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I used the paid job listing service. I forwarded the job description to my entire LI network. One person, a good friend, saw it and passed it on to someone in his office.  At the time, the employee did not have a LinkedIn profile. Without LinkedIn we would not have hired her, so she benefited from LinkedIn even though she wasn’t a member!  (She is now!)

How I hire contractors on LinkedIn: I use advanced search. I select the industry “Events Services”. I sort by “Relationships and Recommendations”. I set the Location to “Located In or Near” and enter the specific information.  Then I browse the results.

On the results page I click on people whose headlines are relevant to what I am seeking.  When I search, I have found that sometimes people suppress their names. It will just show their headline, for example “Events Services Professional”. I am very unlikely to pursue that person for work. I like the transparency that LinkedIn provides and people should be showing me information about themselves.

Once I visit the potential contractor’s profile, I look for a few things: how they describe themselves, how closely are they connected to me, how many recommendations do they have, what is their educational background and what is their work experience.

Another thing that would make me say “next” is that the person has only a limited amount of information on their profile. I like to see complete profiles so I know more about the person and that they are diligent.

Top 3 LinkedIn Tips:

1. Add people you know and trust.

2. Spend the time to build your network.

3. Be clear about what you want when making requests.

Thanks to Andrew Long of www.criticalpathfinders.com for sharing his LinkedIn success in hiring.