For many organizations, hearing about the current labor shortage is stressful. According to recent data during the continued pandemic, there are over one million more available jobs than there are candidates searching for them. This translates into the tightest labor market in the history of the United States, causing talent acquisition and recruitment professionals to rethink hiring strategies. As such, adapting to the unprecedented times is more important than ever for filling these open positions and for attracting top talent. One platform that has helped many organizations find new hires throughout the years is LinkedIn. In the ensuing article, we have put together some actionable tips and ideas for improving your LinkedIn job postings to stand out from the crowd.
According to LinkedIn, the platform now has close to 740 million members with over 55 million registered companies worldwide. In addition to the sheer number of users, many companies and recruiters are utilizing the service. Here are some mind-blowing stats to show the overall impact LinkedIn has on recruitment:
- There are 40 million people using LinkedIn to search for jobs each week
- 210 million job applications are submitted each month
- 81 job applications are submitted every second
- 4 people are hired every minute on LinkedIn
So how do companies and recruiters differentiate their opportunities and connect with great candidates? One effective way is by improving your LinkedIn job postings so you can increase the number of views, applications, and talented hires. Let’s take a closer look at how that can be achieved and what you can do today to improve your results.
Think outside of the LinkedIn jobs box
To maximize LinkedIn’s potential, having a well-rounded approach is essential. Ideally, your company has been using social media, including LinkedIn, to help with overall brand awareness and recognition. To help your job postings gain more impressions and get more results, it is crucial that your company page is dialed in, that you build a following and community, and that you create useful, educational, and thoughtful content on a regular basis. This type of holistic approach will indirectly lead to more eyeballs on your company and your job postings, ultimately leading to more applications and hires.
Improve your job post copy and content
Many times, your job posting may be the first impression about your company and the opportunity. Conveying the right message and focusing on the copy can lead to greater results. For example, LinkedIn studied the data from over 4.5 million job posts. They analyzed how hundreds of millions of candidates across the U.S. and U.K. viewed and applied to those job posts. One key insight that was discovered was that shorter job postings get more applications. Shorter job posts, around 1300 words, had significantly higher-than-average apply rates per view. Keeping your job postings concise and at or around that word count is worth a try. Finally, you can make your existing job postings stand out by leveraging real employee feedback to influence candidates to apply, using Comparably’s themed job posts tool.
Clearly communicate your Covid related protocols and remote work options
In this day and age, candidates have many questions regarding the open positions and opportunities that they are interested in. At the top of mind are the Covid related protocols and in office, hybrid, or remote expectations. If candidates are left wondering or confused, your job posting may be skipped over. With that being said, clearly communicate the current environment, any future work-from-home options, and/or when employees will be coming back to the office. If you have a hybrid work environment in place, explain how that works and looks to give the candidates a better feel of what is expected. In addition to that, be sure to clearly indicate any open positions that are remote in nature as it will broaden the potential talent pool. To do so, select the “This job is remote” option from the job location field if available.
Utilize LinkedIn’s recruiter jobs reporting to improve performance
To help get the most out of your LinkedIn job postings, spend time analyzing the performance. The recruiter jobs report will help you improve your strategy and have a better understanding of your job posting’s overall effectiveness. If you have a larger number of jobs posted, helpful filters allow you to view reporting based on various criteria, such as job locations and job functions. The jobs graph provides useful insight on your daily unique member job views, unique member job applications, apply rate, completed applications, and completion rate. Lastly, the job traffic details graph displays metrics for job post reporting and candidate demographics. By viewing and consistently monitoring this data, you may be able to fine-tune your job posts to improve the measured metrics that are important to you.
Use the power of your network to share job opportunities
Part of the power of LinkedIn, from sales to networking, to recruitment and more, is the sheer number of users engaging with the platform every minute of the day. With that, you have the ability for your content to gain eyeballs or impressions. One such example, as it relates to job postings, is to ask your network to share your job posting or list of available opportunities. You can also ask your network if they know of anyone that may be interested in an available position. If you, and others within the organization, each utilize the power of their connections and network, your job postings will increase the number of times they are seen. This can lead to more applicants and ideally more hires.
Undoubtedly, LinkedIn job postings can help attract great candidates to fill open positions within your organization. However, the competition is higher than ever, with recruiters scrambling to fill positions nationwide. So when it is time to post your next LinkedIn job offerings, be sure to follow the aforementioned tips to help improve your chances of filling your talent pool with targeted and qualified applicants.
