LinkedIN says: “Our Solution isn’t for You.”

Recently, I received a call from the top notch sales team at LinkedIn with an “amazing offer.” They wanted to share with me a special tool that was only offered to Corporate Recruiters. They further explained that it was being offered to “select third party recruiters.” Hitting all the right buttons a sales person should, I of course jumped at the chance to hear about this silver bullet and booked an appointment.

Like a kid waiting for a new toy, I imagined all the things I could really use from LinkedIn. I mused on the ability to export phone numbers from my contact list, the capability to search and export only a section of my contact list, or even the access to email more than 50 people at a time.

Finally the time comes. The Sales person opens the call by asking me how I currently use LinkedIn. Excited I jumped in and said, “If I can’t find the person in my 5,000 contacts. I go to Google and x-ray LinkedIn. As soon as I find the person I like, I pick up the phone and call the person at work.”

The silence from the sale’s person was deafening, I actually thought the call had dropped. The next thing I heard from the sale’s person was, “If you called me at work, I would be pissed.”

Laughing I said, “You would be pissed because I called and said ‘Hello?’”

After some heated back and forth, we found as much common ground as an Ex-Corporate Recruiter (the sales person) and a Third Party Recruiter (me) could find. Getting his sales call back on track he got around to asking if I ever used “inMails?”

Poor sales guy…

InMails? Who needs inMails? By LinkedIn’s own statics, they show the average user only checks their LinkedIn account twice a month. Since time kills deals, I simply go and find the person’s company email address and use that.

Here is the icing on the cake: Upon hearing that, the LinkedIn Sales Person concluded that I was “Too far outside the box for our solutions to work for you.”

Utterly shocked, I asked him, ”Recruiters everywhere believe LinkedIn is the be-all and end-all of recruiting. And by doing the basic things Headhunters have been doing for years, you’re telling me that your high priced inmail solution is useless?”

He actually said, “Yes!”

To Recruitment Professionals everywhere – Do you really need to spend money on LinkedIn? Start asking yourself what value you are getting out of the tools you have been sold, and whether or not your own efforts pay bigger dividends.

Cheers,
Rebecca B. Sargeant
Recruiter’s Career Coach
RBS Staffing Consultants
Telephone: USA 617-396-4450 / CDN 905-627-5060

E-Mail: rsargeant@rbs-staffing.com
LinkedIn: http://ca.linkedin.com/in/rebeccasargeant
Blog: http://rebeccabsargeant.wordpress.com/

Comment by Amber on January 9, 2013 at 10:11am: Thanks, Rebecca. I looked at LI recruiter packages (pretty pricey), and also talked to a couple of reps that have called us about it. basically similar responses, and when I asked what they thought any of their packages might be able to add to our efforts in acquiring new clients, there was only silence. I use a paid account to be able to see more last names basically and I guess that is because I am still working on learning the skills to find information on my own. Most of the "success" I've had on LI was using it to preliminarily find people and then go on my own to contact them. So I agree 100% with you that every method, tool, and resource needs to be evaluated as to its worth.

Comment by Nigel Coxon on January 9, 2013 at 10:43am: "Most of the "success" I've had on LI was using it to preliminarily find people and then go on my own to contact them"

Just thought I'd quote this as it's 100% accurate. I also don't know why linkedin spend so much time obfuscating surnames from within the site when it's so ridiculously easy to get around.

The recruiter I share an office with has made good use of the recruiter package though (including Inmails) but 1. we got a free limited time offer and 2. I think it just makes things slightly easier, rather than enabling her to do something she had no way of doing before.

Comment by Rebecca B. Sargeant on January 9, 2013 at 11:27am: Thank you for your great comments!

Comment by Jen Dewar on January 10, 2013 at 5:14pm: hahahaha, sounds like a sticky situation for that poor salesperson!

Comment by Chuck Klein on January 12, 2013 at 1:57pm: I have had 2 demo calls with Linkedin reviewing Linkedin recruiter. It has some advantages (for example, you can do a detailed search on your first level contacts connections) but it didn't seem worth the $8000. I currently have a Talent Finder account. (Anyone else have that?).

* I fully agree with Rebecca's comment about inmails. You never know if or when someone will see it. If you can figure out their work email (often possible but not always) - you know they will see it. Very few people get pissed off BTW.

Can anyone suggest a good way to learn about x-raying Google for Linkedin?