LinkedIn is without doubt one of the hottest social media networks and the one one devoted to enterprise {and professional} networking. It’s the very best place to advertise your organization as an amazing place to work and an trade chief. Plus, its free instruments and paid plans harness the ability of LinkedIn’s community for selling job openings and recruiting new staff.
Companies can use LinkedIn for a variety of initiatives, equivalent to enterprise publicity, networking, lead technology, and constructing model consciousness. For the aim of this LinkedIn evaluation, we’ll be focusing totally on utilizing it as a recruiting platform.
Professionals
- Straightforward to make use of
- Free plan has glorious instruments for networking and researching expertise
- Prime platform for recruiting
- Skilled focus
Cons
- Laborious to contact assist
- Paid advert pricing may be costly
- Prices additional to contact folks out of your community
Deciding Components
- Very straightforward to make use of: Along with the social-media-style pages, posting, and messaging, the promoting works much like Google AdWords.
- Big skilled community: LinkedIn is a worldwide social media platform with over 810 million members.
- Analysis candidates: Profiles present expertise, expertise, suggestions, and extra
- Particular recruiting program: LinkedIn Recruiter helps you to conduct in-depth searches for expertise, attain out to potential candidates and observe candidates
- Promote job openings and recruiting occasions: Put up in your LinkedIn enterprise web page or create sponsored adverts
- Message potential and present candidates utilizing LinkedIn’s InMail
LinkedIn profile and enterprise pages are free and straightforward to place collectively. In addition to that, LinkedIn can also be one among our prime recruiting apps for locating new hires. It affords a paid plan particularly for recruiting, however its free instruments are straightforward to make use of for analysis and reaching out to potential candidates.
Briefly, LinkedIn is greatest for:
- Companies recruiting certified professionals: LinkedIn’s profiles permit folks to submit resume-type info and different particulars that present them as thought leaders and trade consultants.
- Companies seeking to discover passive candidates by way of networking: The social media nature and immediate messaging instruments of LinkedIn make it straightforward to succeed in out to connections, even these not actively searching for a job.
- Companies hiring managers and leaders: LinkedIn is one among our prime decisions for looking for folks for management positions. LinkedIn is stuffed with professionals in many alternative fields and usually have a crammed resume of basic and management expertise.
- Companies searching for certified worldwide hires in skilled fields: Whereas the US has probably the most customers (round 220 million), over 75% of LinkedIn customers are outdoors the US, based on Kinsta.com. Thus, it’s a great place to search for worldwide staff as nicely.
LinkedIn will not be best for you in case you are a enterprise:
- Needing hourly or unskilled labor: LinkedIn is a robust device for locating and hiring staff—however candidates on the platform are usually white-collar staff and trade specialists. In case you are searching for blue-collar, hourly, or younger staff, equivalent to for retail or eating places, it’s possible you’ll wish to try our record of the greatest recruiting software program.
- Hiring freelancers: When you can search and speak to freelancers for jobs on LinkedIn, it’s possible you’ll streamline your search by utilizing extra highly effective platforms for locating freelancers and gig-based staff as an alternative.
LinkedIn Deciding Components
Searching for one thing completely different? If you’d like a wider attain or a extra strong applicant monitoring system, try our record of greatest job posting websites. You possibly can at all times use them along side LinkedIn.
How LinkedIn Compares With Prime Options
LinkedIn Pricing
LinkedIn affords free and paid premium plans. Along with the plans listed under, it affords a Gross sales Navigator plan primarily for figuring out potential purchasers relatively than potential staff, so we received’t cowl that intimately.
- Free: Means that you can create a profile web page and start shopping and connecting with others
- Profession ($29.99): For candidates relatively than recruiters; helps job seekers get on employers’ radars
- Enterprise ($59.99): Used primarily for selling your small business, it may well assist you get the eye of certified job seekers
- Recruiter ($140+): If the free instruments usually are not sufficient, this plan provides you an additional increase with detailed search and improved InMail attain (InMail is LinkedIn’s messaging characteristic)
Many SMBs discover the free plan enough for his or her day-to-day wants, however you may at all times improve to a paid plan for a restricted time equivalent to when you’re in a hiring surge. LinkedIn additionally affords a free 30-day-trial of every Premium plan. After that point, it’ll begin billing until you cancel. It warns you seven days earlier than your trial ends, which is a courtesy we don’t at all times see in subscribed companies.
LinkedIn Plans at a Look
Develop the sections under to study extra about every of LinkedIn’s paid plans.
You possibly can submit job adverts on your small business web page free of charge, however for lively recruiting, LinkedIn Recruiter provides you entry to its community of over 930 million professionals. You possibly can filter searches by expertise, location, or different necessities, pare down the record to those that say they’re actively , and extra. Synthetic intelligence (AI) additionally learns out of your searches to make suggestions for you.
You begin by making a venture, then discovering your candidates and including them to the venture. This makes organizing simpler. Subsequent, you may attain out to prospects by way of InMail. You get 30 credit a month, with credit expiring after 90 days, so that you don’t have to make use of all of them in a month. You may also make message templates and ship out group messages. As candidates reply, it can save you them, make notes, and extra.
With Recruiter (versus Recruiter Lite), you may usher in staff members or purchasers to the dialog. They will view candidates with out logging into LinkedIn. They will additionally add notes. If in case you have an applicant monitoring system, the Recruiter Plan helps you to combine these as nicely.
LinkedIn Recruiting is a robust platform. We solely contact on the fundamentals right here, however you may learn our article on discovering staff with LinkedIn to get extra particulars and recommendation.
LinkedIn Options
LinkedIn is designed to be an expert networking resolution. Subsequently, whereas it affords options much like most social media platforms, the main focus is on enterprise: making contacts, hiring staff, and displaying your small business in its greatest gentle to each clients and potential new hires.
Enterprise LinkedIn Pages
The enterprise account (LinkedIn Web page) is about your organization—its mission, staff, promoting, jobs, and many others. You acquire followers relatively than connections. Savvy job seekers analysis the businesses they’re thinking about—and LinkedIn, together with your web site, is without doubt one of the greatest methods to study extra about you.
Be aware: It’s a must to have a private web page to arrange a enterprise web page. Nevertheless, you can’t submit job adverts to a private web page—that is solely out there with Enterprise Pages. You possibly can at all times transition to a enterprise web page in the event you develop. Take a look at LinkedIn’s information for learn how to just do that.
You possibly can submit to any of the tabs in your Enterprise Web page (About, Posts, Jobs, Video) free of charge. You may also create occasions free of charge. The Folks tab exhibits demographics about your staff that LinkedIn has collected primarily based on their private accounts.
Private Profiles
As a enterprise proprietor or recruiter, your private web page can introduce you and your organization to a broader enterprise viewers, assist construct a community you may faucet to fill open roles, set up your credibility out there, and extra. There’s no purpose to not have a private profile, and also you want one to create a Enterprise Web page.
Private profiles are additionally an amazing useful resource for potential candidates. You possibly can both search profiles or lookup a profile of somebody who has utilized or been beneficial to study extra about them.

A private profile is very similar to a web-based resume and portfolio. (Supply: LinkedIn)
LinkedIn’s private profile is designed to be like a resume and has locations for endorsements from earlier managers or co-workers. Folks can point out if they’re searching for work or are open to alternatives. LinkedIn has expertise evaluation assessments with badges for the particular person’s web page and they’re famous when somebody does a recruitment search. As well as, posts are inclined to show their experience of their discipline, versus the lighter antics of TikTok.

When looking, you may inform who’s open to new alternatives proper on the profile. (Supply: LinkedIn)
InMail
InMail is LinkedIn’s messaging characteristic, however with a twist. Except you’ve a premium plan, you may solely contact folks with whom you’re linked. Paid plans provide a restricted variety of InMail messages per thirty days to contact folks outdoors your community. On this approach, you may attain out to job candidates even in case you are not linked with them.
Sponsored messages are promotional or informational adverts which might be a part of a advertising or hiring marketing campaign. You possibly can goal these by profile info like place title, trade, or area. They don’t depend for message credit in your InMail system however are paid for on a cost-per-send or cost-per-displayed foundation. Be taught extra on LinkedIn.

LinkedIn affords a number of ranges for emailing, which determines who you may ship to. (Supply: LinkedIn)
LinkedIn Teams
Like different social media platforms, LinkedIn helps you to type or be a part of teams, that are non-public areas for viewing, posting, and commenting on posts with different group members. Customers inside the similar group also can ship messages to one another by way of InMail. Use this to search out candidates in your alma mater or by way of skilled organizations just like the Nationwide Society of Skilled Engineers.

Teams focus on shared pursuits, from alumni to skilled organizations to shared targets. (Supply: LinkedIn)
LinkedIn Occasions
Private profiles and enterprise pages each have the choice to allow you to create occasions, equivalent to meetups, workshops on-line, or webinars. They are often in particular person, on-line, or by way of LinkedIn Reside. You need to use this to create or announce recruiting occasions or job gala’s.

You possibly can add occasions out of your newsfeed. (Supply: LinkedIn)
LinkedIn Adverts
If you’d like larger publicity in your job adverts, LinkedIn has spectacular instruments by way of Sponsored Content material. It could actually take the type of textual content, photos, video adverts, and even sponsored InMail messages. That is much like Fb.
As well as, you may create authentic adverts—known as Direct Sponsored Content material. You pay for adverts by goal, equivalent to visits to your careers web page. In that case, LinkedIn solely costs if somebody clicks the web site hyperlink in your advert. This makes it analogous to Google Adverts, and certainly the interface is comparable.
Along with creating adverts, you may retarget them to succeed in particular audiences primarily based on actions. For instance, you may ship adverts particularly to individuals who not too long ago visited your careers web page. Retargeting is dependent upon the advert, motion, and desired consequence. Be taught extra on LinkedIn.
Cellular App
The LinkedIn cellular app helps you to do all of the front-facing duties that the net model does: enterprise and social networking, posting in your feed, candidate analysis, and messaging folks. You may also add issues to your profile and schedule occasions. Nevertheless, you have to entry the net model for extra back-end work, like utilizing LinkedIn Recruiter.

The LinkedIn cellular app helps you to view your feed, talk, and deal with some profile updates. (Supply: LinkedIn app on Android)
LinkedIn Ease of Use
- Extremely intuitive—straightforward as Fb
- Big set of how-to articles
- No dwell chat, cellphone contact free of charge plans
In case you are comfy with social media of any variety, then LinkedIn is a no brainer. It’s extraordinarily straightforward to create and edit a profile or enterprise web page, add objects, add movies and pictures, and attain out to connections. InMail works like every chat, though there are limits on who you may contact. The search characteristic pops up folks in your community with indications of how it’s possible you’ll be linked (for instance, folks your present staff are linked to).
My largest challenge with LinkedIn is the assist. There are most likely 1000’s of articles—however they’re overly centered. Typically, I couldn’t discover a solution to extra basic questions, and typically, the completely different terminology was complicated (for instance, there are not any articles for “Enterprise web page,” however relatively for “Showcase web page”). I by no means did discover a contact type, e-mail, or chat for assist—regardless of discovering directions on LinkedIn that have been presupposed to have led me to these choices.
What Customers Assume About LinkedIn
Total, non-public and enterprise customers that left LinkedIn opinions stated that they beloved each the paid and free plans of the platform. They appreciated the enterprise focus of the platform—which made networking and lead technology simpler—and located the instruments general efficient. The 2 important complaints have been the costs, particularly for advert campaigns, and that assist was onerous to succeed in. (I additionally had a tough time even discovering a solution to contact assist straight.) Total, nevertheless, folks say LinkedIn was nicely well worth the effort and time they put into it.
- Capterra: Enterprise Plan, 4.6 out of 5, 1,400+ opinions
- G2: Recruiter, 4.4 out of 5, 300+ opinions; Advertising, 4 out of 5, 240+ opinions
Backside Line
LinkedIn is the place for companies and enterprise folks to satisfy. Its free pages make it straightforward to get your organization observed and make connections with potential future staff. With paid plans, you get much more energy for locating and hiring nice expertise. Better of all, it’s tremendous straightforward to make use of. In the event you don’t have already got a LinkedIn account, put aside a while and make one quickly. Don’t miss out on this highly effective enterprise and expertise recruiting device.