Should you be using LinkedIn Sales Navigator in your recruitment business?

Why use LinkedIn Sales Navigator?

There is no doubt that LinkedIn Sales Navigator leads the way if you are looking to identify a high-calibre prospect list.

That’s the good news.

The not-so-good news is…. LinkedIn wants to control your access to data.

So, any attempt to export it is clunky and likely breaches its terms of use. Despite the plethora of integrations created just for that purpose. Think Apollo, Seamless, Linked Helper, Zoom Info, etc.

LinkedIn Sales Navigator’s filters are great. I won’t talk about searching because you are a recruiter! That said if you use the standard filters along with Boolean search you will generate a superior prospect list inside Sales Navigator.

Also, the UX is really user-friendly, intuitive and makes it a pleasure to use.

One thing that is interesting is the massive price difference between LinkedIn Recruiter and Sales Navigator.

I understand why.

There is a lot more grunt behind Recruiter, but for a small agency on a budget even though Sales Navigator is designed for client prospecting, it can double up as a useful tool for candidate generation too.

Searching in lead filters with a Boolean search in the “Core” Sales Navigator product will give you a worthwhile list of candidates. And, if you are already using Sales Navigator for prospecting, that will be at no extra cost.

It could be worth a look for you on the free trial to see if it’s useful for uncovering candidates in your market too.

That brings me to an interesting point.

As you may know, I coach agency owners running small agencies globally and what I find is one tool will be great for one market and not the next.

With that in mind, I’d encourage you to take advantage of free trials, where you can pay monthly until you are sure the prospecting tool you are using – Sales Navigator or something else is a great fit for you.

LinkedIn Sales Navigator Features.

There are 3 levels of Sales Navigator.

Core

Advanced

Advanced Plus

I’m just going to cover Core.

All levels will give you 50 inmails/month. My view on inmails is they are becoming less effective. In fact, these days I filter them out of my messages in my main feed as they’re usually an attempt to sell me something I don’t need.

OK, Let’s take a look at some of the positives….

The filters are great and the visibility you can achieve is second to none.

Let me share a few of my favourite filters

Under leads who can quasi double up as potential candidates, I like:

• The new “Persona” feature where you can create an avatar for your searches
• The “changed Jobs” filter in the last 90 days. Just enough time to start reshaping their team and need you!

Under Account

• Company headcount growth. The % slider is a nifty little feature to help identify growth businesses. Tied in with this is the “Job Opportunities” filter – no explanation needed!
• The insights provided on each company and lead are great. The below screenshots show the company detail for People, Insights, and Alerts – all really useful.
• I like how you can drag and drop the tiers of people to where they best suit your Account map. What I don’t like about this though is this is training you to run your business on their platform, not yours.

What tier suits your agency?

If you are a solo operator it’s likely going to be core. The main advantage of upgrading to Advanced or Advanced Plus would be the CRM Sync.

Something to note: If you cancel your Sales Navigator account, you will lose all data associated with the account.  (Unless you transfer under a corporate account) I don’t like this at all as it makes you beholden to LinkedIn.

The upshot is, Sales Navigator is certainly a great product and you can generate great lists and data. My issue is, to export the data and make it your own is clunky at best. But, if you are happy to keep your data inside LinkedIn it’s a superior option for you.

In Conclusion

The lead gen options outside LinkedIn are getting better by the day and no doubt with the recent explosion in AI that is set to reach another level.

So keep an eye on other products that may well increasingly rival LinkedIn Sales Navigator to make sure you are getting the best for your efforts!