Over 80 million professionals use LinkedIn to exchange employment information, ideas and opportunities.

80 million! That sounds like a great HR database…but only if you know how to easily find what you’re looking for. Searching for individuals and companies is easy enough on LinkedIn, but if you want to be efficient and effective at finding good candidates, there are a few tips and tricks you should know.

1. Create a strong company and career page on LinkedIn. LinkedIn has always had the reputation of the professional or ‘networking network’ and therefore job seekers have used it as another job search engine.

Since you know candidates are searching, make sure your company profile and your job listings are up to date, informative and compelling. Sell your company to prospective employees and watch your pipeline expand with qualified candidates.

2. Use LinkedIn to converse with other HR professionals. You can start with the Hiring and Human Resources Questions page to see what other HR people are talking about, and there are many links to questions and answers about personnel, staffing and recruiting.

Carry on chats – private or public – within any number of groups that are organized around HR issues. Better yet, this can also be a great place to trade information about candidates and job opportunities.

3. Let your LinkedIn network know that you are looking for candidates. These are people you know and trust. When they refer someone to you, they provide a free, low-level screening of a potential employee.

Smart job seekers are also letting their LinkedIn network know when they are looking for work. This makes it even easier for recruiters to find and screen candidates as they are broadcasting their career needs to everyone who will listen.

Search for candidates via keywords and employers. LinkedIn professionals who are on the ball will have keyword-rich profiles and detailed employment histories so that they will be found by recruiters like you.

Make sure your job postings are also rich with keywords so they are easy for candidates to find.

Additionally, you can use one or more of LinkedIn’s fee-based services:

4. LinkedIn ads target the professionals you are looking for and help you control your recruiting “brand.”

5. Jobs for You ads help distribute job openings to websites and other platforms that are frequented by the type of professional you are looking for.

6. LinkedIn Referral Engine helps you organize an employee referral program and integrate it with the LinkedIn database.

7. LinkedIn Recruitment Insights provides analytic tools to help you understand your target candidates better and measure the effectiveness of your recruitment efforts.

8. LinkedIn Recruiter is a search engine specifically designed to help recruiters wade through those 80 million professionals. It also helps you communicate with fellow HR staff, send InMail messages to potential recruits, and analyze and improve your searches. It’s especially helpful for locating and communicating with hard-to-find, super-niche professionals.

Customer testimonials, webcasts, and demos can help you decide if any of these services are worth the money.

No doubt, LinkedIn will continue to find ways to help job seekers and candidate connect. We’ll keep you posted or feel free to submit how you have used LinkedIn in the hiring process via the comments below.

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