It’s no secret that LinkedIn has been leading the way in the social media recruitment market for some time now. Facebook and Instagram may be leading in the social networking realm, but LinkedIn has been making equally powerful strides in the recruitment world. With a massive audience of professionals that are actively engaged with the platform, it’s crucial that we don’t underestimate the influence LinkedIn holds within the industry.
The growing success of LinkedIn
Staggeringly, LinkedIn has over 645+ million members in over 200 countries and territories. To put that into perspective, it means:
- LinkedIn is the world’s largest online professional network
- In Europe alone, there’s over 200 million members
- The sign-up rate is more than two new members per second
- There are more than 20 million open jobs on LinkedIn Jobs
According to LinkedIn Talent Solutions, social professional networks are the number one source of quality hires. In addition, 75% of people who recently changed jobs used LinkedIn to inform their career decision. LinkedIn understand that the primary reason people change jobs is for a better opportunity and that 87% of active and passive candidates are open to new opportunities. The platform capitalises on the needs and wants of people who are looking for better career prospects, whether they’re aware of it or not.
How LinkedIn is disrupting the recruitment market
Getting your jobs listed on LinkedIn stretches further than just exposure on the platform. The two biggest search engine giants in the world, Google and Bing, are also listing jobs from LinkedIn directly in their search engines. So, if LinkedIn is a huge player in the recruitment space in its own right, imagine the power it wields by getting its listings in front of those audiences as well.
For instance, if you were to carry out a job search on Google, you may be presented with some job listings from LinkedIn:
If you carry out the same search on Bing, it also displays job results from LinkedIn:
With job listings potentially appearing across LinkedIn, Google and Bing, it not only increases the visibility of jobs added to LinkedIn but also results in greater overall brand exposure. If candidates are more likely to see certain jobs over others, then it’s also more likely that they’ll convert.
What should recruiters do?
It’s no wonder that both Bing and LinkedIn, which are owned by Microsoft, are the innovative front runners for job related queries (learn more about how Bing is innovating more than Google in our article here). Facebook and Google have been making bold moves in the recruitment market over the past few years, but it seems that Microsoft is joining the on-going recruitment battle and counting itself as a real contender.
Although Google shows jobs from a wide variety of sources, some of these jobs are still noticeably coming from LinkedIn. This coupled with the fact that Bing is also providing dedicated job listings from LinkedIn means it’s a no brainer for recruiters and employers – you should be posting your job openings on LinkedIn if you aren’t already.
LinkedIn’s priority within Bing search results, as well as its visibility within Google’s job results and sheer dominance as a recruitment platform, make it a force to be reckoned with. Perhaps even more so than Indeed. Therefore, it’s more important than ever to utilise the professional networking site to its fullest to stay ahead of the game.
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