Hello everyone,
In this episode of The Modern Recruiter, I had a fantastic conversation with Clark Willcox, founder of The Digital Recruiter and host of the podcast with the same name. We dived into how to leverage LinkedIn effectively as a recruiter, offering insights valuable for both corporate and agency recruiters. Just after, he interviewed me as a guest on his podcast on the topic of Turning your LinkedIn brand into a sales machine, I would recommend giving it a listen too!
Here are some of the key takeaways from our discussion:
1/ How to optimize Your LinkedIn profile as a landing page (with lots of great tips)
Clark emphasized the importance of making your LinkedIn profile a compelling landing page and shared a story about a client who revamped his LinkedIn profile and signed a new lead within only a week.
Here’s what he recommends:
Headline and About Section: Clearly state your value proposition and recent accomplishments. For example, “I build sales teams for industrial automation companies. Recently placed a Chief Marketing Officer at HireSweet”
Profile Picture and Banner: Use a professional and clear profile picture. Avoid AI-generated images.
Featured Section: Highlight your best posts, articles, or a call-to-action like booking a consultation. This section is crucial for showcasing your expertise.
+ a few more snippets (listen to the conversation!)
2/ The best outreach campaigns
Clark recommends to level up LinkedIn outreach by using a LinkedIn automation tool like Dripify + Sales Navigator (or Recruiter Lite/Recruiter). Here’s the simplified approach Clark recommends:
No Invitation Note for Clients: Skip the note to increase acceptance rates. Once connected, engage with open-ended questions like, “How are your hiring efforts going in this challenging market?”. Play the long game, don't try to close them right away, because in Clark's words “Most of your outreach is sales is not going to work. Have that internal patience.”
Invitation Note for Candidates: Send a personalized message that highlights the role’s benefits. For example, “I think you might be a potential fit for a remote software developer role that offers exciting projects.”
3/ Follow-Up Tactics
Following up is key to maintaining engagement:
For Clients: Use open-ended questions to uncover needs. If they say they aren’t hiring, dig deeper by checking their job postings and asking targeted questions.
For Candidates: Tailor your follow-ups based on their engagement and responses.
Final Thoughts
Successful recruiting isn’t necessarily about grinding harder; it’s about working smarter and being strategic in our approach - and LinkedIn can be a great channel to do just that. As Clark said, “It’s about leveraging the tools of today to make your efforts more efficient and effective.” So if you’re not active on LinkedIn yet, I hope this conversation was useful and will help you get started!
Listen to the full episode to dive deeper and learn how to create a robust LinkedIn system that drives results!
Byw the way! I love when people reply to these emails, and I read and reply to all of your messages. They keep me motivated to continue the podcast, even after 4 years! So I’d love to hear your thoughts on this episode: What strategies have you found effective on LinkedIn? What tools do you use yourselves? Come on, just hit reply and let’s chat!
Have a great week!
Robin
PS: My next episode will be with Jared Watts and we’ll be talking about how to apply professional sports (in Jared's case, soccer) to recruiting! It's been an awesome conversation, and I’m sure you’ll love it too! See you in two weeks!
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