LinkedIn Fail – Why Recruiters Need to Know Social Media Etiquette
13. Nov, 2009 
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Calling all recruiters and recruitment agencies – you need to pay attention to this if you wanna get further.
I’m not normally one to call people out – especially to get a bit of sensationalism and extra publicity but I just had to do this in order to show how NOT to approach potential candidates.
Picture the scene – on 5th November (remember, remember) I get an email saying I had a new message on LinkedIn – so as the curious little bunny I am, I log in and check it out. Here it is below:
On 11/05/09 2:17 AM, John ****** wrote: ——————–
Hi Ian,
Earlier I was viewing your profile on LinkedIn.
I have a few clients that would be very interested in someone with your skills background and profile.
Are you currently looking or keeping your options open at present?
Could you please let me know at your earliest convenience either way?
Many Thanks & Kind Regards
John
0207 614 ****
Who is Ian? Not me that’s for sure! What skills would they be interested in? The fact that I can burp the alphabet? (I actually can’t though).
He clearly hasn’t been looking at my profile (in any detail at least). A little tip for free – ALWAYS read the profile even if it is long. This allows you to refer to specific parts of the profile to show you took an interest and you are taking a personal approach.
I simply replied:
On 11/05/09 2:36 AM, John Hutson wrote:——————–
Not sure if this was meant for me?
Thanks,
John
Sure enough he replied again which completely astounded me with what he said:
On 11/05/09 2:47 AM, John ****** wrote:——————–
Hi Ian,
It was actually meant for you and sorry for calling you Ian.
Do you have a number I can contact you on?
Many Thanks
John
What the hell?! He’s calling me Ian AGAIN! Come on man, get your act together. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw he called me Ian for the second time. I even have the same first name as HIM! Surely not hard to remember.
So I thought I’d let him know my disappointment:
On 11/05/09 3:04 AM, John Hutson wrote:——————–
I think you’re copying and pasting too much.How about trying a more personal approach rather than a blanket message and using a “one size fits all” mentality.
You’ll get further – trust me.
JOHN (Not Ian)
I thought that was pretty sound advice really. He did reply finally which I was surprised about and apologised so I forgive him. (How nice am I?)
Now the thing is – LinkedIn is a powerful tool – especially for recruiters so use it properly! I understand you are probably contacting a lot of people per day, but ask yourself how successful are your emails? Do they often get opened? Do you often get responses? If not why not?
How about using this kinda message as your first introduction?
Hi (insert name here),Hope you are well. Thanks for taking the time to read this message – as I’m sure you receive many on here.
My name is (insert name here) and I currently look for talent within the (insert industries here). I found your profile on LinkedIn and it really caught my eye. I have many clients that are looking for people like you.
I especially liked (insert what you liked about their profile, work history, skills, whatever) and feel that those skills would be of big interest to the clients I have in mind.
I would like to talk with you more to let you know what is out there – so it would be great if I could get a contact number, email address or instant messaging address to speak more. Whatever method is convenient for you as I understand it’s not always easy to talk.
I hope you have a great day, and I hope to speak to you soon. Please see my contact details below for if you have any questions.
(Insert contact details here)
Now imagine receiving that. How much more likely are you to respond? A lot more if I do say so myself. If I was a recruiter, I would much rather send out LESS emails per day but take the time to craft each one personally to get the desired response.
Now of course, if you’re a recruiter and you’re reading this (after all, my blog feed is connected to my LinkedIn profile), then please take this on board! Also, don’t be a clown, and just copy my suggestion above. Sure, use it as a guide, use it as a layout, use it as toilet paper – but DON’T paste that in to everyone, otherwise what you will do is end up looking like a more polite spammer.
So – from now on (pretty much right after posting this) I will not only be expanding the content on my profile but I will be inserting a special word that people contacting me will HAVE to include otherwise they will simply get a reply saying “READ MY PROFILE BEFORE CONTACTING ME” (yeah I’ll copy and paste that).
I think we should all unite and take that stance – use a stupid word if you want, but place it within your content on your profile rather than making it obvious at a glance. After all, you’re the one being approached – you deserve personal contact.
Anyway, why would you want to work with someone finding you a job, if they don’t even care about your needs? I wouldn’t.
So, let me know what you think. Have you received any LinkedIn fails? I’d love to hear them in the comments!
Oh, and please help spread the word on this one. We can all help make LinkedIn a better and more enjoyable place.
Popularity: 100%
John Hutson
Hi John, this is an EXCELLENT post! I completely agree with your suggestions to take the time and really personalize, and get to know who you are talking to when you are trying to recruit someone, or for any other reason as well! One of the most basic foundations of Social Media is “relationship-building”, and getting to know your prospects is absolutely critical to building your business. Taking the time to properly connect with the people you are reaching out to creates a higher level of respect in which prospects will be happy to respond and want to get to know you too. Again, great post John, thank you!
Thanks for your comment Bambi,
Absolutely, I think the whole approach has been turned on it's head when it comes to quality over quantity.
In a bizarre way, the internet has fuelled impersonal contact just because you can contact someone anywhere in the world.
You need to always have in the back of your mind – “Would I do this to someone face to face?” If you're in doubt, then think about the approach again.
It's the business' that don't see anything other than quantity that I'm seriously worried about. Within the next year – they'll suddenly panic and realise customer service is now back and bigger than ever.
There is no hiding from unhappy customers any more.
Nice work. It is very informative and would be helpful for others. So keep on working to create such excellent pieces of information. Thanks
Thanks – glad you find the post helpful.
Great points Ian, I mean John!
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I couldn't agree more but also see it as a two way street. Thought it is temping to send “canned emails” why bother if you can't send a personal response. I've learned to make every communication, be it a response to job post or a blog comment, targeted and personalized. In the short term and the long term it is well worth the effort.
Ha ha, thanks Mike, I mean Jim ;o)
Thanks for your comment and stopping by. I wholeheartedly agree with you. We are getting fed up of a lack of personal response now and as I say I'm genuinely worried for companies that stick to this policy for much longer.
I would much rather have an email list of 100 highly responsive people that I have a good relationship with than thousands of people that are “just there” to make up the numbers.
Oh I love the Twitter background – did you take that photo yourself?
Hey John,
I must say you have hit it on the head here. This happens everyday on Linkedin and while recruiters are a prime example you can cast the net wider and catch all kinds of sales disciplines using the same quantity over quality approach.
While I am happy to be out of it now, a large part of my working background was within recruitment. I will hold my hands up early and say I have done this myself, often on lower level positions as you see it more as a numbers game to have success. On the other side, I was always (and still am) a believer of putting the candidate/customer at the forefront of my thinking and personalising all correspondence as much as possible. If that means spending half an hour writing a proposal then so be it. If it brings me in the planned revenue then who cares if it takes a day. Not only that but it gives you a great grounding moving forward in terms of relationship.
I never re-hash old proposals now (generally), I always prepare and write new ones for all clients as it makes you think about them while doing so and what they actually need/want which as a sales professional should be a key interest.
A good post mate and hopefully some will take notice.
Thanks for the comment Simon!
Much appreciated from a guy on the inside
) Would it be fair to say that the places you worked within put you guys under pressure to scatter gun everywhere? Or did they not care how many, as long as the targets were met?
Did you find you got more results by spending more time and effort, or did you find no real difference?
Thanks again for stopping by on this one! Great to hear from someone who worked in the game.
John,
When in recruitment, I worked within a number of industries and I don't think I was ever particulary 'pressured' to use a scatter gun approach with tools such as Linkedin. In some if not all of the companies I worked there was definitely a pressure to hit targets by playing a numbers game.
More people contacted=more people potentially interested=more candidates emerging=more interviews=more success. Easy in theory. Ridiculous in reality. It really comes back to the 2nd point in your reply “Or did they not care how many, as long as the targets were met?” Its the not caring bit which is the problem. As soon as you stop caring you lose a customer, or candidate in this case.
As you outlined in you original post, if the consultant had bothered to take the time to learn from your profile and use your own profile as a guideline when contacting you then it would have hit home a lot more and maybe he would have got a more successful reply.
We live in a world where connecting, sharing, engaging and interacting with others is at its easiest, there are so many mediums to do so yet these are abused regularly through laziness, especially when it comes to potential business.
Personally the most successful approach I found was through taking the time to show you care (whether you did or not). I still do this now, and while it doesn't work 24/7 (show me a sales technique/introduction that does) it still works to build and maintain relationships, which may mean more business in the future. For Example, if your friend John at XXX recruitment sends you a Linkedin message much alike the one you outlined above,even if you aren't interested in opportunities then you will possibly take the route of writing back to let him know. Now if you knew someone with similar skills looking for similar work then you would probably recommend them too. Indirectly the message has worked.
Cheers
Love it – great addition Simon.
Yeah playing the numbers game is a shame, but I guess they've just not realised it may not be as effective as it once could have been.
I guess it's a bit of internet bravery – we've all been there, said things (good or bad) that we wouldn't say in person face to face. Imagine him running up to me asking if I wanted a job whilst I'm walking by.
And you're right, you work for your client really hard, and effectively, even if they aren't interested, at that time – they could well refer you, and indeed be their first call when they are interested.
Thanks once again for the contribution, it's really appreciated.
Great article, John. I am a recruiter and I use LinkedIn regularly to connect with other professionals. It is very easy to cast a wide net but you are absolutely right, a personalized (and honest) approach will get you much further in any social media interaction.
Hey Dennis,
Thanks for stopping by! Much appreciated.
It's been great to have recruiters stopping by with their thoughts.
You have a great blog too – like the content. Keep up the good work!
Heheee – I love your humorous style, John!!
I'm going to link to your post here from my 21 Keys to Profitable Relationships, as remembering (and using) people's first names is actual Key #1!!! Your advice is sound across all social networks – when I was first building up my Facebook friends, I would take a similar approach to what you're suggesting insofar as I'd actually read the person's profile and find something we had in common or unique that I complimented them on. It's amazing how far that personal touch goes, eh! 
Hey Mari!
Thanks for stopping by! Thanks for the additional input on this. It's funny how the social media channels are being seen of as a quicker way in to people.
That's not the case! It is literally just an electronic extension of real life. You wouldn't treat people like that unless you want a smack.
Thanks again! Hope you continue to enjoy my posts.