LinkedIn is the most frequently used social media platform to recruit with a staggering 92% of recruiters using it to recruit top talent. Increasing numbers of applicants are getting on LinkedIn to improve their job chances too, but are you using it as a recruitment tool and to its full capacity?
In this article we will look at the questions:
How much it costs to advertise a job on LinkedIn?
This can depend on how much you want to pay (we explain point 5 below)
How to post your jobs on LinkedIn for free?
There are numerous places you can advertise your jobs for free on LinkedIn, keep reading...
As will all social media strategies, whether you are recruiting on LinkedIn or increasing the general marketing efforts your company, you will need to invest your time. Especially if you want to get results for recruit for free via social media. Before you get carried away, some of the things you may want to consider are; your company brand, it's positioning, your target audience, your objectives and the wider recruitment/marketing strategy. The best place to start is with research and LinkedIn offers a wealth of public information that will allow you to conduct some very comprehensive analysis on aspects such as; available skilled candidates, quality & quality of jobs, salaries, competitors and keywords.
You will need to create some form of LinkedIn profile to get started and use the site to any sensible level. The more people you are connected with = the more information you have access to. Simply because LinkedIn is created with the term "network" at the forefront. You know someone who knows someone, therefore you can have a bit of their info.
The very first thing we always advise our clients is: Get to know your settings first. These change frequently so it pays to be on top, but there are some really valuable features that will come in useful when using LinkedIn to recruit for free. One that is most often used is the Privacy / Profile viewing options / Choose whether you are visible or viewing in private mode. It's great to be private when researching your competitors, but not so great if you are advertising jobs on LinkedIn for free and want to attract great candidates to your profile.
How to post a job for free on LinkedIn?
There are tonnes of ways to make your company and job visible to a target job seeker audience and use it like recruiters use LinkedIn. To get you started though we have listed below the top 4 ways to post a job in LinkedIn for free and one way to post a job and pay for LinkedIn job adverts. We have also added a bit of a bonus at the end, to help you use LinkedIn like a recruiter...an introduction on using LinkedIn to head-hunt.
1. Update your status
One of the most widely used tools on LinkedIn is the user’s activity status. This is an update of news (shared by LinkedIn members) that appears in the home feed. This is one of the simplest and quickest ways to tell your audience what you are doing. This is also a great place to share with your connections all the jobs you are recruiting for. A simple “we are hiring for XX” or “X company are recruiting for Y, do you know anyone?” will be seen and shared by your network and therefore reach further than your first degree contacts.
If you have an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) or a careers page with your jobs published on, be sure to include this link or at the very least a call to action on how people can apply. We would probably advise against directing the candidates to a third party job board like Indeed, as the candidate will see other job opportunities and you have lost their focus.
Another point when using LinkedIn to post your jobs for free in this manner is the frequency with which you post jobs. If you have invested time in developing a good network (candidates, business associates, suppliers etc) they are not all going to be jumping on your news if it is always about jobs. Make sure you also include other updates that will keep your network interested and don't forget to share other peoples news too. You only get out of LinkedIn (or any other social media) if you put it in.
2. Company Page
In the same way as your individual activity status, you can also post updates to your company page. LinkedIn has been creating company pages on behalf of many companies based on the employees of that company and there are still hundreds of thousands of company pages that are still not really "owned". If you haven't checked out your company profile recently, then take a look and see if it reflects your organisation. You can add lots of information to help create a feeling of your brand including images and information. You can also add jobs here (these are the paid for versions) and careers pages.
Just a note of caution; You can go quite deep with Linkedin, especially as a recruiting tool. Just consider how you want to achieve your objectives. Do you want to keep everything inside LinkedIn or do you want to direct applicants to your own careers/website? Do you have a monitoring system in place so you can track where all your applicants come from? Do you want to keep the same journey for all applicants regardless of where they came from? Think about the candidate experience and how you are going to join up all your efforts and measure the return.
According to LinkedIn, the majority of people who follow a company page are most interested in jobs and what it is to work with that organisation. So it makes sense to update your company status (just like your personal status) with information about jobs. Again, include links, information, calls to action and of course images (an update with an image has a much better opportunity of performing than one without).
3. Groups
Setting up and managing a group does take a lot of effort, but joining and sharing job vacancies in already established groups is a much easier option to tap into a potential market. Be sure to research and find the best ones to suit you and have the most targeted audience for the jobs you are recruiting for. Most groups have a "jobs" tab and here you can post your adverts on LinkedIn for free.
This section in the group works in a similar method to that of the main group news feed and members of the group can like and comment.
Again, you get out of LinkedIn what you put in. Join a group and get familiar with what people are saying, how they are behaving and start to make yourself visible. when you feel comfortable in the environment, post your jobs into the “job discussions” free of charge. NB: You can only join a maximum of 50 groups and you probably won't have time to invest in more than a couple really effectively.
4. Write an article
You will have noticed that in addition to updating your status, you can also write an article? There are many recruiters who are turning their job adverts into articles. This function gives you so much more scope than just simply putting a quick status update out. Your articles get prominence on your profile and tend to stick around a bit longer. People viewing your articles can like, comment or share and you can include images, URL's and tonnes more text. Articles also have a better chance of appearing in the notifications area than status updates and get pulled and rated across the site.
With the risk of repeating ourselves. Don't just write articles about what jobs you are advertising. Yawn!
5. Paid for Recruitment Advert on LinkedIn
If you want to reach out to a new audience quickly, LinkedIn offers a paid for advertising service. They now offer a Pay Per Click job posting model, which means you control how much you want to spend, set a daily budget. Simply go to LinkedIn Jobs and go through the process. You also get a couple of other bits thrown in; up to 50 shortlisted CV's matched to your job, 5 inMails (like emails who you can send to anyone on LinkedIn so long as they accept them) and stats of course.
Want some really good news? ALL of the Flat Fee Recruiter job advertising campaigns will post to LinkedIn Jobs as part of the service.
Just like any advertising, we would recommend that you have your candidate journey mapped out first and you advise candidates what they can expect from the recruitment process. You are much more visible as an employer and an individual with LinkedIn job adverts. People can find you, engage with you and talk about you very easily - make sure it's positive!
Bonus Tip: Advanced People Search
Maybe you want to be a bit more targeted and find the ideal candidate yourself? If this is the case, LinkedIn’s advanced search facility is one of the best in the social media hemisphere. By using the “Advanced Search” facility (just click on the magnifying glass in the search bar) you can choose the right keywords, and filter out those candidates you do not wish to see/want to see more of. You can generate a list of profiles that match the skills you are recruiting for, approach them (either on LinkedIn or off) and start to engage with them... Share your job openings (and other stuff).
We hope that these 5 LinkedIn tools will help you next time you want to use LinkedIn to post your job for free or for paid advertising. As we said at the beginning of this post, there are lots more of things to consider before just jumping in and shouting about your jobs. Watch this space on our blog where we will be posting lots more information on social and LinkedIn recruiting in the forthcoming months.
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If you have an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) or a careers page with your jobs published on, be sure to include this link or at the very least a call to action on how people can apply. We would probably advise against directing the candidates to a third party job board like Indeed, as the candidate will see other job opportunities and you have lost their focus.
Another point when using LinkedIn to post your jobs for free in this manner is the frequency with which you post jobs. If you have invested time in developing a good network (candidates, business associates, suppliers etc) they are not all going to be jumping on your news if it is always about jobs. Make sure you also include other updates that will keep your network interested and don't forget to share other peoples news too. You only get out of LinkedIn (or any other social media) if you put it in.