One of LinkedIn’s most used tools is precisely Recruiter. As LinkedIn is the largest professional social network in the world, it is easy to understand that it is not only interested in making it easier for talents to communicate and potentially find jobs in new companies; but also makes an effort to make it easier for companies to find potential candidates. That is just what this tool is all about; it was designed to make the search for candidates easier, more efficient, and faster. To achieve this, the Premium category includes, among other things, 150 InMails providing the ability to contact those talents even if they are not direct contacts, additional filters, reports with more features, creation of projects and alerts.
But is this tool worth the cost, and what are its advantages over the Lite version?
The short answer is that it depends; it depends on the individual needs of each company. In general, small and medium-sized companies may not see the expected ROI or return on investment for the costs of this tool, but let’s explain a little more about the differences between the Lite version and the professional version.
Scope: The professional version allows you to reach the entire network of LinkedIn contacts, which means that you have access to more than 200 million active users worldwide. On the other hand, the Lite version allows you to reach contacts up to third grade, which can be very wide or not, depending on the list you have.
Audience: Each of the versions is optimized for the audience that is expected to use the platform in a certain way. That means that the Pro version is mainly focussed on medium and large companies and, thus, candidates suitable for these profiles. On the other hand, the Lite version is focussed on small companies and even SMEs.
InMail messages: This is probably the most relevant and decisive difference, as it is also the one that brings the most value to the tool, giving you the possibility to communicate with those people who are outside your network of contacts more professionally and securely, which guarantees in many cases higher response rates.
Filters: The number of filters in the different versions may imply that the search is faster or more efficient, thus giving access to more or less information.
Teamwork: Having the possibility of multi-user panels, mentioning members, sharing reports, or creating shared projects in the professional version are all options limited in the Lite version.
These are relevant differences that, depending on the size of your company and the reach, you would wish to have and should take into account when using or deciding which tool best fits your requirements.
The costs associated with recruiting new personnel can come from many sources, from salaries in your Human Resources department, purchase or subscriptions to tools and programs such as those offered by LinkedIn to the time it may take to find a specific talent and, of course, that the talent found is suitable for the job and the company’s profile to reduce as much as possible the possible turnover rates, tools such as Evalart can help you in this.
To conclude, I want to highlight one last option Recruiter has within its tools, which is the one that highlights those candidates most likely to be interested in responding to the recruiter’s message. But what does the tool analyze to draw these conclusions? The connections; if the person has any first-degree contact already working in the company. If they follow, have liked, or shared any posts in the business’ profile. Finally, if they have previously presented interest in any position offered, it makes those contacts more receptive to recruiters. That information is relevant as it could save a lot of search time, and anything that can save time and, therefore, money is valuable.