How to Use LinkedIn Recruiter? [Complete Guide 2025]

By understanding these key aspects, you’ll be better equipped to leverage LinkedIn Recruiter effectively for your hiring needs.

If you use LinkedIn, you’ve probably noticed that it has become a global networking platform used by all types of professionals for sales, lead acquisition, prospecting, recruiting, and community building.

LinkedIn Pressroom shares statistics about LinkedIn, where I found some interesting ones:

• 65M people use LinkedIn to search for jobs each week
• 6 people are hired every minute through LinkedIn
• 28M people added #OpentoWork frames to their profiles

The bottom line is that LinkedIn is an important source of potential new employees if your company hires.

Here is what we are going to cover:

1. What is LinkedIn Recruiter
2. How to use LinkedIn Recruiter
3. LinkedIn Recruiter Best Practices
4. Create a standout job description

So, let’s get into it!

What is LinkedIn Recruiter?

LinkedIn Recruiter is a powerful sourcing tool that connects you to a network of more than 1 billion professionals worldwide.

It’s the upgraded version of Recruiter Lite, with more search filters and advanced integrations with the Applicant Tracking System (ATS).

It’s designed to streamline your search to find and engage the ideal candidates for your organization quickly.

Whether targeting active job seekers and passive candidates or leveraging referrals, this tool allows you to send personalized messages and present relevant job opportunities.

Mastering LinkedIn Recruiter to navigate its advanced features and find the right talent efficiently is key to effective hiring in 2024.

LinkedIn Recruiter Pricing

LinkedIn Recruiter costs $835 per month or $8,999 annually.

However, it may depend on your chosen package and can be affected by location, number of licenses needed, and industry.

This is why LinkedIn suggests you contact a product consultant to find a Recruiter package that best suits your hiring needs.

LinkedIn Recruiter Plan

With LinkedIn Recruiter, you get all the features of Recruiter Lite and more:

• 150 InMail credits
• InMail bulk extensions
• Additional search filters
• Integrations with ATS

1. More InMail credits

LinkedIn Recruiter provides 150 InMail credits per month.

It’s 120 more InMails than what LinkedIn Recruiter Lite offers.

2. Send InMail in bulk

With LinkedIn Recruiter, you can send InMail messages in bulk. This means you can send the same message to 10 people in 1 click without manually sending it to each candidate.

This can save you time, but if you use this feature, send well-written messages. You should consider sending hyper-personalized messages for better results.

3. Additional Search Filters

LinkedIn Recruiter offers more filters to help you find the perfect candidates.

The “Open to Work” tag is the most useful. It helps you find all the people open to work on LinkedIn.

It shows people who are actively looking for job opportunities. So you can be sure to get high response rates when you contact them.

4. Integration with popular ATS

If you use an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) to manage your candidate pipeline, then you can easily integrate LinkedIn Recruiter with your ATS to keep your data in sync.

Here is the list of all the ATS’s LinkedIn Recruiter integrates with.

How To Use LinkedIn Recruiter?

LinkedIn Recruiter is a premium recruiting tool. So, the first thing to do is get a paid subscription for your team.

It streamlines the recruiting process and enhances the hiring experience for recruiters and companies with advanced search capabilities, candidate management features, and personalized messaging options.

In this section we’ll see how to start with LinkedIn Recruiter for your next recruitment campaign:

1. Create a new project pipeline
2. Create a standout job description
3. Use LinkedIn Recruiter advanced search filters
4. Use Boolean search filters
5. Send InMails to your Candidates
6. Promote your Job Post on LinkedIn Recruiter

Create A New Project Pipeline

1. Go to your LinkedIn Account, and if you’ve already bought the LinkedIn Recruiter plan, click on the “Recruiter” icon.

2. Once you’re set, on the top left, choose “Projects”; on the top right, click “Create new” to create a new job opening.

3. Name your project that matches the job opening.

4. Add all the essential details about the job offer: Title, location, seniority, and company name.

5. Ensure your project is visible to the Recruiter and Hiring Manager and that they’ve been successfully added to it.

6. Then hit “Create project”.

Now that you’ve your project published, you can add a job offer to the project.

Your job offer should look like something like this:

After that, the Recruiter or Hiring Manager should start researching qualified candidates and compiling a list of potential applicants.

Create A Standout Job Description

A good job description is essential for attracting and hiring the best talent for your roles.

It should provide candidates with an overview of the main responsibilities and requirements of the role and provide insight into your company’s culture and values.

To improve your job descriptions, you should:

• Use a clear and descriptive job title.

Avoid using jargon, acronyms, or vague terms that may confuse or mislead candidates.

Use keywords relevant to your industry and role that candidates will likely search for.

• Highlight the benefits and perks of working for your company.

Tell candidates what makes your company unique and why they should join your team. Mention your mission, vision, values, culture, and any awards or recognition you have received.

Include details about your compensation, benefits, health and wellness programs, learning and development opportunities, and more.

• Optimize your job description for search engines. Use keywords and phrases that match your ideal candidates’ skills and qualifications.

Include links to your website, blog, and social media profiles to drive traffic and engagement.

Use bullet points, headings, and short paragraphs to make your job description easy to read and scan.

Use LinkedIn Recruiter Advanced Search Filters

LinkedIn Recruiter offers more than 40 advanced search filters that help refine your search results and narrow your target audience.

You can use these filters to specify criteria such as location, industry, skills, education, experience, company, etc.

You can also save your custom filters and apply them to other searches to enhance your hiring on LinkedIn.

To access the advanced search filters, click the Advanced search button at the end of your Search Filters.

Use Boolean Search Filters

Another way to enhance your search results is to use the LinkedIn Boolean Search technique in the Keywords filter.

It is a really simple scripted language that uses a combination of logical connectors (AND, OR, NOT) and punctuation (parentheses and quotes). It allows you to perform a very specific search of the LinkedIn database.

This video tutorial shows how it works on LinkedIn Sales Navigator. It also works the same way for LinkedIn Recruiter.

For example, to find people whose job titles include both Developer and Python, type “Developer AND Python” in the job title field.

This feature is the same in the LinkedIn Recruiter and the Sales Navigator.

Send InMails To Your Candidates

InMails are one of the most important tools in LinkedIn.

LinkedIn InMails are premium messages that allow you to send direct messages to 2nd and 3rd degree connections without sending a connection request first.

It’s essential for LinkedIn recruiters, too, as it can help you reach out to passive candidates, active job seekers, or referrals.

However, to get the best results from InMail, you need to follow some of the InMail best practices, such as:

Be short and to the point

People don’t have time to read long messages from people they don’t know.

Keep it under 400 characters and get 22% more replies than other InMails.

Use a short subject line

When you send an InMail, your profile picture and InMail subject line are the first things people see in their inbox.

There are 3 strategies you can employ:

1. Use 1 word: stay intentionally vague to trigger curiosity
2. Mention a common connection: leverage your relationships to create proximity
3. Mention news: react to recent news to show you did your homework

I mostly use 1-word subject lines because these messages look like a colleague or a friend sent them.

Use the RABT InMail template

Copying and pasting InMail messages from LinkedIn InMail templates can save you time and energy.

But you might be delusional if you think they’ll get more replies.

Templates are the opposite of personalization.

You can, however, use them to help you improve the structure of your messages.

The RABT formula is an effective way to construct your messages so that your reader and potential client clearly understand your message’s objective and take on to give you a response back.

Here is how it works:

1. First, you give a Reason for Outreach
2. Then, Ask a question
3. Backup with Data
4. And at the end, Tease your Solution

It’s important not to make a pitch in the first message.

The first message aims to start a conversation and ensure your prospect is interested and qualified for your job offer.

Personalize your message

People read your messages to find value and answers to their problems.

During the hiring process, you typically send InMails to the candidates you’ve researched, learned about their career plans, and believe would be a good fit for your company.

This is where you must give most of the credit to the personalization.

LinkedIn offers plenty of interest signals you can leverage in your LinkedIn prospecting messages.

You use the LinkedIn search engine to find people participating in the following:

• LinkedIn event
• LinkedIn groups
• People who follow your business page

If you still need a message template for structuring your InMail, check our hyper-personalized LinkedIn outreach message templates.

Promote Your Job Post On LinkedIn Recruiter

After you successfuly publish your job post on LinkedIn Recruiter, use advanced filters and boolean search to refine your target audience, but don’t get enough applications, here is a good hack for you.

Promote your job offer when posting a new job or after you’ve already posted a job in Recruiter. You can edit a promoted job at any time.

Here’s how to promote your job posting on LinkedIn Recruiter:

1. Log In to LinkedIn Recruiter

2. Hover your cursor over Jobs at the top of your Recruiter homepage and click View all jobs.

3. Go to “Basic”, job posts you did not promote, and choose the job you want to promote.

4. Click the “Promote job” button to the right of the job title.

5. Adjust your daily budget and press “Promote”.

Remember that you can edit, stop, and restart promotion on a job you’ve posted in LinkedIn Recruiter from your Job Post page anytime!

LinkedIn Recruiter Best Practices

One of LinkedIn Recruiter’s key features is its powerful search engine, bolstered by advanced search filters that allow you to find the most relevant and qualified candidates for your roles.

In this section, we will show you how to master these advanced search techniques in LinkedIn Recruiter to optimize your sourcing strategy and make hiring on LinkedIn more productive:

1. Optimize your LinkedIn Profile
2. Recommended Matches by AI
3. Turn company followers into potential hires

1. Optimize Your LinkedIn Profile

Finally, your LinkedIn profile is the most important factor in whether people trust you as a recruiter.

You never get a second chance to make a good first impression.

Sending InMails without an optimized LinkedIn profile is like handing a potential client your business card without any contact and company information.

Before you send an InMail, be sure to:

• Upload a professional profile picture
• Include a banner with your value proposition
• Include your value proposition in your LinkedIn headline
• Mention your role and position in the company
• Include your best posts and links in the features section
• Detail your work experience and education

Think of your LinkedIn profile as the homepage of your website.

Visitors need to understand your value in less than 3 seconds.

2. Recommended Matches By AI

LinkedIn Recruiter also uses artificial intelligence to provide you with candidate recommendations based on your search criteria and hiring signals.

These recommendations are called Recommended Matches. They help you discover new candidates that may not appear in your initial search but are highly relevant and interested in your roles.

You can also use the AI Matching feature to find candidates similar to a specific profile you like.

3. Turn Company Followers Into Potential Hires

Your company followers on LinkedIn are a valuable source of potential hires.

They are already interested in your brand and may be open to new opportunities.

To turn your followers into applicants, you need to:

• Post valuable content regularly

Share industry news, company updates, employee stories, and more to keep your followers engaged and informed.

Use hashtags, images, and videos to increase your visibility and reach.

• Encourage your employees to share your content.

Your employees can act as brand ambassadors and amplify your message to their networks.

Ask them to like, comment on, and share your posts and tag relevant connections who may be interested in your roles.

• Invite your followers to apply for your jobs.

When you post a job on LinkedIn, you can target your followers with a personalized message.

You can also use the #Hiring feature on your profile or homepage to let your followers know you are hiring.

Conclusion

In this blog post, we have provided you with a complete guide on how to use LinkedIn Recruiter.

We have delved into essential topics, including:

1. What is LinkedIn Recruiter
2. How to use LinkedIn Recruiter
3. LinkedIn Recruiter Best Practices
4. Create a standout job description

LinkedIn is a powerful recruiting tool, enabling you to connect with the right candidates more swiftly and effortlessly than ever.

So, by embracing these tips and best practices, you’ll be poised to use LinkedIn Recruiter effectively and ensure your LinkedIn hiring efforts succeed.

FAQ

What is LinkedIn Recruiter, and how can it help me find the best talent?

LinkedIn Recruiter is a powerful hiring tool for sourcing, connecting with, and managing qualified candidates from the world’s largest professional network, with over 1 billion global members.

It enhances your ability to discover the best talent swiftly through advanced search filters, intelligent matching, personalized messaging, and collaboration tools.

Understanding how to use LinkedIn Recruiter is an important skill in talent acquisition.

How do I create and manage projects on LinkedIn Recruiter?

To start a project in LinkedIn Recruiter, you need to:

1. Select Projects at the top of the Recruiter homepage.
2. Click “Create New” in the upper right corner of the page.
3. (Optional) In Seniority Level, select an option from the drop-down list: Internship, Entry level, Associate, Mid-Senior level, Director, Executive.
4. In the Project Name field, enter a project name.
5. Under Project Visibility, select Private or Public.
6. Click the Create Project button.

How to use search filters and boolean operators on LinkedIn Recruiter?

Effective use of search filters and Boolean operators significantly powers your search for top candidates on LinkedIn, allowing refined and precise results.

Boolean filters include job title, location, company, skills and assessments, schools, industries, and languages spoken.

A drop-down menu next to each of these filters provides options such as: Can have (OR), Must have (AND), or Doesn’t have (NOT) to get precise results.

Use these Boolean modifiers to refine your search:

• NOT searches: Place “NOT” (all capitals) before a term to exclude it from results and narrow your search.
  For example, “programmer NOT manager”.
  
• OR searches: Use “OR” (all capitals) to include any terms listed, expanding your search.
  For example, “sales OR marketing OR advertising”.
  
• AND searches: Type “AND” (all capitals) to include all the terms listed, narrowing your search.
  For example, “accountant AND finance AND CPA”.
  
• Parenthesis searches: Use parentheses to combine terms for a more nuanced search.
  Such as “account AND finance NOT (manager OR executive)”.

Keyword searches highlight relevant sections of applicants’ profiles, including their profile card, resume, experience (including job title, description, or location), and skills.

How do I use InMail to communicate with candidates on LinkedIn Recruiter?

Managing your InMail credits is essential for communicating proficiently with candidates via InMail on LinkedIn Recruiter.

InMail messages allow you to send messages to LinkedIn members with whom you’re not directly connected.

You can send an InMail from the introduction section of their profile or through a new message. The subject line of each InMail can be up to 200 characters, and the body should be about 400 characters, most preferably.

Basic account holders must upgrade to use InMail, and you cannot message members who have opted out of receiving InMail.

If a member has an Open Profile, you can message them for free.

To send an InMail:

• Go to the profile of the member you want to message.
  
• Alternatively, find a member using Search and use the messaging page or conversation window.
  
• Click the “More” button in the “Introduction” section of their profile.

• Select “Message [member name]” from the drop-down menu.

• Type your message in the text box and add the “Subject line“.

• Click the “Send” button.

Disclosure

This content was partly written by AI (ChatGPT 4), I added my own perspective, fact-checked it and made sure it is helpful for you.