Are people ignoring their LinkedIn inbox because of too many messages from recruiters?

I have been using LinkedIn since the beginning and have had a LinkedIn Recruiter account for the last few years. I was doing a audit of my current account usage, as well as trying different formats to increase responses. With a current accept rate of 15%, I should be happy with the results, right? I look back to comments by Lou Adler about how to get a much higher response rate. I use templates and personalized messages. I try both direct and indirect recruiting.

In doing a deep search for Office 365 candidates in Chicago today, I noticed that most of the candidates have received a message from my company in the last two years. I was surprised at how many of these messages were still pending. On the first page of 25 results, 23 had received messages from my company. Of the 52 messages sent to these individuals, there were 47 listed as pending. And they were not all the same structure. Some were direct messages asking about interest in a job, and others were simply asking for "Insight". This was a list from a nice bullion search that I assume puts the top respondents at the front of the list.

Let me also clarify that I have over 13,000 1st level connections in LinkedIn and all but 2 of these results who were at least second level.

So, what is the issue here? Is it that people are ignoring their LinkedIn inbox or messages from people they don't know? I do understand that a lot of people are actually more likely to respond if they have a need to (ie on the market or looking). But LinkedIn Recruiter was designed to take advantage of what might be the largest professional database in the world. And they charge a lot.

Is it possible that people are not seeing the value in LinkedIn it had a few years ago? Or is it more likely that the Fad of LinkedIn is passing like MySpace did? Either way, or even if it is something else completely, there is a higher success rate by looking on Dice for or guessing the person email address and messaging them directly, after finding their name on LinkedIn. Before I had a LinkedIn Recruiter account, the system was nothing more than a name generator. I would find the person, get their name and their current company, and call them. Is that perhaps the best way to utilize it now as well?

Comment by Paul Alfred on October 7, 2013 at 2:20pm: @Keith ... But that is just it ... LinkedIn is not fundamentally a job board, because if it was folks would never be so willing to upload their "Profiles" on the network. This is a fundamental reason why tons of recruiters are getting only a 5-10% response rate to InMails being sent to potential candidates. This thinking has to change if you want to increase your InMail response rates when targeting potential candidates. LinkedIn has provided a meeting place to access "potential candidates" but there is a right way and the wrong way about maximizing your return on investment if you utilize the LinkedIn Recruiter tool.

Comment by Keith D. Halperin on October 7, 2013 at 8:51pm: Thanks, Paul. Let us agree to disagree. I don't want an increasingly-restricted, increasingly-expensive crappy job board without contact information that has 250,000,000 potential candidates and maybe 1/20 of that REAL ones., I want something where if somebody says they're looking/open, they're looking/open, and if they say there not, they're not.

However, since LI is a nea- monopoly I (and a few hundred thousand other recruiters WW) have to take it or leave it. You're welcome to use LI to deal with passive, potential candidates and build a meaningful ,long-term, mutually-beneficial relationship with them, I LI may work very well for that.. I on the other hand, need to fill some jobs NOW.

Thanks,

Keith

Comment by Paul Alfred on October 7, 2013 at 9:01pm: Yes Keith, I also have to deliver on the needs of my clients ... If I don't I'm out of contract ... But yes we can agree to disagree.

Comment by Keith D. Halperin on October 8, 2013 at 2:51pm: Thanks, Paul. Keep up the great blogging!

Keith

Comment by Chuck Radcliff on October 15, 2013 at 2:54pm: But the issue with your perspective Keith is that LinkedIn is not only a recruiter sourcing site. At a core function, Linked In is a professional profile and networking site. The recruiting aspect is a bonus money source for LI. Yes, the recruiter aspect has expanded their sales team and their profit margin, but at its core, LI is not a job board. Yes you can look at a person's profile as a resume, but very few people use it to that level of detail. Also, if you are really interested in a person, go old school and call them based on their current employer. You can still reach people by calling their company's switchboard in most cases.