LinkedIn is one of the top platforms for professionals to connect and grow their careers. With over 675 million users globally, advertising your job openings on LinkedIn provides direct access to a massive talent pool of qualified candidates.
However, simply posting a job description is not enough to capture attention and generate high-quality applications. This guide will provide best practices and strategies to optimize your LinkedIn job posts and recruit the perfect hires for your business.
Understanding LinkedIn’s Job Advertising Tools
LinkedIn offers two primary tools for employers to advertise open roles – sponsored job posts and LinkedIn Recruiter. It’s important to understand the basic differences between these options before starting your recruitment efforts.
Sponsored Job Posts
Sponsored job posts allow you to promote a specific job listing to targeted audiences on LinkedIn. You can boost the visibility of your post beyond just your own connections by selecting specific criteria like location, industry, skills, and more. This gives your listing more exposure to relevant professionals.
The cost per sponsored post depends on various factors like audience size, bid amount, and competition. On average, expect to pay $25-75 per day to promote a listing. The benefit is you only pay when someone applies, views the full job description or clicks through to your website.
LinkedIn Recruiter
LinkedIn Recruiter is a more comprehensive recruiting software with advanced search and filtering tools. It allows you to store all your open roles in one place, search passive candidates, keep track of applicants, and manage the hiring process end-to-end.
While more powerful, Recruiter also has a higher monthly subscription fee starting at $99. However, it may be worth the investment for large companies or those who hire regularly. Recruiter subscribers also get priority placement for their job posts in search results.
Knowing the differences in these options will help determine the best approach based on your budget and hiring needs. Both have significant potential to connect you with top talent when used strategically.
Crafting the Perfect Job Post
Now that we understand LinkedIn’s advertising tools, let’s dive into how to craft compelling content that grabs attention and gets results. A job post is essentially a marketing piece, so think about how to sell the role and company to prospective candidates. Here are some best practices:
Write an Engaging Title
The title is one of the first things seen, so choose 5-7 words that spark curiosity. Highlight important keywords but keep it conversational and benefits-driven versus just listing job duties. For example:
“Remote Growth Marketer to Fuel Our Explosive Momentum”
Compose an Attention-Grabbing Description
The first paragraph should enthuse readers about why the role is so exciting. Share the company’s vision and emphasize how candidates can impact real change. Focus less on listing requirements upfront and more on selling the opportunity.
Paint a vivid picture of day-to-day responsibilities and impact. Use bulleted lists, formatting and variety to break up walls of dense text. Highlight perks, culture, impact and potential for growth.
Optimize for Searchability
Load your post with important keywords like the job title, specific responsibilities, location, skills and more. LinkedIn’s algorithm will drive more views by matching these to relevant professionals’ profiles.
But avoid keyword stuffing – read organically. And always have a human review it to avoid any unintentional double meanings or awkward phrasing.
Include Company Branding
Promote your employer brand by adding your logo, company description, website URL and other branded visuals if possible. This helps establish credibility and familiarity upfront as readers vet the legitimacy and fit of the role.
With a catchy, compellingly written post optimized for visibility and conversions, you have the foundation for an effective LinkedIn recruiting campaign. But don’t stop there – additional promotional strategies take it to the next level.
Maximizing Post Exposure and Engagement
Simply publishing the perfect job ad is not enough. You need targeted promotion and engagement to turn views into quality applicants. Here are some best practices for boosting reach:
Promote in LinkedIn Groups
Join relevant industry and topic groups and post your listing. Engage members through commenting/sharing other posts to build familiarity before plugging openings. Group members are pre-qualified as sharing the same interests.
Engage Your Own Network
Leverage your employees’ and executive’s personal networks by encouraging them to share the post to further extend reach. Consider incentive programs for successful referrals.
Boost with Paid Promotion
For key roles, boost the post with a small sponsored budget. Even $25-50 per day can significantly multiply views from passive candidates versus organic reach alone.
Comment and Engage Candidates
Take the time to thank people for sharing, comment on applications that stand out in a positive way, and engage candidates who left thoughtful comments relevant to your industry. This personal touch improves reputation.
Retarget Website Visitors
Install LinkedIn’s pixel tracking code to retarget website visitors with the job listing. People browsing your careers page are already expressing interest.
With a little promotion and engagement, you can exponentially expand the number of relevant eyeballs on your post using the power of personal networks and LinkedIn’s advertising tools. Quality candidates and conversions will follow.
Evaluating Success and Optimizing for the Future
Of course, the real test is how well your efforts translated to quality hires. Be sure to closely monitor key metrics:
- Application numbers – Are you getting steady volume of complete applications?
- Candidate quality – Through resume screening and interviews, how do candidates compare? Are they the right “fit”?
- Time to fill – Is the process efficient or is it taking too long?
- Cost per hire – What was the total cost versus salary to determine efficiency?
- Referral success – Which channels produced the strongest candidates via referrals?
Take time to gather feedback from both hires and those not selected. Make adjustments to your process, company description or job post content as needed for even better results next time.
Continuously optimize based on analytics and experience. Consider A/B testing post variations or advertising approaches. Over time, you’ll develop highly effective LinkedIn recruiting campaigns to consistently source top talent for your growing organization.
Above all, remember to personally engage candidates throughout the process as an ambassador of your culture and employer brand. Standing out from other opportunities through your interactions can make all the difference in landing the perfect new team members.
In summary, LinkedIn’s massive professional community and targeted advertising tools give you unmatched access to qualified talent when used strategically. Craft compeling content, promote widely and nurture valuable relationships with candidates to excel at recruitment through this powerful platform.