LinkedIn Recruiter Messages: All You Need to Know

LinkedIn recruiter messages are a fundamental tool in the modern recruitment landscape, providing direct communication between recruiters and potential candidates. These messages are pivotal in reaching out to talent, conveying opportunities, and initiating the recruitment process, making their effective use crucial for successful talent acquisition.

Understanding the nuances of LinkedIn recruiter messages is key to crafting compelling and respectful outreach. This involves tailoring messages to individual profiles, maintaining professionalism, and clearly outlining potential opportunities, thereby ensuring that the initial contact sets a positive tone for prospective engagements.

Introduction to LinkedIn Recruiter

LinkedIn Recruiter is LinkedIn’s talent acquisition platform that helps recruiters identify, connect with, and manage talent through LinkedIn. Key features include:

Linkedin Cold Outreach is when you message someone you don’t know on linkedin to talk about work or business. it’s like making a new friend who can help you with your job or company.

• Searching LinkedIn profiles with advanced filters
• Sending InMail messages to reach talent not in your network
• Saving candidate profiles to organize your pipeline
• Tracking candidate relationship history and activity
• Integration with applicant tracking systems (ATS)

With over 722 million members, LinkedIn is every recruiter’s go-to platform for sourcing passive and active candidates.

LinkedIn Recruiter makes it easy to identify the right candidates and engage them through recruiter messages.

LinkedIn recruiter messages are essential for sourcing candidates, building relationships, promoting your employer brand, and ultimately making hires.

Benefits of Using LinkedIn Recruiter Messages

Compared to other outreach methods like cold calling or email, LinkedIn messages have unique advantages:

Higher response rates

Candidates on LinkedIn are more open to opportunities and messages. LinkedIn reported InMail response rates around {20-25%}, much higher than email outreach.

Reach passive candidates

You can only message people who are in your network on LinkedIn. With {LinkedIn Recruiter}, you can send InMail messages to anyone, enabling you to reach passive candidates open to new roles.

Send targeted messages

With LinkedIn Recruiter, you have access to candidate background like skills, experience, education, connections etc. This helps craft targeted messages that resonate.

Build genuine relationships

Messaging through LinkedIn fosters more meaningful conversations that humanize you and your company early on. This supports stronger candidate relationships based on trust and understanding.

Enhance your employer brand

Your outreach represents your employer. Though recruiter messages, you get to share your company story and key selling points right away with candidates.

LinkedIn recruiter messages enable you to reach more relevant candidates, have better conversations, and strengthen employer brand awareness.

LinkedIn Recruiter Message Best Practices

When sending LinkedIn messages, following best practices will maximize your results:

Personalize Every Message

No spam or batch messages. Take the time to customize each message with specifics about the recipient and role. Personalized messages have higher response rates.

Keep It Short

Long messages are ignored. Get to the point within 2-3 concise paragraphs focused on the candidate and opportunity.

**Highlight Common Ground **

Look for shared connections, groups, colleges or companies to call out. Finding common ground builds rapport quickly.

Ask Open-Ended Questions

Give candidates a reason to respond by asking questions versus making demands. Get a conversation going.

Convey Enthusiasm

Let your passion and excitement for the role and company shine through. Enthusiasm is contagious.

Follow Up Persistently

Just because a candidate doesn’t respond immediately doesn’t mean they aren’t interested. Follow up respectfully if you don’t hear back.

Now let’s dive deeper into crafting standout LinkedIn messages.

Crafting Effective LinkedIn Recruiter Messages

Follow this proven formula for creating compelling LinkedIn messages:

1. Personalized Introduction

• Address the candidate directly by name
• Mention where you found them (LinkedIn, referral, etc)
• Establish common ground like shared schools, companies, groups etc.

2. Company & Role Overview

• Describe your company (keep it brief)
• Explain the role you are recruiting for
• Share why you identified them as a potential fit

3. Call-to-Action

• Extend next steps e.g. exploratory call, interview etc.
• Share links to apply or learn more
• Close with contact details

4. Tone

• Be casual, conversational
• Be transparent and enthusiastic
• Show you did your research on them

Now let’s look at how to maximize your reach and connect with more candidates, specifically passive candidates open to new roles but not actively job searching.

Connecting With Passive Candidates on LinkedIn

Here are tips for engaging passive candidates on LinkedIn who aren’t actively looking:

Leverage Advanced Search

Use LinkedIn Recruiter search filters like years of experience, location, skills etc. to identify passive candidates that would be a match.

Unlock Contact Info

To message candidates directly you need their email address or phone number. A LinkedIn Recruiter account unlocks this contact info.

Highlight Transferable Skills

Many passive candidates aren’t considering a new role or industry. Highlight how their existing skills and strengths apply to your opportunity.

Communicate Flexibility

Passive candidates may be hesitant to consider a new role. Emphasize flexibility in areas like work location, hours, scope etc. to get them interested.

Outline Career Growth

Even happy workers may want their next move to align with long-term career goals. Speak to how your role and company can enable their professional development.

Leverage Referrals

Referrals are a trusted source. See if you share any connections with passive prospects and leverage them for a warm introduction.

Follow Up For The Long Haul

It takes more touches to nurture a passive candidate. Make sure to follow up respectfully if you don’t hear back right away.

With some effort and the right approach, you can turn a passive candidate into an amazing hire.

Next let’s look at what to do after you send those LinkedIn messages.

Following Up After Sending a LinkedIn Message

So you’ve crafted thoughtful LinkedIn messages and identified promising talent to message. But what happens after you hit send?

Here is a process for effective LinkedIn message follow up:

1 Day After: Check For Response

It’s unlikely but great if a candidate replies immediately. If not, still good to review your sent folder and see if messages are being opened.

3 Days After: Quick Follow Up

Send a follow up message checking in politely and re-expressing your interest in the role for them. Keep it short.

5 Days After: Expanded Follow Up

Follow up again if unresponsive. Provide more detail on the role and company. Extend additional resources like the job description or website to review.

10 Days After: Last Follow Up

One final follow up if you still haven’t heard back. Share your contact info again as well as a friendly reminder about the opportunity.

2 Weeks After: Close Out

If ultimately unresponsive after 4 thoughtful follow ups, close out and move on. Retarget later if it makes sense.

The key is showing ongoing interest while also respecting boundaries.

Tips to Improve LinkedIn Recruiter Message Response Rates

While InMail can be highly effective, not all of your messages will get responses. Here are some tips to help boost response rates:

• Target passive candidates: Focus on outreach to employed professionals not actively job searching.
• Personalize the subject line: Include their name and company to catch their attention.
• Keep messages concise: Shorter messages around 100 words get higher response rates.
• Use a warm and casual tone: This gives off good first impressions and builds trust
• Send messages early morning or mid-week: Avoid busy periods like Mondays or Fridays.
• Follow up once: If interested, send a follow up message addressing concerns they may have.
• Offer value and build intrigue: Give them a compelling reason to want to connect and learn more.

LinkedIn Recruiter Message Limits

The number of InMail messages you can send per month depends on the LinkedIn account type:

• LinkedIn Recruiter Lite – 30 messages/month
• LinkedIn Recruiter – 130 messages/month
• Premium Career – 15 messages/month
• Sales Navigator Professional – 15 messages/month

You can purchase additional credits beyond the limits in bulk for Recruiter accounts. Each additional InMail credit costs around $1.10 on average.

Reporting and Analytics

One of the best features of LinkedIn recruiter InMail is the ability to track a range of performance metrics.

This allows you to optimize your outreach strategy and improve results over time.

Here are some of the key reporting features:

• InMail Send Rate
• Open Rates
• Click Rates
• Reply Rates
• Contact Conversion Rates
• Messages Sent by Recruiter
• Messages Sent by Day/Week/Month

Based on this data, you can experiment with factors like message length, time sent, and personalization level to determine what works best. Optimizing LinkedIn Page Communications for Career Advancement means making your LinkedIn page better so it can help you get a better job or move up in your career. It’s like cleaning up and decorating your online work profile to impress bosses. Understanding AI Messaging on LinkedIn is like learning how robots can help us send and receive messages on a website called LinkedIn. It’s like having a smart helper for your chats!

Creating the Ultimate LinkedIn Follow-Up Note is like writing a friendly reminder to someone you met at a party, reminding them about your conversation and how you can help each other. It’s a short message that helps you stay connected with people you meet on LinkedIn. Improving LinkedIn Reply Rates means getting more people to respond to your messages on LinkedIn. It’s like making your letters so interesting that everyone wants to write back!

Handling LinkedIn Replies means answering messages on LinkedIn quickly and kindly so people feel happy and understood Writing LinkedIn Connection Requests is about asking someone to connect with you on LinkedIn in a friendly and polite way so you can build your professional network

Optimize LinkedIn outreach by making your profile stand out and sending personalized messages to potential connections Enhance connection messaging helps people talk better with each other It makes messages clearer so everyone understands more easily

Automated LinkedIn outreach

LinkedIn Recruiter InMail vs. Regular Messages

It’s important to understand the key differences between standard LinkedIn messages and InMail when reaching out.

Feature	LinkedIn Recruiter InMail	Regular LinkedIn Messages
Visibility	Appears prominently in recipient’s inbox	Easy to miss among other messages
Open Rates	Around 30-50% open rate	Lower open rates
Sender	Shows as being from your company	Shows as from your personal account
Targeting	Can target passive candidates based on skills/experience	Limited to your 1st degree connections
Metrics	Get detailed analytics on open, click & response rates	No analytics available
Cost	Pay per credit starting at $30 per InMail	Free to message connections
Legal Compliance	Complies with recruiting outreach laws	Risks violating anti-spam/solicitation laws

So while regular LinkedIn messages are free, InMail has distinct advantages that make the investment worthwhile if used properly.

LinkedIn Recruiter InMail can deliver tremendous value in sourcing qualified candidates for open roles. Following the strategies and best practices outlined in this guide will allow you to maximize your investment.

With response rates up to 5X higher compared to standard LinkedIn messages, the additional cost of InMail credits is well worth it.

By personalizing outreach, targeting passive candidates, and continually optimizing based on performance data, recruiters can build up a steady talent pipeline.

So be sure to incorporate InMail into your daily workflows and talent sourcing processes to unlock LinkedIn’s full potential.

For expert help with your LinkedIn recruiting and sourcing efforts, Request a quote with Lou Assist .

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