Do you guys go around adding recruitment contacts to your LinkedIn list? If so, is there a generic request message that you use? The goal is to not appear weird or sleazy.
I am mostly looking at people who work in HR or recruitment, so they probably want people to friend them. But still, would be nice to know what is industry standard.
Anyone have ideas?
Let recruiters friend you and accept only if they are not super annoying and worthless.
In all seriousness ohai and I know how sensitive you are, if you are not receiving messages from recruiters/HR people and connection requests, you probably aren’t that marketable.
In precarious situations, I always ask myself, “What would Johnny Cage do?”
^ Following up on my Johnny Cage advice, I think the best way to approach anybody is to have something to offer, but also understand what your worth is. For me, I think that people on the buy-side (the industry I’m in) infer that I have certain things to offer because of my background, and I also will approach someone with the willingness to talk about investment ideas and my potential candidacy for relevant jobs. However, I also make it clear that I’m willing to take a meeting only if people think it’s mutually beneficial – I want to signal to them that my time and ideas are valuable as well, and I’m not looking to chit-chat about sh!ts and giggles. I think it’s always important to demonstrate high value in any connection, so think about what you can offer them but also be clear about how they can potentially help you.
I don’t like to connect with people on LinkedIn unless I can remember and describe how I know them in a way that sounds the least bit professional. (I went to school with them, I worked with them, I talked to them at a conference, I interviewed or interviewed with them, we went sailing/biking/tennising together, I banged their sister/daughter/boss/wife and they still liked me, etc.).
I always try to ask myself how I would respond if someone says “I saw you are connected to so-and-so on LinkedIn; how do you know them?” If I have a statement I feel good about, then I link.
Recruiters are a special category, and presumably want as many people in their network as possible. They probably have a website, so you can read something there and react to that and say that you would be interested in working with them as one of their clients.
Thanks for the tips.
the soft approach is to begin to continuously view their profile. I believe that currently Linkedin generates automatic summary notifications, perhaps on a weekly basis, about people who have viewed your profile. You make sure your profile photo with that beaming smile is on the top of this “people who checked my profile” digest every time your person of interest logs in their Linkedin account. Persistence is key here, so I’d recommend a daily outlook reminder for you to check their Linkedin page. If you don’t get blocked (the internet version of restraining order), you’d get a connection request which you can casually accept.
^I like the stalker approach!