How to: Message Group Members & Add 3rd Degree Contacts on LinkedIn
LinkedIn allows you to message first degree connections and fellow official “open networkers” but requires you to use InMails to message other Members of the Network. The only other exception to this rule is those members who share a Group with you (providing that they haven’t changed their settings within that particular Group to block you). Many of you may have noticed that you can no longer Message Fellow Group Members that appear in your Search Results; fret not however as there is a great little cheat that gets around this.
How to send a message to a fellow Group Member:
This is a bit convoluted, but it’s worthwhile. LinkedIn removed the “Send Message” button from fellow Group Members’s profiles only if you have found them through a search or advanced search. The trick is to find which Group you share with them and then go to the Members tab within the group. Search the group members for the person you’re wishing to contact (usually we’ll only have their first name since they’re 3rd degree contacts), and maybe put in their company as well. Up comes that profile, and if we hover our mouse over their profile, we’ll now be given the option to send them a message.
How to connect add a 3rd degree connection as a Contact:
Likewise, earlier this year LinkedIn also removed the ability for non-premium account holders to add 3rd degree profiles as Contacts Lots of recruiters by-pass InMails by adding complete strangers as Contacts. If it works for you, who are we to question you! So, you’ve searched LinkedIn for profiles that match your criteria and you’ve found some great potential candidates, and now you want to connect. But when you’re viewing their profile, the link to “Add to my connections” button is nowhere to be seen. Aha! The loophole is this: simply go backwards into the directory search listings in LinkedIn, and when you hover your mouse over a profile in the list, on the right are four hyperlinks: Send InMail, Get Introduced, Find References and… Add to Network. A sneaky omission on behalf of LinkedIn, but as long as the loophole still exists we’ll take advantage of it!
We ran a Webinar yesterday explaining all of the recent changes and upgrades to LinkedIn that are essential to Recruiters, you can watch it here.
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Corporate Career Videos: Now this is how it should be done!
Thanks to Vincent at Select People for finding this great video from ElasticPath, a software developer in Vancouver who have grown to over 15o employees with offices globally.
They produced a great video entitled “What it’s really like to work at ElasticPath” that pokes fun at most of the stuffy, corporate videos that you often see on careers sites. Since then they have continued to make some really cool videos for their careers page; lots to learn here!
Yes, it could be trimmed down to make it snappier, but well done guys!
Here’s the more “corporate” version, using most of the same footage:
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Google+ from the perspective of an in-house recruiter in Google
Steven Grant from Google has joined us at the IrishRecruiters Tuesday Club to discuss Google+. He is an experienced recruiter (8 years in the business) who recruits across Europe for Technical roles on behalf of Google. He explains that Google+ is trying to bring together all of the Google products out there and personalise your experience based on your habits and behaviors across all the Google products (read: Google wants to know everything about you so that it can sell that data to advertisers who want to target you on-line).
Steven is showing us this great video to summarise what it’s all about:
Steven was at a stag at the weekend and confides that he absolutely does not want his work colleagues to see the photos he took yet he would like to share them with his mates. Unlike Facebook, Google Plus allows you to segment and group different people in different circles. With Google+ you can segment who sees what. In Facebook, from a recruitment perspective, everyone is either your “friend” or they’re not. What if you could segment them out by talent pools who are hot “books of talent” in different technical areas or locations etc. Your updates can be customised or tailored to each segmented audience. You can post out a very targeted communication which in turn should be much more interesting to the audience who receives it. Steven is showing us his personal Plus account; he has “Close Friends”, “Linux Geeks”, “Google Colleagues” , ”Family”, “Linux Chix” etc. If, for example, Steven comes across a really cool Linux Chick, he can communicate with his recruitment circle in Google and let them know that he has come across someone that may interest them.
Steven mentions Mike Elgan who has given up all blogging and Facebook for the “Google Plus diet” and quotes him as saying that addressing a post to “public” is like a blogging, whereas addressing a post to a circle is more like a tweet (I’m not sure I get this analogy, sorry!).
So, here’s Steven’s summary of each component of Google+ and how recruiters can use them:
Hang Outs: Useful for planned or unplanned group meetings. You can address this to a particular circle and start a video conference with the people in your circle who are on Google Plus. Immediate uses: interview candidates, hold meetings with individuals in multiple locations. Google are going to start creating “Open Hours” where Google Recruiters will be available on line for anyone who wants to hang out and talk to them (Neat!). They’re also going to get Engineers to go on and create live chats about technical topics to attract prospective hires. Once an external person joins a Hang Out, the recruitment team are going to capture their data to follow up with them later (great idea, similar to what we do with webinars).
Sparks: “Remember when your Grandpa used to cut articles out of the paper and send them out to you? That was nice. That’s kind of what Sparks does: look for videos and articles it thinks you’ll like, so when you’re free, there’s always something to watch, read and share. Grandpa would approve”
Some Cool Chrome Extensions:
- G+Me allows you to collapse posts, more like Twitter. Has a notification bar and links to Twitter and Facebook.
- StartGooglePlus will put your Facebook and Twitter Streams inside Google+ (cool)
For a great tutorial, check out http://tinyurl.com/googlestarterguide
I ask the guys when Google+ will be available for Corporate Google Apps users; no answer, probably when Google Pages for Businesses are available, towards the end of this year.
Another question from the audience regarding privacy: Steven explains that you are totally in control of who sees what information and what is indexed by search engines. For public information, you can x-ray search public profiles using the site:plus.google.com x-ray search.
Thank you Google!
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Apply with LinkedIn is here! Here’s how to use it
Back in the beginning of June, we wrote about the impending Apply with LinkedIn button and how it was set to change the job-application landscape for the better. No longer will CV’s be the only way to apply for a role, instead candidates can apply using the consistent format of a LinkedIn profile with the just one touch. This makes applying for roles extremely simple, and candidates can use it while on the move using their smartphone. The user-experience is really slick, with an application collated in seconds, experience summed up nicely, phone number (if required) and email address inserted automatically, a cover letter drawn up ready to be approved, and so much more. I urge you all to incorporate this button in to your job posts. Here’s how…
Building your specific Apply with LinkedIn Button is actually really easy – you can build a really simple one, which just forwards the candidate’s profile to your email address, or you can customise it quite simply to include that the candidate supply their phone number, a cover letter, or to answer specific questions while applying (for example, Do you have X years or more experience in this role?, Do yo have the right to work in the European Union? etc).
So, your first step: design your LinkedIn button for your specific job role (you’ll need to customise each button per role so that when candidates email you their profile, the subject will be the Job Title. It’s really simple to customise the button for each role, don’t worry!).
Step 1:
Build your LinkedIn Button by going to the Plugins page here at LinkedIn – this will enable you to publish the button on your company’s website if you don’t want to use (or don’t have) an ATS. Preview your button by clicking on the Apply with LinkedIn button on the right hand side, which will bring up your profile as a test to the job-post, and help you realise the candidate’s user-experience.
Step 2:
Things you need to customise at this point:
- Enter the Company Name,
- The recipient email to which you’d like to forward all applications to (eg, jobs@socialtalent.co),
- Enter the job title and Location,
- Optional: add your company logo (this needs a web address for where your logo is stored on your site, with maximum dimensions of 80 x 40 pixels), and customise the theme colour which matches your company’s branding. When the applicant clicks on your job, your company logo and colours will appear in the pop-up box.
- Select whether you require the candidate’s phone number at this stage.
Then, press the “Get Code” button.
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