Recruiting via my LinkedIn network

Last week I sent out an email to my LinkedIn network asking for recommendations for a Director/Senior Consultant role at an Executive Search firm I used to work at. Whilst I've used LinkedIn in the past for name ID and candidate background research I'd never used it as such a direct recruitment tool. 

I can honestly say I waited with baited breath for the first responses.  Not out of excitement at the thrill of seeing dozens of candidates flying into my inbox; it was with fear that I'd breached a protocol or crossed the line with my request.

Obviously, the commonsense bit of my brain was telling me that this is exactly what LinkedIn is for.  You create a network of contacts within your area of specialism and then when you need their help or advice... you ask for it.  However, I see many examples of someone making a basic blunder on the internet and being  given serious online abuse for it.  Also, obviously, recruiters are used to finding candidates for a fee.  I worried the £1,500 bounty being offered (not by me I hasten to add - by the search firm) might actually cause offence rather than the gentle incentive it was meant to add!

Overall I had a fantastically positive response with emails back from over 100 of my contacts.  Of course, many weren't able to help (but how professional of them to send a "no ideas, sorry. Good luck with it" type note) but I probably had about a dozen high quality referrals. 

I did get a few negative emails along the lines I'd expected. These included:

"My initial response (being a recruiter) is... £1500? to place a Director/Senior Consultant on a 6 figure package?"

"We would charge 20% of the salary as introduction rather than be happy with a 1,500 referral bounty."

"This is actually what I do for a living. I would be charging between 20-25% of the salary as a fee, if I introduced a successful candidate"

Of course, I do understand the responses from these recruitment to recruitment firms (if it were possible to categorize my contacts on LinkedIn I would have excluded all these individuals).  However, when you offer a bounty on a site like LinkedIn it's not a placement fee, it's a referral fee.  The particular exec search firm I posted about are also doing pro-active search on this, have advertised it and are retaining a rec to rec.  I just said I'd help out, knowing that referral recruitment is a bit of a hot topic.

I guess that for most recruiters the majority of contacts in your network won't be other recruiters, they'll be businesses who operate in your recruiting market sectors. With these people the issue of "fee" expectations should not arise.  In fact, in my experience, the majority of recruiters don't offer any bounty when asking these types of questions to their network.

My advice to anyone considering "picking the brains" of their LinkedIn network with these types of requests is:

• Be courteous in your wording (don't leap in with "I need the names of all the Senior Flavourists you know")
• Be very clear of your request (you won't be able to waffle on as you only get 2000 characters to play with)
• Send thank you notes to all the responses you get
• Follow up every single lead you are given. 

Finally, if you intend to seek help from your network, ensure you reciprocate when enquiries come your way.