10 Reasons LinkedIn is the New Monster

I’m sure this isn’t much news to many people in the recruiting community, but this article is for job seekers.

1. You can’t get fired for creating a LinkedIn Profile.

You wouldn‚Äôt upload your resume on Monster and then send an email to your boss and co-workers saying ‚ÄúI just put my resume on Monster‚Ķcome take a look!‚Äù That would be job suicide. On LinkedIn, it’s different. LinkedIn is a smart professional decision. Uploading your ‚Äúresume‚Äù on Monster, means you‚Äôre looking for a new job. Creating a LinkedIn ‚Äúprofile‚Äù shows that you understand the importance of building professional relationships and that you are up to speed on Professional Networking online.

2. LinkedIn is Free for Job Seekers and Recruiters.

Monster charges $9,000 per company employee, per year, for access to YOUR resume! In fact, Monster makes something like $1 Billion annually from selling your resume to employers. LinkedIn does it for free! LinkedIn does have many paid upgrade options, but these are only optional and they are not required to get most of the functionality.

3. Recruiters are flocking to Linkedin and canceling their Monster accounts.

With millions of people unemployed, employers are getting hundreds of applicants for every job posting. Finding candidates isn’t a problem, like it used to be. As a result, fewer companies are buying resume database licenses. With tighter budgets, recruiters are being forced to use alternatives, like LinkedIn, that are free. When the economy starts turning around, employers and staffing firms are going to continue to use the most effective and least expensive tools to find candidates. LinkedIn will only get better.

4. LinkedIn is a virtual “Corporate Employee Directory”.

The LinkedIn, “Company Search Feature” allows job seekers to view loads of great information about thousands of companies. A search could reveal your 1st degree and 2nd degree contacts who are current or past employees, employees that share similar groups, like professional trade groups, and alumni organizations. LinkedIn boasts employees from all of the Fortune 100 companies, a statement that Monster can‚Äôt make.

As a job seeker, if you’re trying to connect with employees in the company, to find a possible employee referral, a simple LinkedIn company search might just do it. While LinkedIn doesn’t provide direct contact information, if you are a savvy LinkedIn user, you can definitely find ways to connect and contact just about anyone on LinkedIn.

I’m releasing an online training series Referrals Get Hired!, that teaches job seekers how to find and connect with employees and ask for referrals. If you are interested in getting notified of when I release the training, put your name and email in the box to the right.

5. LinkedIn is the largest and most active online community of human resources, staffing and recruiting professionals.

LinkedIn claims over 500,000 recruiting and HR members. From my estimates, that means that LinkedIn has 10 times more staffing and recruiting members actively engaging candidates than paying members of both the Monster and CareerBuilder resume databases, combined!

As a job seeker, if you want to research, or find, or contact a recruiter, there is no better place, they’re all on LinkedIn. They’re easy to find – do an “Advanced People Search”, with the word “recruiter” in the “title” field. You can even filter the results by your local region, and industry.

Recruiters are also very active in LinkedIn groups. So join some industry trade groups, as well as any of the large “job” and “career” oriented groups, and connect with them.

6. Recruiters are sourcing more and more candidates from LinkedIn.

Everyday I talk to another recruiter, or see another testimonial, where an executive recruiter says they are finding and placing more candidates from LinkedIn than any other source. This is good to know, but it must be stated that these are “executive recruiters” hiring senior managers and executives. LinkedIn isn’t yet the “go to” resource for all types of positions. In the next couple of years, we’ll see this continue to move out of the executive ranks and into operations and line management positions, as LinkedIn membership grows beyond its primary “professional” demographics.

7. LinkedIn has already become a defacto “social reference check”.

Over 45% of employers have already stated they are using LinkedIn to run background checks on applicants (2009 CareerBuilder study), and another 35% say they will be doing so this year (CareerXRoads, 2009 Source of Hire Study). Recruiters never used Monster for this because Monster is only one dimensional, meaning recruiters could only read what a user uploaded, their resume. Profiles on LinkedIn are multifaceted, including recommendations, links to blogs, twitter applications, providing recruiters with many more ways of researching candidates. In addition, LinkedIn is constantly being updated with new information in Groups, Questions and Answers, etc. whereas, Monster is very static.

If you are looking for a job, it’s critical that your LinkedIn Profile matches what is on your resume, and vice versa. Recruiters are using the information they find and comparing it to your resume. If there are holes, or your resume doesn’t match, or other questionable issues come up, employers might us the information they find to disqualify you. If you‚Äôre not listed, or your profile isn‚Äôt complete, or doesn’t match your resume, you‚Äôre out of luck.

8. LinkedIn Search Engine Optimizes your profile for you.

When your profile is complete, LinkedIn lists your profile in it’s public directory, which makes it easy for Google to index and list your profile in their search results. Monster; however, locks down your resume and charges recruiters to view YOUR resume. If an employer doesn‚Äôt want to pay‚Ķ you are the one that loses. LinkedIn helps market you, because it’s good for them. LinkedIn knows that recruiters are not just searching Linkedin.com for candidates. Many recruiters search Google as well.

Tip: Have you ever typed in your name into Google and found your LinkedIn profile? That’s because LinkedIn is trying to make its content, profiles, available for the public.  They do a great job of it.

9. LinkedIn isn’t just for posting a profile and looking for jobs, it‚Äôs a professional community.

Monster’s singular purpose is to help employers and job seekers find each other. That’s fine, but if you’re not looking to find a new job, there is no reason to go to Monster. LinkedIn, however has over 60 Million members, many of whom are actively involved in some of the largest and most active professional, trade, and alumni groups on the web. As more and more users come on board, LinkedIn only gets better. It’s a community, based on community built content.

10. Employers would rather hire “Passive” candidates.

While this isn’t news, it’s a strategic difference between Monster and LinkedIn. Monster is considered a great place to find ‘active’ candidates. Whereas LinkedIn, because of its community basis, is a great place to find passive candidates. Again, uploading a ‚Äúresume‚Äù on Monster, by definition, means you are an ‚Äúactive‚Äù candidate.

The purpose of this blog post was to help define why LinkedIn is so vital to a job seeker. I truly believe that LinkedIn is now more important than Monster, for a lot of reasons. That doesn’t mean that job seekers shouldn’t use Monster or any other job board, including GOJobs.com, the job board that I own. They should, because job boards have loads of job postings, employers use them everyday, and as a job seeker, you need to use any and every tool that can help you find a job.

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8 Replies to “10 Reasons LinkedIn is the New Monster”

  1. Seekers (of any job or a better job): It’s not LinkedIn OR Monster.
    They are completely different, and you should use both. Quick fixes to points above:
    1. You can keep your identity on the down low on Monster while being “found”.
    2. Wild misinformation on pricing above. We have a wide range of affordable options for recruiters.
    3. Wrong again. Reason recruiters use Monster is BECAUSE THEY CAN SEARCH effectively.
    4. Great, it’s a directory. Use it for that.
    5. Great that HR folks can talk to each other. And the spam LI members are getting from them? Not so great.
    6. It’s AND not or.
    7. Great. You can also use Google for this.
    8. Great, it publicizes your profile for you. Go for it!
    9. It’s a community. We have 20 that are career specific.
    10. Actives are everywhere, as they should be, including LI. Our data (and hiring managers’ experience) shows that a large percentage of “passives” are actively searching on Monster and posting their resumes. (See #1) Thought you’d like to know. (I work for Monster.)

  2. Thank you Janet, the SVP Global Corporate Communications & Social Media at Monster, for commenting on behalf of Monster.
    On behalf job seekers, I think it’s only responsible for me to challenge you on some of your points.

    Point 3. Are you debating whether Monster has not seen a decrease in resume access licenses in the last 18 months? If you want to share the number of resume database licenses sold in 2008 compared to 2009, I’d gladly print those numbers.

    Point 5: Regarding LinkedIn being the largest community of recruiters.
    Show me a directory on Monster where job seekers can do a search for recruiters by title, company, etc. Doesn’t exist. So, Monster can’t compete as a source of job seekers trying to search for recruiters or company employees to build connections and network with them.

  3. Jon,

    Good post buddy. I have been telling my colleagues the same thing over the last several years. Why fish in the same pond as the boards? I mostly leave that for other recruiters. With LinkedIn, the art of the referral becomes more crucial for taking things to the next level. You can’t retweet from Monster/Dice either… Oh and if your InMail doesn‚Äôt get read in 7 days, you receive the credit back so you can approach other people in and around your network on LI.

    Regards,

    Jay

  4. Enjoyed the article but would argue Monster has been irrelevant for years and has never had the capacity to do what Linkedin does unless you are searching for temp help. If you are looking to be average or simply do not consider recruiting A LEVEL talent strategic “go for it”. The best talent on this planet needs to be convinced your job is worth it. Janet herself has a Linkedin profile but I have to assume her resume is not posted on her own network Monster.com. Someone as talented and gifted as Janet can be reached on Linkedin.com but not on Monster. If interested you can probably find her out of work peers on Monster. You may want to gear your business toward non-exempt roles only, focus on what you do well.

  5. Well done Jonathan for a nice bulleted list of Linkedin key benefits. (although I agree with Janet – your numbers in Pt 2 are inaccurate)

    Don’t worry about it though, I don’t think this point is a deciding factor in people creating a Linkedin profile who have not done so thus far. Which I think was one of the objectives of your post?

    My knowledge in this area? I own/ run a specialist recruitment business and last year authored “Get Well Connected – Gain interviews & Grow Your Career Using Online Social Networking”. The reason I wrote this? Because I saw time after time the shortfalls of the job board market in finding senior or sector specific people.

    Janet – I don’t agree with you that it is AND not OR – my view is that each serves a different part of the market. From middle management level up the problem is not with the jobboards – its with the process… hundreds of people applying for a role / recruiters & employers not even bothering to acknowledge applications / the perception by the employer that they only get the desperates / the insecurity of personal details when placing your CV on job boards ( google “monster identities theft “) and the blind aspect of the way ads are placed by recruiters leading to some people in-advertedly applying to their current employer for a new role!

    So: My conclusion, Job boards are good for the lower end of the market, but for specialist, senior, high profile roles, and for great social proof of someone’s competency / skillset then Linkedin is the powerhouse. Its where I start everytime. To this end, through my Job Hunter training business every client we have worked with this year who has landed a new role has done so through ‘networking’ – on and offline.

    A great example of this is a guy who applied for nearly 600 roles online without a single interview, after starting his new approach to 20 select targets, using on and off line networking he was invited for 5 interviews and landed a new role with much improved renumeration.

  6. So, why I do care to search for recuriters? As a Job seeker, I want all the recuriters to contact me instead me to finding a recuriter to help me to find a job. Am I missing something here?

  7. Hi Peter,
    Thanks for the comment.
    First off, let’s define “recruiters”, because it makes a big difference.
    There are 3 types of recruiters:
    * Corporate Recruiters, who are paid employees, or contractors, who work specifically for the employer.
    * Executive Recruiters, who are usually paid on commission to find Executive Level people.
    * Staffing Professional, who work for 3rd party companies (staffing firms) and either help employers find and hire the right candidates, for which they are mostly paid a “placement fee”, which is anywhere from 10-30% of the first year annual salary.

    No, back to your question.
    #1 It’s important to build a solid network in your niche. This includes networking with all types of recruiters, corporate, executive, and staffing professionals, as well as employees in the companies. Recruiters in general are highly connected people. Kind of like sales people. They get paid to find employees for employers. Notice: they get paid to “find candidates for employers” not the other way around “jobs for candidates”. So, to your point, you are right on.
    The problem is you have to be “found”. And the best way to be found is to know the recruiters. If you have an existing relationship with them they might know your personality, your skills, and how it would fit for the company that is looking. A resume by itself doesn’t help when it comes to “culture fit”. So, having a relationship with the recruiters, is very important.

    #2 Recruiter have a lot of connections, not just “online connections”, but real relationships within companies and industries. Getting to know recruiters, and trying to help them, helps you, because some day, you might need their help, and even if they are not working a specific job opening, they might be willing to connect you to someone who can help you.

    #3 Connecting with corporate recruiters is a very smart idea, because they are connected to hiring managers in their current company, as well as hiring managers in their previous companies. So, those relationships might help you as well.

    #4 Connecting to Recruiters on sites like LinkedIn is Really a good idea, and here’s why… The LinkedIn search engine only returns the results of the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd degree connections of the person doing the search. If you have built connections to recruiters, and they are connected to the hiring manager in their former company, you would show up in the hiring managers search results as a 2nd degree connection. If you didn’t have that connection, or a similar connection, the hiring manager doing a search on LinkedIn would never see your profile. (This is a short version, Here’s a video that describes it the LinkedIn Search Engine.

    I hope this helps

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