LinkedIn Recruiting: The Deadly Sins Employers Commit

The problem?

It’s the job seeker’s market in 2022.

The US unemployment rate is at a steady 3.6% as of March. Plus, there are now 15M+ open job listings on LinkedIn, which means candidates can be picky.

So—

At Passport-Photo.Online, we’ve decided to poll ~1,000 US working professionals and uncover employers’ deadly mistakes when hiring on LinkedIn to help businesses recalibrate their recruitment efforts.

Key Takeaways

• Most working professionals (79%) feel positive or very positive about employers reaching out to them on LinkedIn about a job opportunity.
• A full 62% of candidates in the US have a negative or very negative attitude toward companies ghosting them on LinkedIn, with 63% saying they are likely or very likely to avoid applying for jobs from employers guilty of ghosting them moving forward.
• About 95% of job seekers want employers to include a salary range in job postings on LinkedIn.
• Roughly 69% of Americans are likely or very likely to skip job ads on LinkedIn that use gender-coded or ageist language.
• As many as 64% of job seekers find it annoying when asked to fill in manually a separate application form after submitting a resume via LinkedIn.

Candidate Outreach and Communication

Nod, if this sounds familiar:

You’re browsing through LinkedIn on the lookout for a new hire who will take your company to new heights.

At last, you come across your dream employee.

Based on their LinkedIn profile, the candidate is skilled, experienced, and will likely do the job of three.

So—

You decide to message them to see if they are open to work. That’s a smart move, as 79% of working professionals feel positive or very positive about employers reaching out to them on LinkedIn about a job opportunity, according to our study’s findings.

Five days later, your inbox is empty. Crickets.

But why?

That’s what we wanted to find out with our research first. So, we’ve pinpointed seven key reasons why US working professionals ignore LinkedIn recruiters’ messages about prospective employment:

• The message is too generic (a standard, templated blurb along the lines of “I’ve got the most amazing job I know you’ll love”): 58%
• The job opportunity doesn’t match the candidate’s experience level, skills, or career trajectory: 57%
• The company has a poor LinkedIn presence (e.g., it’s impossible to find sufficient information about the organization, its products or services, culture, or reviews): 55%
• The recruiter overuses buzzwords or corporate jargon: 52%
• There are grammatical mistakes in the outreach message: 51%
• The employer calls the candidate by the wrong name: 28%
• The organization comes off as disrespectful or too pushy: 26%

We then asked the survey takers what’s the maximum number of follow-ups they could tolerate from employers on LinkedIn.

Below are the results:

• Two: 39%
• One: 25%
• Three: 17%
• Four: 16%
• Zero: 4%

Lastly, we wanted to gauge job seekers’ attitudes toward employers ghosting them on LinkedIn (i.g., suddenly disappearing and no longer responding to messages).

Sadly, it’s become a common recruitment practice. So much so that 73% of employers openly admit they have ghosted a candidate in the past year, according to a recent Indeed study.

Somewhat predictably, our own research finds that 62% of job candidates in the US have a negative or very negative attitude toward companies ghosting them on LinkedIn. What’s more interesting, however, is that 63% of the respondents said they are likely or very likely to avoid applying for jobs from employers guilty of ghosting them in the future.

So—

Employers take note!