5 LinkedIn Recruiter Hacks to Save You Time

LAS VEGAS—LinkedIn's announcement at its annual showcase that members can now signal they are open to changing jobs may have stolen the show, but several additional new tools for LinkedIn Recruiter also officially debuted at 2016 Talent Connect.

Four new search filters and the underutilized spotlights feature (announced last year) will help recruiters whittle down search results in smarter and faster ways.

"We know how valuable a recruiter's time is, and we believe these items will be useful to become super efficient while you're using LinkedIn Recruiter," said Perry Monaco, a customer success leader with LinkedIn based in Toronto.

These filters can be found in the Advanced Search panel in Recruiter. Here's what they do:

Hide previously viewed profiles. Sourcing for a new role or building up a talent pipeline can require scanning thousands of profiles, including many redundant ones.

"I would rather work with large searches and then manipulate the data, but I do not want to always see the same people in my search," said Maria Hardeman, a customer success manager for LinkedIn based in New York City.

Recruiters now have the ability to go into the Recruiting and Candidate Activity box and hide profiles previously viewed within a three- or six-month time frame. "This is a game changer," Hardeman said. "You apply this and you are now looking at a raw talent pool that you have not engaged with before. You can also exclude people that have been viewed by your teammates and who have been InMailed from up to two years out to the current day."

Sort by likelihood to respond. Sorting search results by the candidate's relationship to the recruiter's company, aggregated job-seeking behaviors and past recruiting activity allows recruiters to prioritize people in the search that are most likely to respond based on a relationship with the company. "There is an algorithm working in the background determining who will appear in your search that is most likely to respond," Monaco said. "These are people that you should be messaging first."

Filter search results by multilingual proficiency. Many roles require the ability to speak multiple languages. LinkedIn Recruiter already had a filter for candidates based on their primary language, and it has just added a tool to help find bilingual and multilingual people and determine their proficiency. Recruiters can specify what level of proficiency is required, from elementary ability to fully bilingual or multilingual. "As a Canadian recruiter, it is super helpful when finding those French-language candidates," Monaco said.

Find U.S. military veterans more easily. The new U.S. Military Veterans search filter will make it much easier to find and recruit from the more than 2.2 million LinkedIn members who have served in the U.S. military. This feature is available only in the U.S.

"Let's say you have a mandate to hire a product manager in New York City who is also a military vet," Monaco said. Recruiters can now navigate the Education and Experience filter and note that there is a new Military Veterans facet.

Make the most of spotlights. The spotlights feature gives sourcers the ability to locate candidates who may be more likely to engage, so recruiters know who to reach out to first. "The tool dissects a very large talent pool by a variety of factors, such as who has interacted with your brand, company connections, past applications and people who have searched through your jobs, among other things," Hardeman said.

She added that these are the types of candidates data say are far more likely to be interested in a job, compared to someone who has no connection to the company. "The results from doing this have been impressive," she said.

Monaco reminded the recruiters in the room that up to 50 searches at any one time can be saved with activated spotlights. "If you save a search with a spotlight activated, that actually becomes part of the saved search. Just think of all the variations you can have of a particular search based on the different types of spotlights you have applied. This is a powerful opportunity to automate your searching every day on LinkedIn."

The LinkedIn reps had one last announcement to make: The LinkedIn Recruiter Learning Center has been refreshed with a new design and user experience. The site's training and educational materials, tutorials, tip sheets, and product announcements are meant to improve recruiters' knowledge and expertise with the platform.