Quote from Jeff Weiner, CEO of LinkedIn.com “…we estimate there is nearly half a billion professionals in the world, and we are at north of 60 million today”

Like many search consultants and recruiters I use social media websites to find candidates and have no hesitation in recommending LinkedIn as it’s one of the best. A treasure trove of information, I log in everyday and have been building my connections through that site since 2005. I also recommend using LinkedIn in my book as part of the research phase in the search process to find the right candidate, as well as for job ads for certain roles.

However, you should bear in mind that you are only seeing part of the potential candidate market when you use a LinkedIn lens.

I was reminded of this point when watching an interview with the CEO of LinkedIn, Jeff Weiner (that would be a fun job!), posted on Forbes Tech Mate. When asked about the future of LinkedIn he stated, “we estimate there is nearly half a billion professionals in the world, and were are at north of 60 million today”.

Which begs the question: what about the other 440M? How do you find one of them since they aren’t on LinkedIn yet? Expert search consultants use a systematic search methodology to reach a greater proportion of the candidate market, therefore uncovering a larger number of suitable candidates.

Another factor to consider is that certain professions and geographic areas are more highly represented in the LinkedIn community, such as business developers, recruiters and those living in Silicon Valley.

LinkedIn is fast, easy, cheap and has excellent candidates on its site, but remember it’s only providing you access to a proportion of the market. There are a myriad of ways to find people, don’t just use one technique or site.

Article for reference:

http://money.cnn.com/2010/03/24/technology/linkedin_social_networking.fortune/index.htm?source=yahoo_quote

Shireen DuPreez is Author of the newly released book “The Executive Search Process: A Step by Step Guide to Finding the Right Candidate”. Further details and sample pages can be found at www.executive-search-process.com