LinkedIn, the professional networking site says it is seeing a rapid increase of its corporate base in India. Launched here in 2009 and presently with 12 million Indian professionals and students on its portal, it has a corporate client base of a little over 100. The company says this base is swiftly rising.
The reason, it says, is because it has one of the largest bases of passive recruiters. These are people not actively looking for a job change. As LinkedIn allows users to network with the same professionals across companies, it gives access to a large database of users that are passive recruiters, that otherwise firms could not tap into.
Take the case of WABAG, India’s largest water treatment company. It had been scouting for a candidate to head the firm in Saudi Arabia. “We started using the corporate tools from LinkedIn and within a year of joining, we have been able to make offers to several candidates. We feel that, going ahead, for all our senior-level hiring, LinkedIn will be a crucial source,” said D Chakravarthy, head of HR. Using LinkedIn, the company has zeroed in on candidates for filling positions in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Austria, Algeria, and Philippines.
Useful tools
LinkedIn has not restricted its role to just giving access to possible candidates for companies. The professional networking site has over the period launched several tools for firms to make their search easier. Earlier this month, it announced that by the first half of 2012, it would launch a ‘Talent Pipeline’.
Probably for the first time, recruiters through Talent Pipeline will be able to manage all of their talent leads in one place. This allows the recruiter to import leads from any source and make a folder. These leads are then automatically connected to their LinkedIn profiles. These profiles can then be updated on a regular basis. Today, companies that try to create a separate database for leads spend significant time and effort to implement a new system and process. However, the moment someone changes a title, job or location, the original lead or resume is out-of-date and the database becomes less valuable. LinkedIn Talent Pipeline, the company claims, will solve this problem.
With the rise of social media, recruiters are dealing with an increase in online networks as sources of talent who may not be actively seeking a new job. This is in addition to more traditional sources such as personal referrals, conferences, job boards and company career sites. Banking firm ING Vysya logged on to LinkedIn as they were looking to hire for some key positions in a short time.
“Within five months, we were able to scale up our hiring drastically, to close several key positions across our business unit. This has resulted in an immediate return of almost four times on our investment. This experience has also helped is realise the potential of social media recruiting,” said Ranga Subramanian, head- resourcing and talent acquisition, ING Vysya.
Other than Talent Pipeline, LinkedIn has tools like Recruiter Professional Service. This allows recruiters to search the entire data base with filters, allowing firms to target candidates precisely, based on skill, industry, company, etc. Referral Engine allows recruiters to use its employees’ contacts to get the best referrals. There others such as Job Slots, Talent Direct, etc.
“We have a portfolio of offerings and depending on the particular customer needs, we can recommend the appropriate offering to our customer to address their needs. But increasingly we are moving away from a point solution provider. For instance, we have created a platform for a company to interact with freshers on LinkedIn. We have also found that recruiters prefer to save time while hiring. And, in some cases by using LinkedIn, firms have saved as much as 40-50 per cent of the time,” said Abdulla.
The company does not provide for India-specific growth figures. As of June 30, LinkedIn counts executives from all 2,011 Fortune 500 companies as members; its corporate hiring solutions are used by 75 of the Fortune 100 companies. At least two million companies have LinkedIn company pages.
