Connecting to (and recruiting) top talent

June 2010 research from Jobvite found that nearly three quarters of companies surveyed use social networks for recruiting, and 58% said they had successfully hired a candidate found through a social network.

If you are in the financial industry and are not able to leverage social networks, like LinkedIn, for recruiting you are put at a distinct disadvantage. The competition for great talent goes on as companies as doing more with less so finding a way to reach your next great producer is more valuable than ever.

Getting access to social networks is just the beginning. This story also illustrates how companies can get from social networking tools if they activate their entire employee base. For recruiting – as well as for client acquisition and retention – increasing your reach by tapping the collective networks of your employees helps exponentially grow your enterprise social graph.

For example, many recruiters use LinkedIn extensively to find candidates for open positions. They search for specific job titles, by geography, or for types of industries, which gives them a list of potential candidates. After narrowing this list down, they then look for possible connections they may have with these candidates.

If you’re not familiar with LinkedIn, users must request “connections” with other users, creating a direct connection. Once a recruiter finds a prospective candidate on LinkedIn, she can see if they have any connections in common – called second-degree connections.

With this in mind, it’s easy to see how having more employees connected within your organization can exponentially increase these second-degree connections. If a candidate is linked to someone at the recruiter’s company, the recruiter can get first-hand information about the candidate, then ask to be introduced or connected to the potential candidate.

And it doesn’t end there. Once a candidate submits his or her resume, the recruiter can cross-reference the resume with their LinkedIn profile and find other connections they share to get more information about the candidate. In addition, your employees connected to the candidate can help “sell” them on the idea of moving to your firm.

In short, the more connected your employees are, the more connections your firm has beyond its four walls. And this will impact the growth of your firm – measured by clients as well as recruits.