Money saving recruitment tips are equipping businesses on Brackmills to attract and recruit top talent – thanks to bespoke training this month funded by Brackmills Business Improvement District (BID).
The BID, working in partnership with Northampton based employability specialists Career Catapult, invited a dozen leaders from Brackmills businesses to a training session about how LinkedIn can be used to recruit and retain staff – thus reducing the need for big budget recruitment agency fees.
James Gage, from Career Catapult, explained: “We designed this training session exclusively for Brackmills businesses, focusing on LinkedIn and on how this social media platform, when used correctly, can be the answer to so many recruitment challenges.”
Sara Homer, BID CEO, said: “At the BID we are always looking for new ways to support our businesses. Last year we launched our online Virtual Jobs Fair which we update every week and is packed with vacancies and opportunities on the estate.
“This has massively helped businesses to attract new staff, so we wanted to look at what else we could do to help. We heard about Career Catapult, a new Northampton based company that helps businesses attract and upskill their staff, so we got in touch. This LinkedIn training went down a storm and we are already planning what to do next.”
Seeking recruitment advice. Here are five tips for using LinkedIn for recruitment, courtesy of Career Catapult:
1. Don’t just search for candidates when you have a vacancy. Make sure you are continually building your candidate pool. Many line managers spend years ‘grooming’ prospective employees from competitor organisations who they eventually acquire, and these often go on to be top performers. When looking for candidates for a particular vacancy, be mindful that it can be very easy to waste a lot of time.
2. Before you do anything, make sure you know the profile of your ideal candidate so you know who you are looking for. Thinking in advance can save a massive amount of time as you will be narrowing down your search options on LinkedIn and you will know exactly what you’re looking for.
3. Prepare your candidate pitch so you know how to attract them. Don’t just send your candidates as generic message. Identify something specific in the potential employee’s background to refer to, tailor the message to the individual and relate your message to an event happening within your business that’s relevant for them/entices them, e.g. in the process of launching/expanding etc. And remember, flattery gets you everywhere!
4. Become familiar with the filters section and all the criteria you can search on. When you start searching for people on LinkedIn, what you type into the initial search box is irrelative. The filters section will get you far more refined results. You do this by selecting All Filters after your initial search and then choosing from the array of options that now appears.
5. Remember not everyone has a full profile. Many people will put the minimum amount of detail on their profile. So be creative with your searching. You could try narrowing things down by looking for the biggest employer of the type of candidate you want and searching for them instead of just searching for job titles or areas of specialism.
Find out more about recruitment support from Brackmills.