Leveraging LinkedIn for B2B digital recruitment

With LinkedIn becoming an ever-more expanding tool for B2B Sales, networking, and recruitment, it makes the perfect sense for it to become an important peace in the market research puzzle. With over 900k users all over the globe, LinkedIn became the go-to platform for finding niche professionals and C-level contacts, avoiding this way the eternal issue of low response rates and gatekeepers.

Being new in the world of B2B Recruitment, we started exploring all available options that would enable us to offer a tailored and high-quality recruitment service to our clients. For those who are still not familiar, Sample Solutions has recently launched a completely new service, B2B Digital Recruitment, deciding to take a step ahead and move forward from the typical role of a sample provider toward a comprehensive research partner.

Sample Solutions´s strategic approach.

Linkedin Groups

Linkedin groups are a type of online community, centred around different topics, industries or interests. This makes LinkedIn groups the perfect go-to place to find people who share an interest in a certain topic and can give us valuable feedback and opinions on the subject of interest/research.

Targeted outreach

LinkedIn is a tool that allows a very specific way of targeting. For example, if there is a need for IT Managers only for a certain project, we can narrow down the search based on company size, industry etc. This is a sort of pre-screening that minimizes the risks of reaching out to underqualified or irrelevant respondents.

Direct engagement

LinkedIn´s In Mail lets us send personalized messages directly to potential respondents’ LinkedIn inboxes. Unlike cold emails, these messages feel less intrusive since users are more likely to engage if they perceive the message as relevant to their role. Personalizing the message to address specific pain points or interests makes it even more effective, leading to higher response rates.

Pros and Cons of Using LinkedIn for B2B Digital Recruitment

Pros:

Precise Targeting: LinkedIn allows us to narrow down prospects based on industry, job title, company size, and more, ensuring we select only relevant respondents. LinkedIn groups are one of the key points in this part, as we can find people who share the same interests in one spot.

Direct Access to Decision-Makers: LinkedIn facilitates reaching hard-to-contact professionals like C-level executives, avoiding gatekeepers and other obstacles that may occur when trying to reach these types of contacts. Sending a direct message is much more comfortable, easy and less time-consuming than the traditional methods. Not to forget that the reach is much higher since all messages get delivered and do not end up in SPAM folders

High-Quality Respondents: LinkedIn is used to identify the most suitable highly qualified respondents for a specific project. Avoiding underqualified and irrelevant contacts is of crucial importance for the workflow, the costs and of course the outcome of the projects. This ensures that only the most suitable individuals, who meet specific project criteria, are selected.

Cost-Effective: By identifying and directly contacting the right audience, we reduce the fieldwork costs as the risk of reaching out to the wrong target groups is very low. By minimising the risks of targeting underqualified or irrelevant contacts, we save time and resources, hence optimising the efficiency of the recruitment process.

Cons:

Response Rates: While LinkedIn offers access to professionals, response rates can be lower compared to other methods. Many professionals may not actively check their LinkedIn messages or may be sceptical about messages offering incentives for surveys. This can lead to lower engagement.

Messaging Limitations: Messages on Linkedin are limited, and exceeding the limit can mean an additional cost. The limitations also apply to different types of connections, meaning some contacts cannot be messaged if they are not 1st or 2nd-grade connections.

Conclusion

Leveraging LinkedIn for B2B digital recruitment ensures reaching high-quality, targeted professionals and decision-makers. The precision of filtering the right target groups and the direct contact with the KOL enables companies such as ourselves to reach niche groups which cannot be reached via traditional channels.

Understanding the pros and cons of LinkedIn helps us use it more effectively, complementing other recruitment strategies for a balanced approach. Combining LinkedIn with old-fashioned recruitment strategies such as emails or SMS ensures reaching out to Key Opinion Leaders, whose opinions are vital as they mould the industry´s trends and tendencies and give the project a bigger credibility.