This post originally appeared on SironaConsulting.com.
LinkedIn recently began to put their foot down with LinkedIn Recruiter accounts that send out massive amounts of inmails and fill inbox's with "spammy inmails". Starting this month, all LinkedIn Recruiter accounts must have a certain level of response rate to keep their ability to send bulk inmails. This sheds light on the struggle quality recruiters have getting in touch with the best candidates, who are frankly tired of being flooded with inmails. Perhaps you are recruiter who sends out personalized inmails to only the best, but the problem lies when your wonderfully personal inmail ends up being pushed down a candidate's inbox by 10 boring, spammy, and impersonal inmails. SBCo frequently uses LinkedIn inmails to get in touch with candidates, but we have also begun to get creative with our reach outs. Below are 10 great alternatives to the LinkedIn inmail from Sirona Consulting. Not all these will work for you, but all you need is one or two extra methods to reach the perfect candidate.
Here are 10 things you can do to find a way of making contact and engaging with these people:
Call them on the phone <shock! horror!>. You have seen their profile on LinkedIn, you know where they work, what their name is, and which department they work in. A click on the company name on their LinkedIn profile will take you to the company’s page with a phone number. Easy.
Try to get a referral. See if there is someone you know who also knows them (LinkedIn is good for this). They contact them for the best email or phone number. Alternatively, use the introduction route via LinkedIn (although this can take time to work).
Do a Google search for their name, they may have their own website or blog. Visit their ‘About.Me’ page and you will find contact details, or at the very least, a contact form to send them.
If you know where they work, it shouldn’t be too hard to find an email address for the person. Simply do this search on Google ”email * * companyname.com” using the url of the company as their likely email domain. You will see the email format. Copy it and run it through one of the main email validation tools like http://mailtester.com/.
Do a Google search for their name and find which other social networks they are on. Most social networks have a high page rank with Google so this shouldn’t be too hard. Check their bios on the social sites for contact details.
Message them via the social networks you find them on.
If they are on Google+, you can put an message right into their inbox. First add the person to a new Circle. Then post an update but only choosing the Circle you have just created as the recipient. Tick the small box that says ‘Send Email’ and that message will appear only in that persons GMail inbox.
Search for them on Skype. Open Skype, go to Contacts in the top toolbar and click Add Contact. Then do a search. You will have to send a request to connect, but you can add a message with the request so that may well work.
Try using one of the Chrome Apps that show you people’s other digital presence. Try Connect6, 360Social or Connectifier.
Do a graph search on Facebook to find them. Then spend a $1 to message them directly. This goes into their primary messages, and they will see it. Just be careful how you phrase the message as some people will find it invasive that you have messaged them this way. It’s still an uncommon approach but as long as you do it right and the message is tailored to your target person, it can work well.
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