Introduction
LinkedIn, the most popular professional social network in the world, has more than a billion members. LinkedIn has become an essential platform for recruiters looking for qualified, diverse talent. But the question remains: how do you attract and retain these potential candidates to build an active, high-performing LinkedIn talent pool?
In this article, we share tips to improve your visibility on LinkedIn and your candidate sourcing. You’ll learn how to engage effectively with the candidates you’re interested in and how to build a solid community around your employer brand. Discover how LinkedIn can become a strategic lever not only for recruiting, but also for nurturing and growing your reserve of talent.
Establish a dynamic, attractive presence on LinkedIn
Keeping a candidate pool active on LinkedIn requires particular care for your employer brand. Here are several strategies to get there.
Optimize your company page
It should capture the essence of your brand. To make it complete, up to date and appealing, follow these tips:
- Choose a cover photo that reflects your activity, your values or the atmosphere of the company.
- Write a precise description of what your company does, its objectives, its products or services and its advantages.
- Include practical details such as your sector, company size, location, website, etc.
- Publish quality content regularly: articles, testimonials, job offers, videos, among others.
- Encourage your employees to follow the page, interact with the posts and share their professional experience on LinkedIn.
A well-optimized company page will improve your visibility, credibility and attractiveness to potential candidates. Here is a tip to significantly increase the number of followers on your company page.
Highlight your company culture and values
Candidates are looking for a company aligned with their aspirations, not just a job. Here’s how to showcase what makes your company unique, namely its culture and values, on LinkedIn:
- Highlight your projects, successes, innovations and commitments.
- Introduce your teams, describe the different roles within the company, and present the career paths and training you offer.
- Share everyday moments, company events, anecdotes or photos.
- Ask for and share testimonials from your customers, partners and employees.
- Use hashtags, create slogans, produce visuals and stories to energize your presence.
By emphasizing your culture and values, you’ll build strong ties and gain trust and engagement from candidates.
Take an active part in industry groups
Joining or creating industry groups on LinkedIn is an excellent way to meet candidates interested in your field. Here are several advantages:
- Spot profiles that will enrich your talent pool.
- Establish more direct, personalized contact with interested candidates.
- Position yourself as an expert and influencer in your sector.
- Keep up with the latest trends, opportunities and challenges in your industry.
- Promote your company, your job ads and your specific events.
Active participation in industry groups will strengthen your network, your reputation and your ability to attract potential candidates. What’s more, it’s easy to put together, from these LinkedIn groups, a candidate database that you can then clean up in Airtable, for example, so that you keep only the candidates who match your job offer AND who are interested enough in the subject to have joined a dedicated LinkedIn group.
Engage directly with potential candidates
To keep a candidate pool active on LinkedIn, a dynamic and attractive presence alone isn’t enough. It’s crucial to establish a link with the profiles that catch your attention and keep them interested throughout the recruitment process. Being proactive in recruiting pays off far more than simply posting on job boards. Indeed, most good candidates already have a job. From what we see among our clients, a candidate outreach campaign on LinkedIn generates between 10 and 15 interviews for every 100 people contacted.
Here’s how to engage effectively with potential candidates on LinkedIn:
Use automated candidate outreach sequences
Just as a salesperson would do to find new customers, a recruiter needs to contact potential candidates directly. It’s very important to go through a “connection request”: once the candidate is part of your LinkedIn network, you can write to them directly, without going through InMails.
You’ll also be able to approach them easily later on for another position, and your LinkedIn posts will be directly visible to them.
A 1st-degree LinkedIn network should be seen as an ATS, which is why it’s important to protect it. When you run candidate outreach campaigns, do it from a dedicated MirrorProfiles account. This professional prospecting account is rented by your company, with no commitment and monthly billing: the talent pool stays within the company. If you use your recruiters’ personal LinkedIn accounts, you run the risk that the day they no longer work for you, a network you have in a sense financed will be used by another company.
Use InMail messages for a personalized first contact
For candidates who don’t accept your connection request, InMail messages let you send private messages to LinkedIn members without being connected to them. They are particularly effective for reaching passive candidates, i.e. those who aren’t actively looking for a job but could be tempted by an opportunity. To write a compelling InMail:
- Start by personalizing your message: mention the recipient’s first name and refer to aspects of their profile that caught your attention.
- Introduce yourself briefly and explain the reason for your message, staying clear, concise and polite.
- Make a job proposal suited to the recipient’s experience, aspirations and availability, while highlighting the advantages of joining your company.
- Encourage a reply by asking an open question, or by asking for the candidate’s opinion or availability.
- Close with a polite sign-off and provide your contact details to make it easy to get in touch.
Using InMail messages appropriately increases your chances of receiving a favorable reply.
Share updates and opportunities regularly
Keeping in touch after the first exchange is essential to keep candidates informed about the recruitment process and to show your continued attention. Here are ways to share information and opportunities regularly:
- Send follow-up messages, ask for news or suggest an interview.
- Share relevant content about your company and your industry, such as articles, videos, podcasts or webinars.
- Invite them to join your network, follow your company page or subscribe to your newsletter.
- Let them know about interesting new job openings or events you’re taking part in.
- Share testimonials from your employees, customers or partners.
By communicating regularly, you strengthen your ties with candidates and motivate them to apply for your offers.
Respond quickly to questions and comments
A fast, attentive response to candidates’ questions and comments is highly valued. Here’s how to ensure effective interaction:
- Acknowledge their messages and thank them for their interest.
- Give clear, precise and sincere answers. If you don’t know the answer, let them know you’ll find out and get back to them as soon as possible.
- Stay professional, courteous and respectful, while avoiding spelling mistakes, jargon and informal language.
- Be transparent about the recruitment stages, timelines and selection criteria.
- Offer solutions or alternatives in case of problems or unforeseen events.
A responsive reply shows that you listen to candidates and confirms your reputation as a reliable employer.
Build a community around your employer brand
To keep a candidate pool active on LinkedIn, it’s crucial to build a community around your employer brand. This means bringing together people who identify with your values, your objectives and your vision, and turning them into ambassadors for your company. Referrals have never been as important as they are today, when good profiles are scarce and turnover in this generation is high. Here are a few strategies to encourage the emergence of a community dedicated to your brand:
Encourage current employees to become ambassadors
Your current employees are an incomparable force for promoting your brand. Through their testimonials and their enthusiasm for working for you, they can attract new talent. To encourage them to become ambassadors:
- Recognize their contributions and successes.
- Give them a voice, through interviews, written contributions or public speaking.
- Train them in LinkedIn best practices, so they can optimize their profile and interact effectively.
- Set up a rewarded referral program.
- Gather their opinion on your employer brand strategy and your job offers.
By involving your employees this way, you’ll generate positive word of mouth, improve your visibility and strengthen your credibility. For example, creating a Glassdoor account can be worthwhile if you encourage your employees to leave their reviews there.
Above all, don’t fall into the “too good to be true” trap. Your employees must genuinely enjoy promoting your company: if the message is skewed, you may recruit more easily, but you won’t keep your employees. Given that a hire costs a company between 8,000 and 15,000 euros, it’s also worth having a retention strategy once the candidate is recruited.
Organize virtual events for candidates
Virtual events are a perfect opportunity to connect with candidates and introduce them to your company. Webinars, conferences, workshops: remember to:
- Define the objectives, theme and format, and choose the date and target audience carefully.
- Select relevant speakers, ideally from among your employees or partners.
- Promote your event effectively.
- Host the event in a way that makes the experience interactive and engaging.
- Follow up after the event to thank participants and keep in touch with them.
These events will strengthen the engagement and trust of potential candidates in your brand.
Create useful, informative content for your audience
This is essential to nurture your community. It’s about sharing your expertise and answering the questions of your potential candidates, by offering:
- Relevant, high-value topics.
- Content that is appropriate in tone and style, clear and authentic.
- SEO optimization to improve your visibility.
- Wide, targeted distribution on the right platforms.
- Regular interaction with your audience to encourage exchanges.
By producing quality posts, you’ll strengthen the ties with your community, increase your credibility and build audience loyalty.
The best candidates will always prefer to work for companies that are the best in their field, or that intend to become so.
Conclusion
LinkedIn is essential for recruiters who want to maintain a dynamic candidate pool. By applying the recommendations in this article, you’ll have the keys to improve your visibility on LinkedIn, interact effectively with potential candidates and build a close-knit community around your employer brand. LinkedIn proves to be much more than a social network: it’s a crucial strategic tool for bringing the most qualified talent into your company. To make sure your talent pool stays within the company, you can rent dedicated MirrorProfiles LinkedIn accounts and give each of your recruiters at least one account for candidate sourcing and employer brand visibility; our clients generally use 5 to 6 per recruiter.
FAQ
How do you build a candidate pool?
To create a candidate pool, start by researching and organizing the profiles of people who show a potential interest in opportunities within your company. This can be done through spontaneous applications, proactive searching, referrals or professional events. Then keep this pool active by staying in touch with candidates, sharing relevant information with them and regularly updating their details.
What is a talent pool reply?
A talent pool reply is a positive response sent to a candidate whose application wasn’t selected for a specific position, but who is kept in a database to be potentially contacted in the future. It indicates that the recruiter was impressed by the candidate’s skills and intends to get back in touch for future opportunities matching their profile.
How do you see candidates on LinkedIn?
To see candidates on LinkedIn, go to the “Jobs” icon at the top of your home page, then select “Manage job posts”. Find the ad for which you want to review applications and click on “View applicants”. You can also, with a LinkedIn Recruiter subscription, filter people who are “Open to work”.
