At A Sales Guy Recruiting (ASGR)- you have to push yourself to be the best at what you do, and be the best for each other as a company.
Earlier this week, that meant watching a 60 min seminar presented by Glen Cathey, SVP of Talent Acquisition Strategy and Innovation at KForce, talk about how to get your maximum potential when using LinkedIn Search.
“LinkedIn is only limited by your capacity to think creatively and ask the right questions,” said Glen, and it got me thinking… Why do people join LinkedIn? I have enough common sense to know that people join LinkedIn because they want to network. But network in what capacity? Today, it’s bad juju to not have a LinkedIn profile page, so a lot of professionals have them for their image- when in actuality they don’t use their page for any form of functionality- sales, recruiting, research or otherwise. In fact, a lot of people don’t want to “connect” for future opportunities nor do they want to be harassed by hard working recruiters like me
Why do people join LinkedIn? I have enough common sense to know that people join LinkedIn because they want to network. But network in what capacity? Today, it’s bad juju to not have a LinkedIn profile page, so a lot of professionals have them for their image- when in actuality they don’t use their page for any form of functionality- sales, recruiting, research or otherwise. In fact, a lot of people don’t want to “connect” for future opportunities nor do they want to be harassed by hard working recruiters like me 😉 Then there are the people that are available to you via LinkedIn Search, but you never reach them or even look at them. For example, you could search Senior Account Executive, San Francisco, CA – keywords: Sales, SaaS, Technology and you’ll receive 1,782 results; by the time you get to 250-300 people you might feel that the rest are not relevant enough to your query. So, you ignore the other 1400+ or so. It must be organized this way for some reason we think, right? That’s where you and I were wrong.
Then there are the people that are available to you via LinkedIn Search, but you never reach them or even look at them. For example, you could search Senior Account Executive, San Francisco, CA – keywords: Sales, SaaS, Technology and you’ll receive 1,782 results; by the time you get to 250-300 people you might feel that the rest are not relevant enough to your query. So, you ignore the other 1400+ or so. It must be organized this way for some reason we think, right? That’s where you and I were wrong.
It must be organized this way for some reason we think, right? That’s where you and I were wrong. These two groups make up the “Dark Matter” of LinkedIn Search. For Recruiters and HR, Dark Matter serves as the untapped resource to the ultimate talent pool on LinkedIn. So how do we break with convention and find these hidden gems? I have compiled three key take-a-ways from Glen Cathy’s Seminar located on YouTube @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-O4R-rvvNk – it’s a must watch!
Locating the “Dark Matter”
- The Bottom Up Theory– An idea that you need to start from the back end of your search rather than working from the top down. If you think about it, our connections are grouped together by who we know and who are connections are connected to. Therefore, our networks are more closely correlated than we think, and as a result, we are often reaching out to a lot of the same people. The Bottom-Up theory will give you a competitive advantage to reach out to people from the bottom of your search and tap into those in the talent pool who are seldom contacted.
Maximum Inclusion through Interactive Search
- Strategic Inclusion- If you are searching for an Account Manager that can sell software- often we limit our searches to just that; or we use- Account Executive, AE, what have you. The idea behind strategic inclusion is to utilize every single acronym/synonym/abbreviation you can, to make sure you hit all possible matches and tap into that Dark Matter. For example, to search for an Account Executive try using this in your keyword search: SAE OR AE OR Account Exec. OR Account Executive OR Senior Account Executive OR Account Manager OR Acct. Exec. OR Acct. Mngr OR AM OR SNR Acct. Manager OR S. Acct. Exec OR you get my gist … Yes, you should use all of these and yes, you must use capital ‘OR’ if you want the query to recognize your formula. It’s interesting to think about, but often the A Players are aware that they are the cream of the crop and will, therefore, use abbreviations or short speak to avoid getting poached regularly.
- Interactive Search- To gain maximum inclusion, try ignoring the “keywords” and do a little research to find relevant words to diversify your search. For example, when choosing a keyword to start your search like, Sales, try ignoring the highlighted ‘Sales’ that LinkedIn finds for you, and take note to the other keywords you’ll see in profiles like closing, quota, high performer, presidents club etc. and include these in your search to ensure maximum inclusion and again, tap into that Dark Matter.
Outreach your Network
- Utilize Your Connection’s Connections– Reach out to past sales leaders to find untapped talent and do a little research. The best way to describe this method is by example. Let’s say you are looking to find an Enterprise AE who buys media space and aren’t finding much. You look up Thrive Advertising Company and realize that they are a big player in the media space. Now, you go on LinkedIn, search and find past sales leaders that used to work at Thrive Advertising Company and find some leaders to connect with. Be it by In-Mail or Direct Message, you reach out to these sales leaders, butter them up a little bit and ask for their collaboration on who they might know, that’s an A Player, in this space. Ballsy I know, but often you need to do what know when else is doing to yield the best results.
By using these techniques, I have been able to tap into my own Dark Matter and have seen a positive change in my sourcing methods. I would love to hear if the same is true for you. Special Thanks to Glen Cathey for sharing his wisdom- keep on keepin’ on.. Engage with me on Twitter: @ASGrecruiting.
Tactics without strategy, is the noise before defeat- Sun Tzu