LinkedIn Profiles-Same as "Already in our Database"?

A hiring manager sent us an email after we submitted a candidate. He said that he was already aware of the candidate, so he doesn't feel that he should have to pay a fee. The candidate informed us that he had no conversations with another recruiter or anyone from the client company. When we inquired as to his meaning of being aware, he indicated that a day earlier he discovered that the candidate viewed his LinkedIn profile and he in turn viewed the candidate’s LinkedIn profile. His next step was to contact the candidate via in-mail.

Does anyone have this particular feature on their LinkedIn account and was it sold for the above purpose?

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Permalink Reply by Keith Plesha on May 20, 2011 at 2:00pm

I know the BrightMove ATS has a Linkedin feature that adds candidates directly from LI into the ATS...essentially creating a LI database within the company ATS. This was designed for ease of importing candidates to the ATS, but could be used to exploit LI as Ken is suggesting. But no, LI doesn't really have a backend recruiting/matching feature.

On the flip side, it's pretty silly thinking as a recruiter that the HM won't be doing his own search in conjunction with that of a staffing firm. Many account managers within recruiting firms will try to work nearly any possible opening in this economy. They will push for details of the job and will run the opening even if the client isn't on the same page. If the client just started their search, it would be naive for a staffing firm to not give them a chance to look internally and/or on their own for a week or two. The last thing you want to do is drum up all this interest with candidates to find that the HM got an internal candidate referral.