Jesper Åström - Ideas worth keeping to yourself» LinkedIn http://jesperastrom.com Where information is free, application & tactic becomes key Mon, 10 Oct 2011 23:39:19 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 Guilty by association – LinkedIn Spammers delight http://jesperastrom.com/social-information/guilty-by-association-linkedin-spammers-delight/ http://jesperastrom.com/social-information/guilty-by-association-linkedin-spammers-delight/#comments Fri, 25 Sep 2009 15:48:55 +0000 Jesper Astrom http://jesperastrom.com/?p=825

Have you had a distant colleague who tried to add you on LinkedIn? Perhaps a person you do not know, and most of all didn’t know worked at the same company? Congratulations, YOU are a victim of the latest LinkedIn spam.

Virtually their tactic is like this:

  1. They sign up for an account on LinkedIn
  2. They compose a very short profile, usually without a picture
  3. They write that they represent the same company as you do
  4. They add a couple of people from that company – usually they add a couple of other spam accounts for that company, then they start adding “real people”

As people are often polite, they generally add these “as you are person I trust” invites. BUT have caution as this is one of the most dangerous types of online spam there is. As LinkedIn has grown to become one of the most trusted B2B social platforms online, it can have devastating effects if a person is able to hijack your brand by association.

The spammers often use a “ready” account (ie. an account that seems to be associated with a brand as it is connected to a lot of people from that brand) to start sales dialogues with other people. They extract important information that they then put in a CRM and sell to sales databases around the world. It is an excellent business as the Cost Per Lead in some industries can be ranging between 20 USD to 500 USD.

I hope you take care of yourself out there :)

//Jesper

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]]> http://jesperastrom.com/social-information/guilty-by-association-linkedin-spammers-delight/feed/ 1 3 Rules of LinkedIn Recruitment http://jesperastrom.com/social-communication/3-rules-of-linkedin-recruitment/ http://jesperastrom.com/social-communication/3-rules-of-linkedin-recruitment/#comments Tue, 05 May 2009 15:30:35 +0000 Jesper Astrom http://jesperastrom.com/?p=506

Are you looking to recruit people through the web I suggest you have a look at LinkedIn. The past week I have been contacted by three recruiters through that community. One was very professional, but the other two were horrible. I will describe below what the good example did. I will however not mention who it was or from what company. Perhaps I will add that later on if I get ok from the person.

Anyways, here we go!

The First Rule of LinkedIn Recruitment - The subject and introduction
Try to be to the point. It should be obvious in the subject what your intentions are. Phrases such as “Recruitment opportunity” or “Job opportunity” or similar, the title of the position followed by the name of the company hiring.

A perfect title should look like this:

Job Opportunity : Social Media Manager – CompanyName

The opening line is very interesting. This sentence should focus on how you came about contacting the person you are mailing. Preferrably it should make it seem as though you’ve researched the person you are trying to get in touch with. It should also make obvious your position. For this example I will take the first two sentences of the good example from the past week.

Please let me introduce myself, my name is [firstname lastname] and I am a Senior Recruiter at [CompanyName]. I specialise in Marketing and Online recruitment and came across your details through a colleague on LinkedIn.

The Second Rule of LinkedIn Recruitment – SHORT!! To the point
This is probably the most natural part for any recruiter namely, describing the position. Remember that you will loose the interest of the reader REALLY fast if your are unclear. Try to keep to bullets or to a maximum of 250 characters. If you exceed this limit you will come across as a person who does not really knowing what you are recruiting for.

It is ok the first time you get an inmail on LinkedIn about recruitment opportunities, but if you are head hunting in a very narrow segment -> then it is cruicial that you only aim to spark curiosity in the first contact rather than explain all details. It doesn’t hurt if you spend one of those cherished lines boosting the ego of your potential candidate (bolded below).

Here is a good template which is also from the good example from last week:

I am currently looking to hire qualified and experience [something] and [something] Specialists to work in [Location] across all brands, I noticed you were connected and active on Linkedin. We are specifically looking for people with additional languages (French, German, Italian OR Swedish) I wanted to see if you knew anyone that was looking for a new venture with a cutting edge organisation that’s focused on both Technology and [Something].

The Third Rule of LinkedIn Recruitment – Keep a secret
Never disclose the full details of what kind of person you are looking for, or for what position. Why? Well basically because even though you have seen the persons resume, he or she still might be a nut case and you should wait for the response before you pass any kind of information to this person.

However, the main reason for this being that depending upon how fast and detailed the person replies, you can basically determine the level of interest in the person. If you disclose all information you might not get this indication, if any indication at all. Perhaps the person is interested in switching jobs, but perhaps not the one you are offering. That knowledge can also be profitable with the right kind of contacts.

Good example from last week on how to go about not disclosing all info in a good way:

If possible I’d like to send you the job description so you can review in more detail. Please feel free to forward to any colleagues that may have the suitable skills and requirements.

Conclusion
Well, what I am trying to say is that there is some net-i-quette when trying to contact people. Even if you do it through a professional network as LinkedIn. There are loads of bad examples, but I like showing people how to do stuff rather than complain at others.

Now, this is my perspective. Other people would possibly like to be contacted in a different way. But by obiding to the above rules, I am sure you’ll not step on anyones toes.

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//Jesper

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