How I Handle LinkedIn Connection Requests — My Personal Approach

You logged in to your LinkedIn account and you find your inbos filled with invitations to connect to your network. Linkedin being aprofessional network its usual for all professionals but in my case i get mostly candidates who are looking for jobs or willing to swich from their existing jobs. Also from many recruitment vendors, HRMS consultants and many recruitment agencies. 

What do i do ?

1. Categorize Requests Before You Act

Just like you do, I also start by mentally grouping people:

• Job seekers / professionals exploring opportunities
• Recruitment consultants / HR vendors / service providers
• Peers from the industry
• Random or unclear profiles

This simple act of categorization reduces 70% of the mental load.

2. Job Seekers → Generally Accept

If someone is a job seeker, my default approach is similar to yours:

• They benefit from expanding their network.
• They may need guidance, visibility, or mentorship.
• They are not likely to spam or pitch services.

Accepting these requests creates goodwill and builds a reputation as someone approachable and helpful

3. Consultants / Agencies → Be Selective

This is where caution actually pays off. Before accepting, I check:

• What service are they offering?
• Is it relevant to my role or my company’s needs?
• Do they have a track record of creating value?
• Are they likely to pitch aggressively?

If they seem overly sales‑driven, outdated, or unrelated to my domain, I skip. This helps keep the inbox (and the feed) clean.

4. Check Activity Levels & Intent

Activity reveals intent.

• Active posters with meaningful insights → possible value.
• Overly promotional profiles → likely to pitch services.
• Dormant profiles → low value to your network.

This quick scan tells me why they might be reaching out.

5. A Clean Feed Is a Productive Feed

Accepting everyone dilutes the quality of what appears on your LinkedIn feed.
Being selective ensures:

• You get relevant content.
• You avoid spammy posts.
• You maintain a professional online environment.

6. My Personal Rule of Thumb

Here’s how I act:

• If the person adds value to my network → Accept
• If I can add value to them → Accept
• If neither applies → Politely ignore

This keeps the network purposeful instead of crowded

LinkedIn works best when connections are intentional, not random. It’s not about how many connections you have — it’s about how many meaningful ones you maintain.

Should a Recruiter Prepare for an interview ???

I have witnessed many cases wherein there are long queues of candidates waiting to be interviewed and they keep on preparing for the questions and the best answers for them. In counselling session even they ask for the attitude, dress code, etiquettes, body posture and so on. Where there is a tough competition to be in the shortlisted ones, I feel the heat on the other side of the desk. Sitting in the interviewers place brings a sense of responsibility and I feel the recruiter must be prepared to face the challenge and pressure. Should he or shouldn’t he???

Well in the age of internet where there is ample ways to learn the interview skills why not the recruiter get trained???

Candidates prepare on Communication Skills, Behavioural skills, Soft Skills, attitude etc etc. these skills where make the candidate eligible in turn it makes the recruiter’s job tougher day by day. Where many recruiters in the IT industry are not from the IT background they are confined to screen the skills other than the technical skill. Now where the Engineering grads get out of college most colleges now provide interviewing skills to them and even they get mock interviews to crack it. With so much investment in time, effort and money where the candidates bring in their best to the interview table, Interviewer must have to have the correct skills to interview.

First of all a recruiter in interviewing to Select and not to reject so the purpose has to be met “Best available candidate Selected”

Most common and serious complaints about a recruiter are

•         Recruiter was not aware of the schedule
•         Recruiter was in a casual mood.
•         Asked silly and illogical questions  
•         No thought process.
•         Dint go through the CV/Resume
•         Recruiter was pre decided about the fate of the interview etc etc

HR Experts always talk of different modes and methods of interviewing Candidates and there has been many research papers and methods experimented on the entire recruitment process. But talks of getting the recruiter prepared are less in discussion.

Well do you think a recruiter too should be prepared for the interview? In my opinion yes a recruiter must prepare for it. A bit of seriousness and conscious effort would save many man hours to close a position which will definitely save revenue. A Recruiter must do the following a standard procedure for a successful recruitment process. Following are few points a recruiters must follow

·         Read the Position details thoroughly and understand the requirement.

• Screen the resumes and if required discuss the position over phone to shortlist the prospective candidates.
• Schedule interview with all the pre-requisites and with all the parties involved and block calendar.
• Show courtesy and appreciate efforts for the interview.
• Ask to the point questions and listen carefully.
• Share a serious and positive attitude.
• Conduct the interview without any interference and obstructions.
• Enquire about the availability for next rounds of interview if you shortlist.
• Share a written feedback and other manuscripts if any with the next level or round and coordinate for the schedule.
• Follow up for the feedback from different departments and convey the result to the candidates. 

SSo next time you attend an interview just note these things in a recruiter and well rate them and the company they represent or work for.

Going for an Interview...Perhaps re-think about the interviewer.

It has been years I am into recruitment and I have witnessed a drastic change in the way industry recruits and the ever changing trend in doing so. Here today we will discuss few best Recruiting skills those are quite popular today.

• Job portal

This has occupied as the best source of resume status from all the recruiters today as this provides the best available junk of resumes as database. In India particularly this has been over  decade job portals have enjoyed the favourable source of resumes. But with time passing these portals too have matured. And the next step is not only resumes database but the real time availability of the resources is in style these days. That is where portals like LinkedIn and headhochos are gaining popularity. And corporates & recruiters too are checking the linkedin profiles for recommendations while selecting the right fit. - Hence maintain an updated Linkedin profile studded with recommendations.

• Social Networking sites

With only 30 to 40% of total available resources have reach through the job portals and With the rise in the millions of Internet users and that to on mobile devices the recruiters has just another way to reach the potential candidates. Yes its your facebook page or twitter page wherein the recruiters are scanning. Hence suggest to respond to mails mainly in the inbox.

• References

Effective recruiters always ask reference to the available candidates and they don't mind do following up for the same. They try to befriend the reachable candidate to reach the unreachable candidate through his network.  Hence spread a word to mouth about your looking out for new opportunity in your professional network, who knows who is impressed enough to refer you.

• Blogging

With Many hosting sites offering free blogging opportunist candidate are well exploring it well and hence provide the corporate recruiters another way out to select them. So here the candidates are positioning themselves to be the chosen one.Hence it may be of useful for you to maintain a blog mainly with your professional work outs.

• Seminars and conferences 

Unlike their basic nature to discuss budding issues on a profession or corporate world seminars and Conferences offer a platform where prospective candidates visiting card works for him. Hence attend the many free to attend seminars and even the paid ones as well. Needless to say it works for the executive hiring.

The above exert is solely based on my personal experience & observation during my recruiting career and are not based on any research paper.

Recruiting Mistakes ( Gender Bias)

I remember the annual speech of Th ex prime minister of India Mr. Atal Bihari bajpai in one of the addressing speech to the nation that his Government was coming up with 20000 new jobs in Govt Sector but he had asked the youth to be independent and keep their eyes wide open for the huge upcoming Private sector. I was a Enthusiastic student then and was aspiring to have a bright future. I completed my studies and entered in to the Private sector and i knew that i have do it myself as my college was not providing Placement services then. I did it through facing many a Interviews and choose my path to today's place. As i choose Human Resource as the Profession I feel its a responsibility most shouted in the industry. When you are asked to recruit n number of People with a certain skill set your calibre and the time spent in recruiting the same is all that counts with the most Cost officiant way for the firm you work for. I have managed to achieve the same to reach my organizational Goals. But at this juncture of my career where i have interviewed thousands of people and have taken decisions on recruiting or not recruiting I find a big question to be answered. I have often met and discussed the situation with my counterparts in different companies. The question being the Gender bias in recruitment in Different sectors and its the most in the Private sector (As we dont have any reservations in this area and Govt sector and PSU's are having the least affected to gender bias in Recruitment). You take a note that when a Female candidate applies for the same position for which a male candidate has been interviewed in 90% cases the female candidate has been offered a better compensation package. Even the recruiter finds the same skill set in both the interviews but he offers a better package to the female applicant. You may lobby it by saying that the Female employee has a better Communication skill and flair to handle the JD effectively but i would defend by saying that still three are biased decisions on the same topic. SO the recruiter's prospective has to be changed and I would urge to the upcoming and existing recruiters pool to see it as an improvement area and act accordingly. Above all i would say that the best fit in the said JD should be recruited with out a gender bias. This may be for an instance to encourage the female population to aply for the existing position but one cannot take it for granted that male candidates are underdogs. overall i would suggest to keep performance and output as the decision making factors on the work front. Then only we will have the right blend to succeed in the fast changing and competitive world. I wish you won't take it otherwise. For a healthier discussion your inputs are always welcome.

thanks

- jr

Attitude & Recruitment

at · Filed under Information & Resource Center and tagged: · Edit
It was mid of January when my company people wanted me to recruit a number of 6 people to start a batch for the call center. I being in Recruitment and Hr for the last 3 years was not much
excited to recruit as this was like a day to day activity for me. I started tracking candidates for the same. Got One campus interview to a local Hardware training institute (My company is into hardware business and require Tech support executive for the call center) . It was Jetking info train where i did the campus interview. I got only one guy from there as i looked for very polished and good communication skills candidates. I got the rest from one of the job portal familiar in India. The thing i noticed this time is that comparatively my selection rate is decreasing and this has become a trend in me. I remember the last batch i had recruited it was of 7 people and i had to look out for more then 35 people to get the required number. Again to get 35 people short listed for the interview i would have had telephonic contestation with more then 60 eligible candidates available through different sources and the last to last batch the hunt was much larger. I have noticed that the hit rate or selection rate has gone down as i have become more experienced in recruitment. There could be different reasons for that but what i find is that the issue is that i have become choosy in recruitment and i have recruited better people for the same positions. So its looking for an improvement in me for me as far as my Recruiting skills are concerned. So its very useful but the thing is that i have specialized in recruitment. In turn if i see this from other direction with introspection I feel that i have got a great reason for the same. Now I am getting the basic things like educational qualification and other prerequisite things in a candidate but i am not getting the right kind of attitude within the candidate. This is a very useful ingredient for any position or a candidate to justify the right fit. In a time span of 3.5years i have done extensive recruitment where in i have hired approximately 400 people and would have spoken to thousands of people for telephonic round of interview. In this period i have taken more than 10000 interviews where the maximum positions i have hired for, were entry level and junior level positions. But my experience says that My point is shifting to qualitative things in a candidate rather then general features like educational qualification, past experience etc. And that is why its being very difficult for me to get the right kind of attitude in place for a job position. But the moment i get the same, i go beyond boundaries to get the guy on the required desk. But i have taken this into count that i am not crossing my limits nor the cost effectiveness and the prerequisite things. Will there be any issue in my recruitment or the change in mindset will be beneficial for me, i need to wait & watch….