I recently had the privilege of speaking with Kevin Stakelum - the Staffing Manager supporting Microsoft's Developer Division and Business Online Services Group. In this role, he manages strategic recruiting initiatives and a team of recruiters who support two product development businesses that consist of approximately 4000 employees. He had seen a recent blog posting of mine (LinkedIn Review #2: Growing Your Network to 2000 in 48 Hours) and offered to give me his personal approach to building a network.Kevin is an open networker, meaning that he welcomes all invitations. Despite being very selective in who he admits into his network, he's managed to accrue over 1800 connections (of course, it doesn't hurt being a hiring manager in one of America's most popular companies). For Kevin, however, it's not the size that counts. It's how you use it.
“Bigger is better. I agree. All the leading LinkedIn gurus say that as well. But what if you don't want to put yourself out there like that? What if your goal is something other than the size of your reach?” Kevin's focus is on carefully crafting a profile to clearly state what he's looking for from the LinkedIn community. He's trying to attract the types of connections that he'll legitimately be able to work with.
It is certainly a different approach than I employ. As a recruiter, the number of people that I can reach out to and the number of people that show up in my search results is critical. But for a manager that is interested in branding his team and drawing people to him, it's all about utilizing a strong network of connections to attract other strong connections. Yes, he admittedly still has to filter through hordes of aggressive vendors, solicitors and peddlers, but the success of this approach is measured in the number of placements that he's been able to make through LinkedIn.
Is this your approach? How is it working for you? Please share your comments!
No comments:
Post a Comment