High street recruiters, internal talent acquisition teams, and executive search firms all use Linkedin. Not exclusively, because recruiters know (or should know) that in every company there is a large percentage of individuals who I suspect never use Linkedin. In my experience, some top performers log in so infrequently that you’d never be able to headhunt them that way. There’s also a bit of information overload sometimes. According to Influencer Marketing Hub, there’s approximately 660 million members, with 206 million in Europe alone, ad audience distribution tends to favour men at c. 56%. So, in order to conduct a thorough search, which also takes into consideration diversity, you do need to look beyond Linkedin, and to use it effectively you have to be able to cut out of some of the radio noise. Of course, some sectors and skill sets are almost not represented at all. It’s mainly what would be traditionally classed as a “white collar” platform.

However, there’s no doubting a huge part of the workforce use Linkedin to share information, to promote their business, and of course there’s a bit of humble bragging and self-promotion. For many, their target audience is in one place and the ability to refine searches to provide relevant content is excellent. It is undeniably a platform you shouldn’t ignore if you want to further your career. That could mean making it easy for recruiters to find you, or for others it could be to improve your industry standing and visibility amongst peers.