How do you build up your talent networks on LinkedIn? Running you own groups is definitely one of the most popular ways. There are over 2 million groups on LinkedIn now, I would venture to say that a majority of those were created for the purpose of recruiting.

Most active users are now members of up to 50 groups (which is the limit) but they check in with very few of these on a weekly basis. As a group owner, you aim is to get the right people to join your group and get them to actively contribute. The more activity you get in your group, the more this will attract new members.

Unfortunately I see too many groups on LinkedIn run by recruiters that don’t seem to have any strategy. While it may seem simple to set up a group and invite lots of top candidates, this will only work when these individuals see a real benefit of joining. More on this at How Recruiters Should NOT Run LinkedIn Groups.

10 Questions to ask yourself about your LinkedIn group:

1. What’s the purpose for your company to run this group? Just “to grow numbers” is not an acceptable answer – what will be the tangible return on your investment?
2. Who owns your group? Companies can’t own groups outright, only one individual LinkedIn user can. You can however appoint a number of group managers. Make sure you consider all eventualities here.
3. SEO; Have you optimised your group description keywords? It’s very easy to search for groups and conversations within these, look at what users actually search for and work from there.
4. Why should anyone join this group? Or better yet, why should they leave one of their 50 current groups to join yours? You have to have a compelling value proposition.
5. At first glance, does your group look like an active community with peers exchanging useful information? Or is ‘tumbleweed’ a more accurate description?
6. What type of conversations do you want in the group and what are you doing to encourage these? You can seed discussions, or get active group members to do this.
7. Do you have any sub-groups? These can be very useful for more niche or location-based conversations.
8. How do you vet members and how do you moderate spam? The more exclusive the membership criteria, the more you will attract top people. And excessive spam will cause members to depart.
9. Do you send mailshots to group members? Very few group owners use this feature where you can email users once per week through LinkedIn.
10. Do you have a team of people to help you run the group? These should be internal and external.

And if you haven’t already, do check out The Undercover Recruiter LinkedIn group. And please tell us if you think it sucks!

Jorgen Sundberg

The original Undercover Recruiter, after 7 years in tech recruiting Jorgen now runs Link Humans, a social media marketing agency in London.

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