Are you currently working on a small team, sourcing, recruiting and collaborating on so many requisitions, you've lost count? Are you on the quest for the holy "purple squirrel"? Great, it sounds like you and I have a lot in common, especially since I am currently one of three of a very busy Talent Acquisition Team. 

Ok, so you may be asking yourself, what does this have to do with the LinkedIn Recruiter Certification? Well, it has everything to do with it. Since time is of the essence, don't worry, I have done my best to sum it up in my TOP 5 reasons why the LinkedIn Certification has been a Big Deal for myself and my team! 

Reason # 1: Efficiency; this certification most certainly comes in handy with many of our newest challenges. Like being able to utilize our dashboard strategically to its fullest potential. It results in our ability to launch collaborations with hiring managers or counterparts quickly, source and recruit for high profile roles on a global scale. If the only tool you have is a hammer, you treat everything as if it were a nail - Maslow could not have put it better!

Reason #2: Cost; the cost of this certification is very reasonable and with the certification comes a complete learning module that has by far met and exceeded our expectations. The learnings cover everything from how to cohesively work with your hiring managers, negotiate an offer, and optimize your time. For our team, this certification has paid for itself in less than six months in recruiter fee savings alone.

Reason #3: Credibility; can mean a lot right! How people perceive you, how they perceive your company, and how likely people are to connect with you, ultimately will be a driver for your success. You're 21% more likely to get a response from a person you share a group with, 27% more likely to get a response referencing a former employer in common, and 81% more likely to get a response from a company follower. Today I am more strategic in my reach. I can build robust searches, make sure that the people I am connecting with have something in common with myself, my company or my connections, and can create a more personal message. I now only send a few quality emails, resulting in a 20% in mail response rate, where once I had a 12% rate. 

Reason #4: Career Growth; I have quickly moved from a Sourcing Specialist to a Talent Advisor. I work in close collaboration with our managers as a trusted business partner for talent. We have successfully shifted the mindsets of our customer's from seeing us only as order takers to seeing us as decision influencers. I am driving real business impact. Who doesn't want to be a part of that?

Reason #5: ROI; our team has effectively been able to take our company recruiter savings from thousands to millions in a year after the Recruiter Certification. We have been able to fill our higher-profile roles in less than 60 days and have seen an increase in our quality of hires. We can provide our top 6 - 7 candidates to the managers within days of opening a job, go through the interviewing process with a select few from those 6 or 7, and make an offer in a reasonable amount of time. No! I think it's a great idea to cast a huge net, review 100's of resumes and drag the sourcing process out as long as I can......said no hiring manager or recruiter, ever! 

Now is all of this a direct result of the Certification only, no? However,  I do believe that it plays a significant role in our ability to recruit quickly and more efficiently, source, and advise with our managers. I use LinkedIn daily and have been certified since 2013. Recently, even after our company grew from a 300 Million dollar organization to a 1.3 billion dollar organization, and went from 700 employees to 4500 employees, we can still effectively recruit top

talent in a pretty elite industry; a class II & III implantable, highly regulated, Neuromodulation and Cardiac Medical Device Market.

I am very passionate about what I do, and I believe it to be a great plus that my company is also very passionate about what we do, LivaNova, where we deliver life-saving innovation. With over 347 million users on LinkedIn today, I think that the Recruiter Certification is of significant value, especially if you are already investing in a Recruiter Dashboard! Bottom-line, if you are looking to elevate yourself and or your talent acquisition team, this Certification is a must!