How to Get in Front of Recruiters Using LinkedIn’s Spotlight Filters

When it comes to your job search, you are making a big mistake if you are not on LinkedIn. Even with other social media, LinkedIn is still the place where most recruiters go to find talent. In fact, LinkedIn’s Talent Solutions, Recruiter and Recruiter Lite, are the company's leading revenue sources. These paid options allow recruiters access all or most of the profiles of the one billion members on the platform.

Since this is LinkedIn’s cash cow, the company wants to make users of Recruiter and Recruiter Lite happy. Therefore, it continually develops features to help recruiters be more productive and find the talent they need.

Here is where Spotlight comes in.

Spotlight is a new group of filters recruiters can use to find people more likely to interact with their organizations. This is a help since when recruiters are actively sourcing candidates, they want to spend time reaching out to people who will more likely engage with the recruiter.

Using these Spotlight filters, recruiters can see only candidates who match the filter criteria when conducting a search or viewing their applicant pools.

Don’t you want that to be you?

Here are the new Spotlight filters.

Open to Work

If your profile matches the search criteria (which is why it is essential to have keywords in your profile and use Market Value Titles), and you have turned on the Open to Work signal to recruiters, you can show up in this Spotlight filter. There has been a lot of talk about whether turning this on is a good or bad idea. Here is another reason why turning it on, at least for recruiters, can help you.

**I suggest you periodically turn it on and off while searching for a job. That will reset it and give your profile priority in the filter. You will be considered newly open to work, and the algorithm prioritizes those who appear new to their job search.

Active Talent

This feature identifies LinkedIn members who are more likely than others to interact with Recruiters about opportunities. This is important to Recruiters, as their efforts with this group should result in a higher response rate, which saves them time and effort. For job seekers, this will increase their visibility and discoverability.

The behaviors that LinkedIn is looking for to be considered Active Talent are:

• You have recently made updates to your profile.

• You have shared a public resume or applied to jobs via Linkedin.

• You work at a company that has been experiencing layoffs.

• You respond to InMails you receive.

You should ensure you engage in these behaviors to signal to LinkedIn to include you in the Active Talent filter.

Have Company Connections

This Spotlight identifies members with 1st-degree connections with someone in the Recruiter’s organization. Recruiters like this because members may be more likely to respond to their outreach because there is already some connection to the organization. Also, there is a belief that someone connected to a current employee may be a better cultural fit (like with like) and even the ability for a current employee to be a referral.

From a strategic point of view, it makes sense to connect with members working at targeted organizations, those where you would like to work. If your connection is posting or commenting, add your thoughts. It is always good to stay on their radar.

Interested In Your Company

You may be aware that you can click a button on a company’s LinkedIn page to express interest in working for them.

Example of Interested in Working With Us

This can be found on the Company’s LinkedIn page in either of three locations:

• About section

• Life section

• Company information on an individual job posting

Note: this is not available for all companies. They have to have an active company page AND subscribe to the Recruiter feature from LinkedIn. It is only seen by recruiters from that organization. It is not made public.

The important thing to remember is that this is active for one year, and your profile gets tagged with “interested in your company” in the Recruiter software.

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Since LinkedIn reports that recruiters using Spotlight filters have a 64% higher response rate, more recruiters will use them. Therefore, don’t you want to appear in one or more of these filters? 

You can be found, but you must be strategic about your activities on the platform. You want to do the following:

• Optimize your profile by ensuring all sections are completed, using industry-specific keywords, having a professional photo, and regularly updating it.

• Engage in the platform by sharing, commenting, or posting and expanding your network.

• Leverage LinkedIn features like Open to Work, skills and endorsements, recommendations, and job alerts.