I Made LinkedIn’s First Hire Sourced with the LinkedIn Hiring Assistant
I’m not surprised at all to see AI literacy as a top skill in LinkedIn’s recent Skills on the Rise report. I’ve been especially intrigued to see AI tools making a direct impact on the talent acquisition profession.
Quick story: I’m a senior recruiter at LinkedIn supporting our corporate functions (primarily finance and legal). I’m also a part of a new charter group where LinkedIn recruiters get to test our own products and provide feedback to our product team. As part of that charter, I’ve recently had the opportunity to use our forthcoming LinkedIn Hiring Assistant and, frankly, I’m wowed.
Going into it, I had to keep an open mind and step outside my usual workflow (let’s be real, many of us are set in our ways). But I’m so glad I did because I ended up making LinkedIn’s first hire sourced by Hiring Assistant.
Hiring Assistant provided the sourcing magic I needed for a hard-to-fill role
Here’s the background: I had been working on a super-niche, hard-to-fill role that had been open for over 100 days. (I know, just reading this might make my fellow recruiters sweat.) It’s a corporate development role that requires someone to work on a small but mighty team acquiring other companies. And it’s probably one of the hardest roles to fill here at LinkedIn.
The team owns deals end-to-end, so team members need to excel at financial modeling to deliver detailed, accurate valuations. Just as importantly, they must think strategically about what other companies align with our long-term vision. On top of that, they’re tasked with driving high-impact, executive-level work: shaping strategic initiatives; responding to key asks from the executive team, including CFO James Chuong and CEO Ryan Roslansky; and weighing whether we should build solutions in-house or buy them externally.
We had a lot of applicants but we hadn’t found the ideal candidate with just the right blend of experience and chops we were looking for.
The more feedback I gave Hiring Assistant, the better it got
After strategizing with the team, I knew it was time to give LinkedIn Hiring Assistant a try. I shared the job description, included some sample profiles, and worked with Hiring Assistant on the key skills we needed.
Within a few minutes, I had a list of candidates!
Some weren’t perfect, but after calibrating with Hiring Assistant by offering real-time feedback, both positive and negative, on 15 or so of the initial candidates it surfaced, the magic began.
Based on my input, Hiring Assistant surfaced candidates who had the hard-to-find blend of skills, experience, and know-how we were looking for. It flagged “top candidates,” provided summaries, and highlighted key skills on their profiles. In short order, I had 11 candidates who seemed like potential fits.
“This is huge,” I thought.
I InMailed each of them and received responses from seven. We interviewed three of them and — abracadabra! — one was hired.
The first Hiring Assistant hire at LinkedIn!
Without Hiring Assistant, we would have missed out on our hire
Timing plays such a critical factor in recruiting and, without Hiring Assistant, the hired candidate likely would have slipped through the cracks.
The candidate we hired met all six of our must-have requirements and eight of 10 nice-to-have requirements. But I wasn’t able to find him using Boolean search and didn’t have time to go through all of my AI-assisted search results. Without Hiring Assistant, we would’ve missed out.
Finding highly qualified candidates quickly wasn’t the only benefit of working with Hiring Assistant. I had more than a dozen roles on my plate and Hiring Assistant helped me spend less time sourcing and more time where it mattered: interviewing, partnering with the business on strategy, and working on broader projects across talent acquisition.
I had to get out of my comfort zone, but it was so worth it
It was fun to make the first LinkedIn hire with Hiring Assistant and now I’m really excited for others to experience the power of Hiring Assistant.
Look, I get it. It’s a different workflow for recruiters. I had to be open to a new flow where I set up a project and then let it ride, having confidence that with Hiring Assistant sourcing for me it’s going to come back with profiles. Strong, on-target profiles.
With talent acquisition teams being really slim these days, recruiters have a lot more roles to work on and partnering with Hiring Assistant now seems like a bit of a no-brainer. I could spend more time actually interviewing people and meeting the hiring manager and thinking strategically about how recruiting is going.
I see Hiring Assistant as my sourcing partner, not my sourcing replacement
Here’s the deal: If I spend 30 to 60 minutes sourcing I can usually find qualified candidates. LinkedIn Recruiter is great and I’ve been using it for 10 years. I know my workflow.
So, what’s the benefit of including Hiring Assistant in my workflow?
That was the mindset shift I had to make. I can do both. I can have Hiring Assistant source, and I can source. Hiring Assistant is my partner, and putting the time in with calibration definitely helped source better candidates.
So, my fellow TA pros: If you haven’t started your AI literacy journey, now is the time. You can get started today with the new AI features available in LinkedIn Recruiter. Embrace new tools, learn as you go, improve your workflows, and do all you can to make your life easier.
