With 259 million users, LinkedIn is one of the most popular social networking sites next only to Facebook and Twitter. Often informally termed as the professional network, job-seekers, professionals, companies across industries and recruitment firms, create professional profiles on LinkedIn giving details of their present and past jobs, educational qualifications and skills and interests, company profiles and vacancies. Users connect with others in their field and also with those from a different domain to gradually increase their network. They also connect with groups and companies. All these, to not just inform about their professional and educational details but also to seek out prospective employers, opportunities and suitable jobs and positions.

Smart recruiters and big corporations, therefore, have taken to LinkedIn, for their staffing solutions. They pay hefty amounts for the LinkedIn premium feature. But even the basic LinkedIn version can prove to be a great tool for scouring potential candidates. While job posting on LinkedIn hasn’t drawn the response it ought to, LinkedIn can actually prove to be very useful while looking for senior level executives and managers with set skills and experience.

Another great feature of LinkedIn is creation of a mailing list by collecting data from one’s connections. Alternately, saving Linkedin profiles to LinkedIn contacts can be very helpful. But this feature should be used cautiously as sending too many unrelated jobs may cause a potential candidate to ignore your mails in future.

Creating a profile of your company or recruitment firm on LinkedIn is also a good way of attracting candidates. Those with fitting the bill would start following your website for any openings and it would make the process of headhunting way more easier.

All in all, LinkedIn may not be yet in a position to topple major online job portals, but is gradually making its presence felt in a big way.