I got this link with 10 LinkedIn tips for recruiters today and I'm not sure if I agree with #9. What do you all think about using LinkedIn introductions?

#9 LinkedIn tip


Do not use the “ask for an introduction” feature - It’s a waste of time! And it makes you lazy. If you have a name, city company name and title, you should not need any more information to pick up the telephone and ask for this person by name. Besides, if you still need an introduction to speak to someone, once you have all of their work information…then perhaps it’s time to reconsider professions.


MY RESPONSE

The whole point of the LinkedIn introduction is that it infers trust and there is a lot of value in this feature for introductions, I don't see how it makes you look lazy. Sure if you are an old fashioned head hunter pick up the phone and call me (a passive candidate) blind, but if I also get an introduction from one of my best friends saying that I need to network with this recruiter in my niche I am going to respond to that recommendation before I answer your cold call which by the way is interrupting my busy day and quite annoying to a candidate that is busy at work. In today’s modern era it is disrespectful of your candidate’s time to call me and expect me to have a conversation with someone I don't know from Adam.


As a corporate recruiter here is how I use all 50 of my LinkedIn introductions every month. I am connected with all of my companies employees and when we need to know hire a new software engineer I go through all of our current software engineers profiles and when I find a possible candidate I send our employee an "introduction" request which allows them to qualify whether or not that the candidate might be a fit for our company and the position. This tactic spurs on employee referrals because often employees are too busy to go through their LinkedIn network pro-actively and employee's tend to only refer active job seekers and not think of the passive candidates that are in their network.


What do you think?


If you share these beliefs or want to discuss this more I encourage you to connect with me on Linkedin.


Greig Wells