If you’ve been sending out your CV and getting a disappointingly indifferent response, you may well have been inadvertently failing to convince virtual gatekeepers, rather than humans. Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) are now used by almost all bigger businesses. They bring enormous cost benefits, greatly reducing the time taken by talent acquisition teams to build shortlists. However, with frequently imprecise and random criteria, in the past they’ve been somewhat hit and miss, unpopular with line managers and frustrated candidates alike.
That may be finally changing; LinkedIn, now the industry thought leader in online recruitment technology, is upgrading its Recruiter platform to improve accuracy for employers looking for new hires and for employees looking for work, or to refer their friends with the new referral service.
The upgrade of LinkedIn Recruiter won’t be rolled out until early 2016, so we can’t know exactly how well it works, but LinkedIn has said it intends to help businesses become more analytical and efficient when it comes to finding and securing new staff. Apparently the new system will enable substantial increases in both speed and accuracy, and the announcement demonstration recently given by Eduardo Vivas, Head of LinkedIn Talent Solutions, was certainly convincing.
To use the application, all an employer will have to do is choose the profile of its best employee and the system will automatically shortlist a selection of people with similar backgrounds from the network, as well as details of the keywords it used to find the best people, so they can be tweaked and continually improved.
Another new feature, known as Spotlights, will generate a list of potential staff that are connected to current employees, or who have followed the company’s LinkedIn page or got involved with company updates, as well as anyone who has already applied for previous roles.
The soon-to-be-upgraded Referrals programme currently drives huge amounts of successful hires. According to LinkedIn, 80% of recruiters say they find it is the most effective medium for finding high quality candidates.
The new service works by evaluating people’s first stage connections and putting together potential job matches. The relevant staff – assuming their cooperation and basic headhunting ability – will then be encouraged internally to make contact with target candidates, using regular emails sent to their primary email address.
If you see an opening that you consider might be good for a friend or connection, you can send them the link via InMail or regular email. Notifications will only go to the employer if that person actually finds it interesting and applies for the role.
Improved algorithms mean companies will be able to monitor engagement and ROI, identifying which employees have made the best referrals and how successful candidates were introduced to the process.
Even if a business is just looking to hire someone with a particular skillset, the new ‘Something New’ button will mean large numbers of job-seeking candidates are readily available. And better algorithms mean higher quality shortlists.
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