The increase in the use of tech in the recruitment process has changed the way recruiters work. It’s made life easier and quicker in some ways, but whether it produces better results is another matter. I would go one step further. Technology, and especially LinkedIn, is resulting in a whole new demographic of lazy recruiters. They aim for low hanging, easy target, low effort fruit. And anyone can do that including Artificial Intelligence.

LinkedIn Recruiter Lite is for many head hunters and recruiters alike their go-to tool for sourcing and reaching out to potential candidates. This platform allows you run search strings to send premium priced InMails, with carefully crafted pro forma messages which you can modify. This should be relatively straight forward, but overlooks a number of significant factors.

#1 Not all candidates are on LinkedIn

It’s hard to believe, but not all candidates have LinkedIn profiles. This is especially true of older senior candidates and entry level. Lazy recruiters do basic LinkedIn searches and then stop. That is not going to source the best candidates, just the visible ones.

#2 Many profiles are incomplete

Not all LinkedIn users have complete profiles packed with live searchable key words to help any search strings created for sourcing candidates. So those names are not going to appear in search results. Another miss.

#3 Not all LinkedIn users tune in regularly to pick up these mails

The success rate for InMail is inconsistent. Katrina Collier social media recruitment specialist goes as far as to call it “abysmal” in her post “Recruiters would you accept this from any other service provider?” In the last search I ran, I had a 60% success rate for openings which I was happy with. But that still left 40% of mails languishing in an inbox or spam folder somewhere.

Increasingly frequently, people are ignoring notification emails from social networks because of the sheer volume of rubbish coming into their inboxes. InMails are not important enough and are often routed to other junk mail boxes. Gmail segregates its email inbox into four compartments, shifting all social networking notification emails, leaving only high value emails in their inbox. Your message could go undetected. Katrina says that with the average LinkedIn user checking in for a mere 17 minutes per month, the chances of grasping their attention are low.

#4 LinkedIn is low impact

In 2017 LinkedIn came out second from bottom with a mere 106m users PER MONTH according to Statistica. Check this out: “Most famous social network sites worldwide as of September 2017, ranked by number of active users (in millions) it is true that job seekers can probably be found there. And that is one reason why LinkedIn encourages lazy recruiters, 106 million sound like a good number. But sometimes the best candidates are not found on LinkedIn. Loop back to point 1

How to avoid becoming lazy recruiters

Pick up the phone

Now called a “voice-call” this is less popular than before, because it’s a lot of work. As more employees work remotely, switch boards no longer exist and companies have privacy policies, it’s harder to get through, but always worth a try. It just takes time and know how.

Use ordinary e-mail

Try a regular email, but taking care to structure the header with a neutral topic because you never know who has visibility on an email account. There is still a risk of the mail going into spam.

Use another social network

The average user engagement on Facebook is 8.3 hours per month. Others may use Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and others. All of these are option for reaching out to candidates.

The bottom line is that lazy recruiters who are not prepared to put time and energy into nurturing candidates and relationships in their target markets, will be replaced by software. So make sure you offer something that AI can’t. Human contact and professional expertise.