LinkedIn – To Pay or Not To Pay

As LinkedIn continues to gain steam in the recruiting com-munity as a bonafide tool to locate both active and passive candidates for our open assignments, I thought it might be helpful to try and clarify exactly what benefits one would receive from a paid membership. Although some recruiters do have a paid membership, I think the vast majority of recruiters are using the basic, free membership.

Most people know there are three memberships available to most recruiters. Here they are, along with the costs:

- Personal = free

- Business = $19.99 per month or $199.50 per year

- Business Plus = $50 per month or $500 per year

So, the big question is what do you get for your money if you decide to consider one of the paid memberships? Probably the biggest differentiator is that of InMails. For those who don’t know, an InMail is an internal LinkedIn messaging system where members can send emails to one another. One advantage to using an InMail is that you do not have to take that extra step of locating contact information for the person you are trying to reach (we all know under most circumstances the LI profiles do not contain any contact information). Aside from that advantage, the use of an InMail as opposed to a regular email message is that your InMail is more likely to be read and also more likely to receive a response. With your InMail, you have some built-in credibility with that potential contact; he or she can easily look you up and learn a bit about you prior to replying to your message.

With all three memberships you can receive InMails. The Business level lets you send up to three InMails a month and the Business Plus membership lets you send up to 10. If you do not get a reply to your message within a seven-day period, you get a credit on the eighth day. If your contact responds after the eighth day, that InMail is free.

Introductions: All three levels allow you to receive an unlimited number of requests for introductions but differ in the allowance to send requests for introduction. Introduction Requests are when you locate a possible contact outside of your network and would like to be introduced to that contact by a mutual LinkedIn contact. The Personal membership allows you to send up to five Introduction Requests at a time, the Business allows up to 15, and the Business Plus allows up to 25.

OpenLink Network Member-ship: This is a service that is not available to the Personal (free) membership level but is included with the other two levels, and is optional. The purpose of the OpenLink Network is to allow unfettered communication among paid members without having to use your allotment of InMails. You are also allowed to limit your searches to other OpenLink Network members so you know who you can easily contact.

More Results: For either Business or Business Plus account holders, you will receive more results for your searches. The Personal level only lets you see results in your network. The other two allow you to get blinded results of those non-network individuals that match your criteria, then allows you to send an InMail to them in the hopes of a connection.

Reference Searches: Another great benefit only available to premium members. These specialized searches allow you to enter a company name and a date range and get a list of contacts that worked for that company during the given time frame. This is used to conduct a “back-door” reference check on a contact/candidate prior to moving forward with that person.

That pretty much sums up the major differences in the types of accounts. For the premium memberships they also offer expedited customer service, promising a response within one business day, something not available for the basic level. They also have one more level of membership, their Enterprise Corporate Solutions. This level is only available to corporate recruiters and can be in the thousands of dollars per year.

As of this writing, LinkedIn had approximately 18 million members, an impressive number. But more impressive is that the membership is growing at a pace of about a million new members each month. More and more recruiters will realize the value of this resource. As you can see, there can be some distinct benefits in considering one of the premium memberships. If you are not a member yet, or if you would like more information about upgrading your existing account, you can visit the LinkedIn website at www.linkedin.com.

Zuula.com

I recently learned about Zuula from my friend and colleague Shally Steckerl when I attended one of his training classes (his LinkedIn for Gurus class, to be exact). I suppose Zuula could be categorized as a meta-search engine as it doesn’t have its own database of websites for you to search but allows you to search multiple search engines simultaneously as some of the other meta search engines (mamma.com, dogpile.com) do. It has a nice, clean interface with a simple text box for queries. As of this writing, by typing in your search parameters one time, you can search the big three search engines (Google, Yahoo!, and Live) and some of the lesser-known search engines (Gigablast, Exalead, Alexa, Accoona, and Mojeek) at the same time.

Zuula also has an advanced search feature that allows you to easily build your search using ANDs, ORs, NOTs, phrases, and sites, even if you are not familiar with Boolean terminology.

Visit Zuula the next time you want to search the Internet for almost anything. You will notice each search engine returns results that are different than the other. One thing Shally and I both recommend in our classes is to use a mix of search engines when conducting almost any search in order to be as thorough as you can and get the most results for your efforts.

Tip
Google “Fill in the Blank Search”

You can get Google to answer simple questions for you by using the asterisk. It is very simple. You ask a question and put the asterisk in the part of the sentence or question that you want filled in.

For example, if I typed in “The CEO of Oracle Corp. is *” the first hit is a page with the statement, “Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle Corporation…”

If you are traveling, another example might be to type in “The weather for Atlanta is *” and get a number of pages with the weather forecasts for the Atlanta area.

Give the method a try whenever you have a question for Google.

Mark E. Berger, CPC, AIRS CIR, has been in recruiting since 1979. He is currently a partner in Ramsey Fox, Inc., an IT services firm, and has been there and at its predecessor, M.E. Berger & Associates, since 1986. He has been heavily involved in Internet recruiting and is an expert on recruiting and sourcing products and services available on the Internet, and how they add to the bottom line. Mark’s interests include successfully integrating both computer and Internet recruiting technology into a traditional recruiting environment. He has taken AIRS I and II training and has obtained the AIRS CIR designation. Mark is also on the board of directors for the Missouri Association of Personnel Services. He can be reached at mark@ramseyfox.com. His website is www.swatrecruiting.com, and we recommend that you visit it to see archives of his articles and information offerings exclusively for recruiters.

This is a continuation in the series started a couple months back here in The Fordyce Letter about buying/selling businesses. The first article was called “Thinking about Selling Your Recruiting Business?” and the author was pelted with calls to write more regarding this subject. Reluctantly, she agreed to. This segment is called Watch Out for These Jokers!

There was an article over on LinkedIn recently that caught my eye:

Anyone considering alternative employment opportunities for 2008? Buying a Business or a Franchise? A lot of folks have been telling me that they would love to build their own business as a hedge against future downsizing and workplace frustrations. Can this be an alternative?

As I began what I thought would be a witty and mostly casual comment, I began to feel the blood course into my fingers, circulating quickly in my body and flushing my cheeks. I had to do a push-away before I really got myself into trouble, but I thought I’d share my response with you here.

This is one of my pet peeves. Individuals who profess they “always wanted to/want to own their own business.” The only person I concluded most of these people were kidding after dealing with these “suspects” for 22 years was themselves. They’d call me about a business I was representing for sale and they’d want to know the most particular of information! Like they had a right to ask. They’d get all huffy when I’d slow them down and ask for their name. Their temperaments would reveal themselves when I insisted upon a telephone number so I could “call them back”. When I did call them back, and got through to the ones who had not lied to me about their names/telephone numbers, some of them would want to know why I wanted to know how much money they had. Imagine that. Me asking them how much money they had and if they passed this qualifier the next thing I’d demand to know was what did their spouse think of this hare-brained scheme of theirs?

By this time, the savvy among them understood where I was coming from but you’d be surprised how many flaked off up to this point. For those remaining, I’d invite them to my office and place a “Nondisclosure Form” in front of them to sign. “What’s this?” a few would blink.

“It’s a Nondisclosure Form. It says that anything you learn about this particular business in your inspection of it will not be disclosed to any third parties unless they have a need to know.”

“And it better be a really good need-to-know,” I’d think caustically to myself as the majority of them signed on the dotted line. Occasionally, though, one wouldn’t, for some or other tawdry reason and out my gilded doors they’d go, unrequited and unceremoniously. I always imagined them going to some other broker, or worse yet, some owner without representation, who wasn’t nearly as hard-boiled as I was.

I didn’t have time to sit and listen to their air-ball fantasies as they kidded themselves about being a “business owner.” I’d paid my dues – been there and had plenty of them waste my time before I learned this hard lesson. I had good businesses to sell and I owed it to my sellers to represent them in the most professional manner I could. I tried. I’m quite sure in the trying I made some enemies. Oh well.

Before I trotted out the business information and most importantly and always of interest to them, “the financials,” I’d “interview” them as to what their motivations were in buying a business. See, even at this point I had bozos to deal with. I had a philosophy at that time – you needed three things to own a business and run it successfully – money, knowledge and guts. You could get by with two of these things but one of them always had to be guts. I hold this same philosophy in my name sourcing business today.

There’d be clues as to their motivational misalignments. One would be that they would want to come into my office “at night” (after-work) or on weekends (off-work). I went along with these silly game plans early in my career but as the years wore on I learned that these “Lookie-Lous” were part-time aficionados looking for interesting cocktail party conversation. I imagined them sloshing back scotch-and-waters and blabbering on to their buddy how they’d just “looked at a manufacturing company grossing $25 million” and the wide-eyed impressed gaze of their companion back upon their puffed-out chests. “Banty roosters” I came to derisively refer to them and immediately dismissed their overtures as undedicated.

You see, finding a business is much like finding a job. You must dedicate yourself to the process for best results. Few people get this, and it may be one reason there is so much turnover in companies today, especially with new hires.

I maintain that if more companies could elicit proactive engagement with their interviewees, there would be more success in the hiring process. The more “engaged” a potential buyer was with my process, the more likely s/he was to become a successful purchaser of that business. By the time s/he had jumped through all the hoops and vaulted all the roadblocks I’d put in the path there was a steely determination soldered in the bone that can only be used to describe a true entrepreneur.

True business owners (those who have made a go at it for more than five years) are FEW AND FAR BETWEEN. In my estimate, I’d put them at (and this will surprise you) a fraction of 1% of the general population. That’s right – a miniscule number, and it’s a shame and a product of 50 years of corporate cradle-to-grave stewardship and an education system that does not value entrepreneurship.

I’m suggesting if more “employees” treated their jobs as their own businesses, there’d be far less attrition in the workplace. If more “employees” thought like entrepreneurs, many problems could be solved far more efficiently than what exists in business today. If more “employees” were more “invested” in their jobs, there would be more job satisfaction today.

What do you think?

COMING SOON: More tell-tale “banty rooster” signals.

Maureen Sharib (maureen at techtrak.com) is a telephone name sourcer, names sourcing since 1997. She and her husband Bob own the names-sourcing firm TechTrak.com, Inc. (www.techtrak.com) which helps companies fill their hard-to-place positions at a fraction of the cost of traditional recruiting venues. Maureen is the 2007-2008 Guild Guide for the newly formed Sourcers Guild, a professional organization for sourcers. Sourcers Guild: http:// finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/sourcersguild/ She is also the author of the only of its kind and very popular “Magic in the Method” telephone name sourcing training course and a continuous contributor to many online recruiting related sites. Maureen holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from the University of Cincinnati and lives in Morrow, Ohio, on a 12-acre paradise with her husband Bob, dog Buster and three barn cats that won’t stay out of her house. She is most grateful to be able to do what she does.

Last year, we stopped producing our special issue on specialties since all of that information is readily available through Internet resources. Instead, we queried a number of readers about their particular niche and asked for their opinions regarding that specialty. Readers liked that format so much that we have repeated the survey this year.

Real recruiters expressing real results about their particular practice area gives a more realistic picture than the macro opinions from the marketplace in general. We appreciate the candor of respondents and thank them for their contributions.

2007 was a great year. There has been no lack of job opportunities in most areas. I see 2008 as even better. Despite the sub-prime mess, I have not received any indication from any of my clients that they will be hiring less or laying off. In fact, this year has started off with a bang.

My biggest frustration is that clients aren’t pulling the plug. I have candidates who have gone through the first or second round interviews a month ago and still no response from the client. This happens for various reasons. Change in management, they want to interview other candidates, and just plain slow moving. This is something I haven’t seen in a while. Maybe it’s just “first of the year adjustments”. I don’t know, but it’s hard keeping candidates, and myself, interested in these positions and companies. Even my candidates have complained about it with jobs they are interviewing for that didn’t come through me. They wait and wait to hear back from employers.

Susie Yager, President
Career Consultants, LLC

Our office has two areas that we specialize in: Traditional banking, which covers mostly higher-end revenue-generating positions, and wealth management.

Both areas were very strong in 2007, experiencing record growth. We expect a similar year in 2008 but with some concern. The effects from the sub-prime lending area will probably have a trickle-down effect on our markets. The business will still be there for sure, but there won’t be as much low-hanging fruit like we saw in 2007. Our business plan for 2008 reflects this so we are prepared (just in case).

Eric Armstrong
www.armstrongfinancialgroup.com

We specialize in Food and Beverage manufacturing. 2007 was a good year and right in line with the previous few years. The clients we have had for many years kept us busy, so I don’t have a great feel of the entire market. I expect the same companies will continue to give us all the business we can handle.

We did work a little with some new companies in the industry last year. We continue to see some companies request lower fees (20% is becoming a more common number, although we turn down everything below 25%). These same companies are very rigid with their process. They aren’t as warm to the candidates and they don’t value the recruiter. Each year we see companies working harder to avoid paying a fee – meaning they are trying to fill it on their own before contacting us.

One of my frustrations is receiving job orders from affiliate search firms at 20% (I have seen some lower than that) – and I already have the job at 30%. If that firm is making money at 20%, more power to them. However, it isn’t healthy to our industry. I have found that in the cases where I have the positions as well, we fill the jobs – and the other firms don’t. Just because a firm offers a lower fee doesn’t mean they provide the same service. This can sometimes be very difficult to explain to a company. As you know, when some firms offer a 20% fee, the industry starts asking others for the same fee.

Relocation is becoming a major issue. Candidates are worried about having to sell their homes in a sluggish market and the possibility of having two mortgage payments. Companies are being asked to pay sign-on bonuses if they don’t pay Realtor fees. Companies that aren’t willing to help more than normal are losing good candidates.

Name withheld at request