LinkedIn Recruitment Automation Tools: A comparison of three tools

Smart automation of candidate and lead generation

No matter what industry you are working in marketing and especially sales is hard. Advertising markets are crowded, old techniques like email outreach are starting to fail but sales and marketing executives are expected to achieve higher targets in more challenging circumstances. What can we do?

Look to technology to help us.

In this article we will compare three new technologies that take the capabilities of known tools like LinkedIn Sales Navigator or LinkedIn Recruiter and supercharge them with automation and a little bit of AI. These technologies are:

• LinkedInHelper,
• attract.ai and
• ConnectIN

Let’s start first with LinkedInHelper.

LinkedInHelper

LinkedInHelper is a LinkedIn automation tool that can help you automate your lead generation and outreach. It’s used by many well-known companies, including Google, Salesforce, and Microsoft.

Having been around for seven years now it has a rich set of features including:

• Automated lead generation: LinkedInHelper can help you find and connect with potential leads on LinkedIn by using search filters, saved searches, and LinkedIn Sales Navigator.
• Automated outreach: LinkedInHelper can help you send personalized messages to your leads, including follow-up messages.
• Candidate relationship management (CRM): LinkedInHelper can help you track your interactions with leads and manage your sales pipeline.

Like any tool there are a number of pros and cons and we’ll begin with the pros here:

• LinkedInHelper is easy to use and has a user-friendly interface.
• It is a fully fledged tool with a rich set of features that will cover almost any use case, especially when it comes to automating your lead generation and outreach. These include:
  • A CRM
  • Funnel building with chains of messages
  • Bulk messaging and full automation with personalization that has smart reply detection (i.e. stops the campaign upon a reply)

Cons:

• LinkedInHelper can be expensive, especially for larger teams.
• Some users have reported that LinkedInHelper has been blocked by LinkedIn, so it’s important to use it carefully.
• Like with all of the tools discussed here, you need to use it carefully to avoid violating any of LinkedIn’s terms of usage.

You can try LinkedInHelper for 14 days for free to see how you go.

attract.ai

attract.ai is an Australian based online software tool found about five years ago that helps businesses manage their talent sourcing workflow. Although focused on talent sourcing in the HR industry, like the other tools here, this can be turned into a sales outreach tool to do more than just hiring. The platform includes features such as AI-powered candidate search, outreach automation, and candidate nurturing.

Over the years they have built out a number of smart features including (although focused on hiring, these tools can be directed towards outbound sales too):

• AI-powered candidate search: attract.ai uses artificial intelligence to find and recommend the best candidates for your open positions.
• Outreach automation: attract.ai can help you automate your outreach to candidates, including personalized messages and follow-up messages.
• Candidate nurturing: attract.ai can help you nurture relationships with candidates by providing them with relevant content and updates.

Like all tools, attract.ai has a number of pros and cons. Let’s begin with the pros:

• It allows multi marketing channel sequencing
• Its AI-powered candidate search feature can help you find the best candidates for your open positions, even if they’re not actively looking for a new job and is smarter than simply using Booleans to join together a number of search fields (i.e. a bunch of OR and AND statements).
• The tool pricing has automatically included unlimited seats, so you don’t have to worry about who is using it.

Cons:

• attract.ai can be complex to use (depending on your use case), and the learning curve can be steep (especially if you are not tech savvy).
• It’s not as well-known outside of Australia, so there may be less support available where you are located.

To get into using the tool you need to get a quote to find out the right plan for you.

ConnectIN

ConnectIN is the new kid on the block trying to break new ground in the lead and candidate automation space on LinkedIn. It turns LinkedIn into a lead and candidate sourcing playground by providing a few simple ways to connect with people.

ConnectIN also has a rich set of features allowing users to search for candidates meeting a fixed set of requirements (seniority AND company they work for AND location AND more) and then set up campaigns to reach out to possible candidates and leads. These allow users to:

• Fully automate touch points from liking to viewing profiles and then finally reaching out to connect.
• Use personalisation to ensure the messages feel directed at the person.
• Set up multiple campaigns at the same time to meet many business needs

Like all the other tools, this tool has a number of pros and cons, pros being:

• It is easy to use and quick to get started
• It is clearly liked as already it has a large user base around the world
• It allows a large variety of automations to provide very specific campaigns such as video prospecting

It’s cons are:

• It is slightly more expensive than the LinkedInHelper but cost is not everything with these tools
• Given it is new there is a bit less material about the tool online
• Like with all other tools care must be taken in the number and size of campaigns launched.

Get started by going to their plans here and using the code ubidy50 to get a 50% discount off your first month.

Conclusions

These tools can help break the deadlock that the barrage of emails and LinkedIn Inmail seem to be creating. Scale up your activities to find those individuals who can really benefit from your offering whether you are recruiting or selling.

However, as good as they are, no tool is perfect. Use these tools to automate tasks, not replace human interaction. These tools can be a great way to automate repetitive tasks, but they cannot 100% replace your outbound activities. The most success will be had when you build relationships with people once you’ve made the initial connection. Let these tools help you open the door but once it is open you’ll need to take the step inside to continue the conversation.

Note: Ubidy may receive a form of commission for using the ubidy50 discount code.