What are the biggest assumptions that many recruiters are making currently on LinkedIn? I see them every single day. Recruitment agencies are just as guilty as corporate recruiters, and it shows no sign of changing anytime soon. 

We all know what happens when you make assumptions - they usually come round and give you a big kick up the a*** - but not without making you look stupid in the process, first!

To be fair, recruiters are busy people. They are always trying to balance being thorough and finding the best candidates for their clients against the speed of that process. For that reason going after the low-hanging fruit is always a popular recruitment past-time. But the problem for me is that these recruiters then only go for these easy pickings and don't ever bother climbing higher to find those hard to find 'fruits'.

Here are five of the biggest assumptions many recruiters (not all !) make on LinkedIn:

1. All the candidates a recruiter needs are on LinkedIn. No they are not. Of course many are, but LinkedIn has not yet attained 100% success in everyone using their platform. Depending on your target audience, candidates are scattered wide and far across many different social (and non-social) networks. When was the last time you even looked outside of LinkedIn? - Twitter? StackOverflow? GitHub? Google? 
    
2. Candidates know how to use LinkedIn correctly. How often to you see a well completed candidate profile with the necessary keywords in their profile? The power of user generated content comes into play and this just cannot be underestimated. It isn't their fault - they aren't necessarily writing their profile for recruiters to find them! They might just have uploaded their CV, as LinkedIn suggest. Using synonyms and advanced searching may be required to find them, do you even bother?
    
3. LinkedIn users (candidates) are mind readers. <sarcasm warning> They need to be if they are to understand what you do. Do you actually tell people that you are a recruiter in your headline? Why would you, they know what a consultant, account manager, delivery consultant or principal consultant does, right? And then do you make it clear the sectors/industries you recruit in, and what job titles you recruit for? Why would you make it easy for them to know recruit for roles like theirs  - as I said candidates are surely mind readers, aren't they?
    
4. Post jobs and they will come. Haven't you noticed - applications from good candidates are decreasing. Yes you need to post jobs, but make sure there is an audience (that wants to listen) on LinkedIn first! I often get asked by companies why their jobs are not attracting good applicants on LinkedIn. The reason is two-fold; they haven't understood the role and the necessary keywords to make the job be found in search; and of course the advert copy is poor. The LinkedIn job section is not always the Field of Dreams many recruiters think it is.
    
5. The 80:20 rule doesn't apply to them. LinkedIn tell us that 80% of people on LinkedIn are 'passive' job seekers. So only 20% are 'active' at any one time. but that doesn't stop many recruiters flooding their status updates with all their jobs, every hour of the day! That is fine for the 20% who might want to see them -  but what about the 80% who don't? You do know that once someone hides your updates on LinkedIn (because the are fed up with the persistent jobs), they won't see any of them at all - not even that 'super dooper job' you want to share?

For all I have said above, LinkedIn is still a fantastic tool for recruiters to use. Recruiters are no different to any other user - some use it well, many don't. Most of the time, in my experiences, it is just because they simply don't know how to get the most out of LinkedIn, whether it is setting up their profiles correctly, using the advanced searching functionality or even just not understanding the true power of a network that has 225 million people in it!

I have just highlighted five here, but are there any other assumptions that you have found recruiters (or any others for that matter) making on LinkedIn? Please share them below in the comments.

I work with recruitment agencies and corporates to help them understand and leverage the different social media networks to improve their recruitment strategy, recruitment process, candidate attraction, employer branding and content marketing strategy. If you require guidance, advice or social recruiting training, get in touch today.

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