Earlier today, the folks at LinkedIn hosted a well-attended webinar where they shared a multitude of inMail tips 
and introduced some exciting new product features. The true story of the morning, however, was a slew of technical difficulties accompanied by constant gut-busting twitter commentary, thanks to the widely distributed official hashtag for the webinar, #HiretoWin. But more on that later.
Once the delayed start, audio, and visuals were sorted out, a harried LinkedIn team jumped right into the content. Recruiters seem to constantly be dealing with a dreadful response rate to inMails, so naturally, tips on optimizing this method of outreach were abundant.
Call to action is critical for a successful inmail response rate @suzannemyers #HiretoWin
— Anna Simmerman (@AnnaSimmerman) June 4, 2014
A key strategy for InMails, or any outreach for that matter, is to give your recipient a reason to respond or otherwise act. Try and be a bit more creative than "Let's find some time to chat so we can discuss opportunities". Imploring your target to check out your careers page, follow your companies' career-oriented twitter account, or to have a look at recent press mentions are all low-commitment asks that can serve to steadily build engagement.
Another tip to writing InMails is to overcome objections before the target can give them to you #HiretoWin
— Scott Ewert (@ewertsm25) June 4, 2014
Here's a common sales and debate tactic that recruiters might often overlook. Brainstorming the arguments or objections your target will use is a great way to prepare and immediately alleviate concerns before they're raised. Acknoweldging that your candidate may not be actively seeking a new job, but still explaining why you believe they'd be a good fit and what your company can offer that their current one cannot are just a couple examples of objections you can defeat early on.
According to our very own Recruiter Evangelist, Loni, the most exciting development about the webinar were updates to LinkedIn's "Projects" feature. An overhauled UI is now much sleeker and easier to navigate, and users can now sort candidates by newly added, as well as view how many they've already contacted.
The technical difficulties faced by the LinkedIn squad served to demonstrate an ofter underappreciated value of massive webinars: the opportunity to network! In this case, almost 2000 recruiters were tuned in and monitoring the #hiretowin twitter feed. Despite all the sassy commentary, it seems that a great deal of connecting took place, something that might not have been the case if there hadn't been the delay which fostered the active conversation for around 15 minutes.
Well at least we can get some good networking in #thankslinkedin #HiretoWin
— Erin Maloney (@RecruiterErinMM) June 4, 2014
Not content, of course, to rest on their laurels, LinkedIn promised an updated, crisper recording to be sent to registrants later in the week.
We will send a new recording and slides via email later this week #hiretowin
— HireOnLinkedIn (@HireOnLinkedIn) June 4, 2014
I can't see recruiters feeling hard-done in the end, as they will receive their content in such a way that they can view it at their leisure, and they got the added bonus of some great networking and a few laughs.
What were your key takeaways from the webinar? Leave a comment or tweet @EnteloRob!
