Hiring managers also need to understand how they can leverage the social media solutions they already use to connect with potential new staff members. Do not think purely of using these sites as a means of advertising a role when it does become available. Think of ways to connect with prospective employees with every thing that you do online, not simply at the time you need a specific hire.

When It comes to bring ready to make a new hire firstly you should look through your own connections before taking any other steps. You may already be in touch with the ideal candidate. The other alternative is that someone you know will be connected to the ideal candidate and may be able to connect you. The last article discussed a number of methods to leverage what LinkedIn has to offer to identify potential candidates. As each social medial site differs in its approach, but they all offer tools that allow you to connect with other people and that is key here. The recruitment consultants and advertising should almost be the place of last resort, not the first place you focus on.

When you have looked at your own network and are unable to identify any candidates then It is time to find other ways to connect with them. For example all LinkedIn groups have ‘jobs’ sections where posting jobs is easy and it is easy to post a link to the job posting through Twitter or Facebook. The key aspect about this media is that It demands interaction. That is as true for the hiring manager as it is for the person seeking new employment. If you have seen a clear insightful comment on the media and thought you would like to hire that person an an opportune time, well now that you have such a need they should be your first call, even if you know them to be employed and happy in their job.

Don’t be afraid to ask the people you know to see if they can make recommendations, that is after all about leveraging your network. We know this is the best way to make an effective hire, which also saves the business money in the recruitment process. The key is participation, attention, and sometimes a little patience. Most hiring managers know the talent they require in advance of the formal recruitment process starting, use this time wisely to make connections that can help you get in touch with perspective candidates.

At the end of the day there are plenty of options available to use before turning to a recruitment agent, who have proven to be less than reliable in recent times.

LinkedIn’s sign-up page talks about powering your career, specifically “discover inside connections when you’re looking for a job or new business opportunity”. The site’s power comes from an ability to connect people having common goals. It is about building a professional network on-line and leveraging for many aspects of business. Looking specifically at LinkedIn there are several job boards on the site ranging from the main job site where posts are paid for to the groups where members of the group can post a job at no cost.

Paid postings will be viewable by anyone performing a job search with matching criteria and can even be configured to appear in a column on the user’s main page. Potentially viewable by any of the 50 million plus members. Costs here are comparable to posting on specialist job sites like JobServe or Monster. Groups are arguably a better alternative in that posts are free, they are also more focused. The problem is that there may be twenty or thirty groups that may be relevant and to your target audience and you need to be a member of the group in which the job posting is placed.

Posts on the group also rely on the member having the right notification settings in-place, but the active job hunter is more likely to be paying attention to these openings than others, the advantage of group job posts is that they are free. One potential disadvantage is that the poster has to be a member of the group. It is recognised that many hiring managers have different interests to their employees and therefore other than for hiring will not be interested in group activity. There is nothing stopping the manager joining that group temporarily then leaving once they have a set of likely candidates.

LinkedIn is a very powerful site for professional networking. As such It does not matter whether you are a hiring manager, a job-seeker, or simply using It to make business connections, LinkedIn should be used in a similar fashion.

The first challenge is always finding a potential candidate. For this LinkedIn has very good search capabilities. It should be possible to find a large pool of people with the right background. It is best advised to start with broader criteria than narrow requirements. For example use the term ‘CRM’ rather than the name of a specific software package when looking for a CRM Analyst. Once you have a pool of potential candidates then take a look at their profiles. You may be surprised at the number of first level connections you have that already fit your criteria. These are the easiest to contact because you already have access to their full email contact details through your personal connections, and generally speaking It is best to make the approach via email rather than LinkedIn’s internal message system as sadly many users do not always pay attention to the LinkedIn internal notifications.

If you know the person remind them where from. Many of the connections come about because of social media activity in the past and It is possible to have forgotten the reason why you connected two years ago. Here It is important to stress that you are connected on LinkedIn as most people are willing to talk to those they are connected to; it is one of the reasons we like to connect in the first place.

When people are second or third level connections it is not always possible to send them a direct message through LinkedIn, unless you have a premium account. The way to connect is via another person, and the better you trust the intermediary the more likely they are to pass on your request, and do that quickly. If they know the third person well they may be prepared to facilitate an introduction face-to-face or via email. Beware that you may be connected to the prospective employee only via their existing manager, who is a part of your network – not the best connection point to the perspective employee.

LinkedIn can also be used in many ways to identify potential candidates. Once specific people have been identified It is important to find out more about them and gain further insights about their suitability for the role in question. Their activity on LinkedIn Answers, and their activity in the groups they belong to may speak volumes about them.

LinkedIn Answers is a great way of connecting with some potential candidates. One suggestion is to pose a question that is linked to a real life scenario the successful applicant would face in their job. Look at each of the replies and communicate with people. It is true that not all answers you receive will be relevant, but those that are provide an opportunity for opening up a dialogue – tell them that you are currently seeking to hire someone into a role where this scenario represents one of the key challenges. They may be able to recommend someone for the role, or be interested themselves. It is important not to think about where people are located as often people on the other side of the planet have local connections or they may be an expatriate wishing to return home.

In conclusion this article may indicate that there is work for a hiring manager to complete in order to find good quality candidates, but through LinkedIn it is possible to identify people without spending anything but time; and that will please the accountant.

Is it a job that can be handed off to HR? As a hiring manager I have always advocated that HR have no involvement in the recruitment process; they simply do not possess the skills necessary to decide whether any individual has the right technical knowledge for the job; and certainly should not be allowed to pre-screen candidates. They may need to be involved at some stage, but may have problems with unconventional routes to finding candidates. If you do hand off this process to anyone then you should involve a person the new recruit would work closely with once they are employed.

Levinson states “You know you should tailor your résumé to the job to which you’re applying and to prospective employers’ needs and challenges”. I have heard this statement on many occasions over the years but have always disagreed with it. To me crafting a new resume to suit the current role that I am applying for  is to me too much hard work. I do however invite your comment on this and other topics in this article.

I think it is important to have a good resume that demonstrates the value you can bring to an organisation. I have normally only had one resume, which has gone through countless generations (as I learn and adapt). In fact I am considering doing another version in the next few weeks and to please David this one will be entirely Guerilla in origin built from the ground up. With my active resumes I have found it necessary to have two: one with a Financial corporate focus; and a ‘normal’ one. The main reason that I have done this is because banks and financial institutions want ‘special words’ included that normally bore everyone else to tears. This way I can satisfy two audiences.

Anyway back to the title subject. We all know that SEX SELLS. It is one of the basic rules of marketing. But if you take the viewpoint that sex does not sell, I will agree that it does cause attention. I would love to make my resume extremely sexy using pictures and not words (NO NOT THOSE ONES! Get your mind out of the gutter!). Sometime last year one Mind Mapping software supplier challenged people to put their resume in a mind map – I liked this idea but worried that my audience (Presidents and CEOs) will not appreciate it.

If you want your résumé to get you to first base with a potential employer, it has to push the all the right buttons.Very true! You can do that with logos and with recommendations – printed in the body of your resume, but is there space?  According to David Perry there is. For more on David Perry’s views read “Guerilla Marketing for Job Hunters“. This does mean that you have to learn how to use Microsoft Word properly. Much will depend on the use and placement of text boxes in order to fill the space effectively. Funnily enough I have had some very competant programmers ask ‘what is a text box?’ when I make such a statement.

In my experience few users understand more than about 5% of Word’s functionality, but that said you can do a lot with that 5% of functionality, but that is another story.

Your resume has to be good! Nothing less than your future career is at stake as soon as you send it out. I have always sought to be at the cutting edge of resumes, however in the current climate it is necessary to shine out like a bright light. However draw solace from the fact that the reason you are not being contacted by employers may be more due to the state of the economy than the state of your resume.

Do you include logos of your former employers into your resume? I would love to do this, but do find that the size of the file goes up as soon as you do. This is a question of balance. and recruiters can be afraid of pictoral resumes – I have tried it and gotten feedback they do not understand what I am showing them and if the recruitment agend does not understand it they will not pass you along to the approved pile. Think about all of the audience with what you are presenting.

More jobs are found today through networking than through recruiters today (and that percentage is going up with the current hard times). In an earlier article on this site I stated “Staying in work or getting a new job depends largely on having a strong network” so what do you do if you don’t know anyone? This is a problem you can face when moving to a new area. This is discussed by Furtune Magazing in the article “How to get a job when no one is hiring“. This is where a different approach is required.

Every tried sending a fold-up chair to a prospective employer? Buy a cheap fold-up chair and sent it to the target manager (know the name of the person) with the message “You can’t say you don’t have a chair for me now!”  as well as your resume added to it. This is another suggestion made by David Perry – You can guarantee you will be seen in a different light. Even if the company is not hiring the manager may see you, and you may get the chair back if you ask nicely to do the same trick on someone else.

During the course of my search I have found it essential to develop a good Plan B that will make you money (even if it is below your prior standard of living). Develop your Plan B early and even make it your Plan A at the appropriate time. I am working on Plan B right now and do have 3 clients.