting the right seekers with the right opportunities which means that it's an even more engaging job experience on LinkedIn for you and also for those job seekers.
 
[00:22:57] So as you can see from today's presentation the link jobs experience takes a normally stale dull experience of applying for jobs and brings it into a more colorful informative humanizing experience. That's going to make people feel more comfortable in taking that next step and it's going to give you the tools to reach out to that relevant qualified talent.
 
[00:23:21] Fantastic. That's all the time we have today. But I really thank you for presenting Stephanie and thank you to everyone who joined us on the line today. Hope you learned some great information from today's session. If you would like any additional information and like to learn about the products discussed today is our link them products you'll see in the resources to add to the right of your screen. There's several ways there one of which this free demo of LinkedIn products. If you click on the link follow through complete that form a representative from LinkedIn will be reaching out to you and they'll walk you through a customized demo that will be tailored to your specific use case. And with that thanks again.