10 Notable LinkedIn Recruiting Features that Rolled Out in 2022

Wow, 2022 was a roller coaster. We went from experiencing hiring frenzies so intense that talent teams couldn’t staff up fast enough to . . . an unpredictable economy, slowing requisitions, and headlines full of layoffs. 

If there’s one word that might sum up this past year, it’s uncertainty. 

LinkedIn CEO Ryan Roslansky even made this the theme of his keynote address at Talent Connect 2022, when he spoke about the ups and downs talent acquisition professionals experienced in 2022 — and could face in 2023. 

But he stressed that where there’s uncertainty, there’s also opportunity. 

There’s an opportunity for you and your team to change the way you hire, from considering candidates only on their educational and experiential pedigree to seeking out workers based on their skills. There’s also an opportunity to create a more equitable, people-centered workplace. 

Over the past year, recruiting leaders like you have told us what your top priorities are: hiring qualified candidates efficiently; making progress on your diversity strategies; improving your teams’ productivity; and understanding the value of your investments, including those with LinkedIn. 

Take a look below at 10 Recruiter features we introduced this year and what each of them can do to make next year a success for you and your team. 

1. Automatically discover qualified and interested candidates, especially for hard-to-fill roles

One of the biggest challenges recruiting teams have always faced is finding the right match for every role. We designed Recommended Matches to help. This new feature automatically searches our network for talent with the skills and qualities your team is looking for and then sends up to 25 candidate recommendations per day. It also gets smarter based on your recruiters’ searches (that is, based on which candidates they’ve saved, messaged, or hidden). This makes it easier to discover hidden talent, especially for hard-to-fill roles. 

And here’s a fun fact: Candidates found in Recommended Matches are 35% more likely to accept InMails than candidates found in Recruiter alone. That’s a big boon when your teams are trying to increase candidate engagement. 

2. Find qualified internal candidates easily 

With the uncertain job market and rapidly changing talent needs, internal hiring has become more important than ever. LinkedIn research shows that companies that excel at internal mobility retain their employees nearly 2x as long as companies that struggle with it. 

To make it easier for your team to identify internal candidates with the right skills, we’ve developed a new Spotlight filter, Internal Candidates, in Recruiter search. Here’s how it works: When your team is searching for talent to fill a role, they can select Internal Candidates as a filter in Recruiter Spotlights. When reviewing your pipeline, you’ll find that current employees appear with the Internal Candidates badge, so you can easily distinguish them from external candidates. It’s an effective way to keep valuable talent in the company.

3. Streamline candidate management and collaboration for your team

Recruiting is all about building meaningful relationships, staying in touch, and following up. Behind the scenes, though, it can be a wild mess of Post-it notes, calls to colleagues, and emails piling up fast.

We get it, which is why we upgraded the Recruiter Inbox to create a more seamless experience. The upgraded features integrate with your recruiting workflows to streamline candidate management, improve productivity, and simplify collaboration, so your team can recruit more effectively. Recruiter Inbox also lets you set an Out of Office reply, perfect for the holidays and for taking that break that your team really earned this year. 

4. Attract more candidates by highlighting your company’s commitments

Since the pandemic turned the world upside down, many employees have reevaluated their work lives (and lives, in general) and decided they want to work for companies that share their values. They’re looking for organizations committed to making a difference on issues like diversity, sustainability, and work-life balance. It’s such a top priority that 68% of candidates align their job search to issues they care about, according to LinkedIn research. 

To attract the most qualified candidates, you need to show, quickly and up front, what your organization stands for. That’s why we created a Commitments feature for your Company Page. It’s located in the “About” section of your Company Page and allows you to showcase your values along with meaningful content, including reports, certifications, articles, blogs, and videos to demonstrate authenticity. It’s a fast, easy way to show candidates why your company would be a great match for them. 

5. Expand your talent pool with social #Hiring features 

When your team has roles to fill, you want to broadcast the news to as wide a network as possible, so you can choose from a broad talent pool. That’s one of the reasons we introduced our social #Hiring frame last year; it lets job seekers know at a glance that you’re hiring. 

This year, we made the social frame even more useful by adding a Meet the Hiring Team feature, which allows LinkedIn members to connect with the hiring team for the job posted, personalize their application, and learn more about the people they’ll meet during the interview process. We also added a Hiring in Your Network feature, which notifies job seekers when one of their first- or second-degree connections is hiring for a relevant job and notifies relevant connections to share the job with their network. 

We did all this for a simple reason: The more job seekers you can reach, the better your chances of finding exactly the right person for a role. 

6. Close the workforce gender gap with AI-powered tools

We know how much you want your team to source a diverse pool of talent, including an equal mix of men and women. This fall, we introduced Diversity Nudges in Recruiter to alert recruiters in real-time when there’s a gender imbalance in their talent search results. 

Diversity Nudges are triggered when a recruiter’s search yields less than 45% male or female candidates. But that’s not all: Diversity Nudges will also recommend locations, skills, or companies you can quickly add to your search to help diversify your talent pool. 

Say, for example, that your team is hiring electrical engineers in Palo Alto, and your talent pool skews heavily male. Diversity Nudges might suggest adding skill filters for data analysis, analytic skills, and Simulink to increase the number of women in your pool. It might also suggest that you look for candidates in Seattle, Austin, and New York, where there are more female electrical engineers. 

7. Reduce unconscious bias by hiding candidate profiles and names (now, with greater flexibility) 

Another way to increase diversity in your workforce is by focusing on a candidate’s qualifications and skills, rather than their social identity or appearance. That’s why we introduced Hide Candidate Names and Photos in Recruiter in 2021. It hides candidates’ photos and replaces them with randomly assigned avatars and substitutes arbitrarily assigned letters for candidates’ names. Based on the feedback we’ve received from leaders like you, we’ve continued to innovate and expand this feature. 

Now, the feature offers much more flexibility. Instead of having to activate the tool for every Recruiter, administrators and project owners can now turn the feature on and off for specific projects. Users can also temporarily unmask names when needed, to better fit their workflows. 

It’s a quick way to reduce unconscious bias and level the playing field, ensuring that every candidate gets an equal chance. 

8. Improve hiring efficiency by helping teams identify skills quickly

If there’s one thing we’ve heard repeatedly, it’s about how tough it can be to identify and engage a wide pool of candidates in any sort of efficient way. That’s why we created a suite of Skills features, so your team can easily filter candidates to best match skills with roles.

One of the things we love about these features is that they can help your team find “hidden gems” (and who doesn’t want that?). Our Similar Skills feature spotlights candidates who have skills that are, well, similar to the candidates your recruiters have already saved. And our Contextual Skills can help you identify qualified candidates based on where and how they’ve used their skills — including skills associated with past jobs and certificates they’ve earned — rather than relying on their credentials.

9. Tap into information from resumes to round out LinkedIn profiles 

With the trend toward skills-first hiring, your team needs more information than ever about a candidate’s abilities and expertise. Yes, qualified candidates are out there. But it can be difficult and time-consuming to find them when critical information is missing or recruiters have to search across multiple sourcing channels for information. 

With Resume Search, each Recruiter search gathers this information for you, all in one place. Important details from candidates’ resumes — starting with skills — are automatically filled in in their LinkedIn profiles, so you can discover the most qualified candidates all in one place. The best part? Every search in Recruiter is now automatically powered by Resume Search.

By pulling resume data, your team can find candidates who might be overlooked, hire more quickly, and feel confident that they are truly hiring the best person for the job. 

10. Get critical data about your recruiting efforts quickly 

If your team uses Recruiter, you want to know how many hires and candidates you’re getting from LinkedIn so you have a clear idea of the return on your investment. We’re continually working to make this information more accessible, which is why we’ve launched new advanced reporting filters to help you access the most critical data quickly and easily. 

We’ve created new filters for user location, job location, project status, and role type. Administrators can now also create groups in the Account Center to easily view reporting by teams. This eliminates the need to manually select individual team members each time you run reports for multiple users. All the new filters can also be applied to Usage, InMail, Jobs, Pipeline, Summary, Custom-User, Custom-Applicant, and Custom Project reports. 

We know how critical this information is, so we’re making it as easy as possible for you to get it. 

Final thoughts: Why it’s so important for your team to have the tools they need

In his keynote address at Talent Connect, Ryan emphasized that talent leaders are crucial to shaping the workforce of tomorrow. That’s why it’s vital that you and your teams have the right tools today. “Your job has changed radically over the past few years and it’s going to keep changing,” he said. “But you have become core to the strategic future of the business. Now more than ever, you are creators of opportunity, belonging, and pride.” 

We’re here to help you make that vision a reality. From all of us at LinkedIn: Thank you and happy holidays. 

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