During June’s Triangle Social Media Club meeting, there was an interesting discussion about using LinkedIn for more than connecting and online communities. One of the participants worked for a company in the transaction automation solution industry. He stated that they used LinkedIn in a unique why to recruit and find better applicants for their open jobs. I’m not directly referencing his name or company as I do not want to disturb his strategy and process.
The company has their product in the field in point-of-sale applications and therefore requires workers to travel from headquarters to various locations for both sales and repair visits. When using either the LinkedIn status or TripIt’s plug-in feature, staff were able to post information on their profile about where they are travelling. At the same time the company was looking at competitor’s employees to see if they were travelling in similar geographic circles.
By discovering the travel dates and locations of competitors’ workers, the company was able to meet the person and gauge their skills, background and personality face to face in place of today’s phone, pre-screen interview that takes place. At the same time the company realized that they had to make sure that the strategy was not discovered by competitors and used on them. Therefore the company informed staff to use TripIt judiciously and limit LinkedIn profile access.
The strategy has benefited the company with better qualified resources and reduced recruiting costs.
