How to Recruit on LinkedIn – 10 Free Strategies for 2025

LinkedIn has more than 55 million companies listed on the site with 14 million open jobs. So it’s no surprise that 87% of recruiters regularly use LinkedIn. Safe to say, the potential for LinkedIn is far higher than any other social networking site when it comes to recruiting with LinkedIn playing a major role in your talent sourcing strategy. 

If you’re a recruiter looking to kickstart your candidate sourcing journey, LinkedIn is a great place to start. Data suggests that candidates sourced via LinkedIn are 40% less likely to leave the company within the first 6 months. If you, as a recruiter, match the right candidates with the right jobs, you will not only deliver a great candidate experience but also build trust with your clients. 

Let’s dig into how to recruit on LinkedIn and make the most of it to hire the best candidates. 

How to recruit with LinkedIn for Free?

1. Join relevant LinkedIn groups 

LinkedIn groups are networks where professionals within the same expertise or industry share content, build connections and post and view targeted jobs. Many LinkedIn groups also have specific ‘Jobs’ sections, where recruiters can share job openings. 

It’s worth pointing out that some LinkedIn groups might limit recruiters from posting open positions regularly if they don’t actively interact and participate within the group. So, make sure you are an active participant and genuinely engage with candidates and even other recruiters. You can also use a LinkedIn scheduler to automate your posting efforts.

2. Post jobs on your LinkedIn company page for free

LinkedIn can get you straight in touch with great candidates that match your job positions. If you have a company page with a dedicated following of professionals who could be potential candidates, consider posting a job or sharing your job applications on the company profile. This is a great, free way to drive engagement from potential hires and if you’d like, you can also sponsor the post which can help you reach a wider talent pool. There are numerous recruiting agencies that use a sales navigator tool for LinkedIn applying the needed filters to find potential candidates. 

3. Allow candidates to apply for your jobs on LinkedIn

Allow candidates to directly apply to your job openings via the “Easy Apply” feature. It’s a LinkedIn feature that allows candidates to submit applications in a few simple clicks, sometimes even just one click if they have their resume updated on LinkedIn. It goes without saying that your LinkedIn profile should also be ideal for candidates to want to apply for your company. Consider making use of LinkedIn analytics tools to monitor and improve your profile. 

4. Search for passive candidates

LinkedIn remains one of the most popular platforms to connect with passive candidates. LinkedIn recruiting statistics revealed that 70% of the global workforce is made up of passive candidates who aren’t actively looking for a job, and the remaining 30% are active job seekers. Consider looking at talent in similar roles that you’re hiring for and add them to your recruitment pipeline.    

5. Actively search for candidates using keywords

Look at job posting sites from different companies. Analyze the keywords they’re using to draw the attention of candidates. By using keywords in your job openings and the search filters, you can narrow down your search for candidates. That way, you can also cross-reference your requirements with the qualifications of the candidates’ profiles.

6. Utilize your talent pool 

As a recruiter, it’s important to build strong relationships with your candidates. You can rely on LinkedIn to stay in touch with your talent for potential recruitment opportunities. This will ensure that you don’t lose out on candidates that you’ve successfully worked with in the past and also keep your talent pipeline filled with engaged candidates.

Also, check our blog on how to market the most placeable candidates.

7. Use a boolean search to discover candidate LinkedIn profiles. 

LinkedIn offers advanced search capabilities, including LinkedIn Recruiter, that can help you source qualified candidates that are perfect for your job openings. Allowing you to refine and combine various search filters, recruiters can find candidate profiles by the following criteria:

• Connections (1st degree, 2nd degree, 3rd degree)
• Connections with other colleagues…
• Location
• Current companies
• Past companies
• Industries
• Profile language
• School
• Services

If you want to level up your LinkedIn recruiting game, you might want to sign up for a premium plan for LinkedIn Recruiter to narrow down your searches even further. With LinkedIn Recruiter, you can use filters like:

• Job Titles
• Locations
• Industry
• Skills
• Employment Type
• Education
• Expected Salary
• Keyword

8. Use templates to reach out to candidates

As a recruiter, you already have a long to-do list, and sending messages to candidates on LinkedIn might be too time-consuming if done the wrong way. To save time and improve your open rates, consider using cold templates that allow you to quickly create outreach recruitment campaigns and avoid the stress and intimidation that come with manually writing every message. 

9. Use Recruitment Software To Quickly Source and Add Candidates To Your Hiring Pipeline 

Modern recruitment ATS like Recruiterflow comes with intelligent automation tools that help recruiters source faster. 

For example, recruiters can use Recruiterflow’s Chrome extension to source candidates directly from popular social networking sites with a single click. This data will then get automatically fed into your dashboard. 

You can also post jobs for free, keep track of all your candidates, send emails, add to nurture campaigns, schedule interviews, create scorecards, and do more using Recruiterflow.

10. Use your network 

As a recruiter, you probably already have a hidden talent pool in your LinkedIn connections. Connect with people in your LinkedIn profile to elicit candidate recommendations for a specific job opening. You can also tap into the networks of your talent pipeline and ask them for referrals. Remember, the wider you cast your net, the more quality referrals you will get.

Also, check How To Post a Job On LinkedIn For Free

5 Tips to Help You Get the Most Out of LinkedIn Recruiting

1. Tap into your company page followers: According to research, 58 percent of people who follow your LinkedIn Company Page want to work for you (the rest are current employees, alumni, and others, including some who simply love your products or services). Your followers are also 95% more likely to accept and 81 percent more likely to reply to an InMail message from you.

2. Consider SEO on LinkedIn: Make sure you add relevant keywords to all your LinkedIn posts, pages, and job ads. That way, candidates who are searching for similar keywords can discover your content.

3. Share content relevant to you: If you’re not active on your company page, you’re missing opportunities to get your content in front of the audience that matters most to your business. Share product updates, the latest blogs/resources, business news, events, and related content on your LinkedIn company page or even on your profile to grab the attention of potential customers.
   
   Also, read our blog How to Hire a Recruiter for recruiting and staffing agencies

4. Personalize your InMails: InMails are a great indicator of candidate engagement. To drive a higher response rate, write shorter InMails as they perform significantly better than longer ones. The more you personalize your InMails, the higher your response rates. Personalized InMails see roughly 20% higher response rates than InMails sent in bulk.  

5. Consider a LinkedIn Recruiter subscription: LinkedIn Recruiter is a paid tool by LinkedIn designed for recruiters, talent acquisition teams, hiring managers, and headhunters that gives them greater visibility and access to candidates beyond just their profiles and limited InMails. LinkedIn Recruiter offers some specific features like:

• Advanced search filters and spotlights: Recruiters can apply multiple filters and narrow down their search with specific details like candidates’ years at a company, field of study, years in their current position, and more. This helps source the right candidates faster. 

• Save searches: Using saved searches, you can save your search criteria, including filters and keywords. You can also set up automated alerts to get notified when a new candidate matches your search criteria. 

• Send 150 InMails: Each seat on the account gets 150 InMails and can send up to 25 bulk InMails at once. 

Also, check our blog on recruitment strategies to attract the best talent.

So, next time you’re recruiting on LinkedIn just follow these simple rules, and hopefully, you’ll end up with more qualified candidates faster. As a recruiter, you probably switch a hundred tabs between several tools and platforms to hire a candidate for a single pipeline – this can be very overwhelming. 

Also, check our blog about candidate sourcing tools.

If you want to reduce your time to fill, I recommend you consider using a recruitment CRM software that not only helps you hire faster but also builds relationships with your candidates and clients. This way, you can take the legwork out of the mundane, repetitive (but necessary) tasks like sending updates to candidates about their applications, scheduling interviews, notifying internal team members, and creating reports for clients. A recruitment CRM with powerful automation tools can easily do the heavy lifting for you while you focus on what matters more. 

You can sign up for a 14-day free trial of Recruiterflow to check out how you can use automated email sequences, advanced boolean search filters, and more such good stuff in your hiring pipeline.