How to Reduce Recruiter Spam on LinkedIn?
My biggest pain point with LinkedIn is recruiter spam.
I have been using LinkedIn for a few years, I believe it has become really active in the last 1–2 years. Many recruiters are now actively using the platform and for a good reason, it gives them access to talent worldwide at the click of button.
However some recruiters abuse the power of the ability to access and contact unlimited talent with their premium accounts.
I work in technology as a software developer in the financial services industry. There is a skills shortage in my industry which means there is high demand for programmers but not enough people to fill these roles. On a weekly basis I receive a minimum of 3 messages about potential roles as a programmer in an “cutting edge financial services startup working on greenfield projects.”
This would be fine, if I was looking for this kind of work but I am not. I have even setup my profile to let recruiters know the kind of work I am interested in hearing about and ask them not to contact me if it is not regarding this. Many don’t read this, they will still send the message anyway.
Recruiting is a very competitive industry to work in with huge rewards if you can source the correct talent. They have huge pressures often with daily targets to meet. With so many companies looking to hire technology talent and agencies competing to source talent for these companies, it leads to spam messages being copied to individuals who fall into the recruiters minimum category which for example might be ( studied comp sci and worked in financial services ). Recruiting agencies are even using algorithms to automate LinkedIn messages so they can be sent to lots of people at once.
I don’t think recruiters should be evaluated in the workplace on unrealistic targets because it’s not what most people value in good recruiters. Personally what I value most when working with a recruiter is that they understand what I want, they understand the role they are trying to hire for, they communicate at every stage of the process ( good or bad ) and they don’t apply unnecessary pressure. However I get the impression recruiting agencies are not pushing for these qualities.
Even the times I have responded to a spam message to find out a bit more about a role. Sometimes there is dead silence because they obviously found a better candidate since they sent the message to me. Sometimes we have a chat, they find out what I am looking for, they say I should speak to someone else in the firm and will put us in touch. Again after the call, it’s dead silence. It’s as if the recruiting process isn’t a straightforward process for the recruiter then they aren’t interested in pursuing it.
I am sure there are great recruiters out there who do really understand the roles they are hiring for, who read my profile before contacting me about positions and evaluate whether it meets my criteria as well as theirs. I am sure there are recruiters who really care about their reputation and will keep the candidate in the loop throughout the process. However these recruiters are getting their good name tarnished by other recruiters who are looking for an easy quick fix hiring solution on LinkedIn.
I think LinkedIn should implement a rating system which enables candidates to rate recruiters based on their experience working with them. Initially this would be rating the relevance of the message they received. If the message is relevant and you continue the process - the candidate can move to an overall performance review where you could rate the recruiters qualities like communication, organisation. The ratings would then be aggregated on the recruiters profile to show their rating. If the rating was one or two star, LinkedIn would punish those recruiters by limiting the amount of candidates they can contact until they make their messages more relevant or improve their communication with candidates about the process they are involved in. Recruiters would also be able to revoke a review if they believe the candidate may have “sour grapes” and can provide evidence of why the review should be revoked.
However the main challenge in doing a rating system would be that LinkedIn receives a significant amount of their revenue from recruiters as many have premium accounts. The risk would be that if LinkedIn implemented this form of control, the recruiters would stop paying and move to another service.
Although if users of LinkedIn respond positively to the change which I believe they might. It might force bad recruiting agencies to change their tactics and create a better user experience for candidates. I very rarely hear colleagues or friends talk positively of experiences with recruiters on LinkedIn and as the marketplace gets more saturated with recruiters on the service, general users may become more dissatisfied with LinkedIn and move away from the service. A rating system for recruiters would help create a better experience for users of LinkedIn and might lead to more time on the application and perhaps even make it the central place for recruitment in years to come.
Do you suffer from recruiter spam and have a solution ? Or perhaps you are a recruiter who frequently uses LinkedIn in your day job and sees this from a different perspective?
Please share your thoughts in the comments below!
