New functions in the LinkedIn Recruiter Search
We have already seen a number of approaches in our training courses or customer projects to integrate must and nice to have criteria in the (Boolean) search. It seems that LinkedIn has now taken this into account in the latest Recruiter update. Hold on tight – we’ve taken a closer look at the new function and show you what it’s all about.
First of all, we can’t yet tell you whether this is a beta or a soft launch of this function. We can only say that a small part of our team currently has this „function“ in both English and German language settings in LinkedIn Recruiter (RPS licence).
One of our 3 Lauras at Die Grüne 3 noticed a change in the LinkedIn Recruiter on Friday (1st March 2024). And quite a change! Almost all filters have been „fine-tuned“ to differentiate between „Must have“, „Can have“ and “ Doesn’t have“ for keywords or search strings. We tested this for you.
Priority of the search terms
The new selections are available to you both in the Boolean search and when using suggested search terms (from LinkedIn’s drop-down lists).
And this is what the search looks like with the new feature (shown in the positions filter):
The following fields / filters in the LinkedIn Recruiter include the new function to select by „Can have“, „Must have“ and “ Doesn’t have“:
- Job title
- Locations
- Skills and Assessments
- Companies
- Schools
- Industries
- Spoken languages
- Fields of study
In combination with the preferences „Current or past“, „Current“, „Past“, or „Past, not Current“, this gives you the opportunity to customise your search extremely precisely to your needs (and the wishes of your colleagues).
Take a look at the following screenshot and let that sink in for a moment. Do you realise the possibilities you could now have?
Great idea with some teething troubles
We are impressed by the basic idea behind this new feature! But there still seems to be some problems with the implementation.
Basically, it’s totally clever that LinkedIn is adding this feature. Because, as explained at the beginning, we too are sometimes left trying to figure out „How can I get the following keyword, criteria or entire search space into the search as a „nice-to-have“?“.
And yes, this can be realised in two separate searches in LinkedIn today. You just have to think outside the box and use Boolean.
At least that’s one of our explanations – LinkedIn is trying to help with this feature. I could immediately include a „nice-to-have“ by means of one search/query.
What are those teething troubles?
Below you can see two different search requests. The position in Active Sourcing is a „May have“ (light blue bubble) in the first search and a „Must have“ (dark blue bubble) in the second search.
However, neither the results nor the way they are sorted changes. Neither when we do a Boolean search, nor when we work with LinkedIn’s selection options.
You can see the same number of results and even the same order, which we have not included in the screenshot for data protection reasons. Actually, we would have expected a change in one of the two cases.
New feature with lots of potential
But let’s not give up just yet! We are sure that LinkedIn will continue working on improving this function. The possibility to differentiate between „Must have“ and „Can have“ in the search – also in combination with „Current“ to „Past“ – gives us all kinds of ideas! And we’re sure you and your Active Sourcing colleagues feel the same way.
We’ll keep you up to date when there are new developments. Stay tuned!