A BIG search for data: How The Big Search used LinkedIn Talent Insights to identify talent pools and reduce time to hire

In 2020, Tomato Talent rebranded, changing its name to The Big Search.
The move reflected the fast-growing IT recruitment company’s ethos, purpose, and laser focus on scaling businesses, providing executive search and talent acquisition, and imparting expert recruitment advice. But why did the company change its name to The Big Search?

“Our client’s big search for the right candidate and our candidates’ big search for the right opportunity is our big search too,” explained Dragi Pavlovski, Research Associate at The Big Search. “We used LinkedIn as a branding tool, raising awareness of our employer brand, and this has helped us to achieve some amazing results.”

The Big Search – with offices in the Netherlands, UK, Germany, Macedonia, and Hungary – operates within an incredibly competitive marketplace. It was imperative that the business identified relevant talent pools and unlocked talent across the globe.

However, despite having access to LinkedIn, the business was not overly familiar with the platform’s unrivalled potential. It was important that the business educated itself on the platform’s benefits. Thanks to LinkedIn’s own valuable and easy-to-follow online learning content on how best to use Talent Insights, The Big Search soon learned how LinkedIn’s tools could transform its approach and strategic direction. Soon, The Big Search was achieving staggering results.

Ceci Dimitrieska, Head of Research at The Big Search, said: “We have a large recruitment team, but no one was familiar with the real value of LinkedIn’s Talent Insights and how we could use it. We found lots of valuable information online, educated ourselves and soon realised that we could use Talent Insights in several different ways.”

Ceci, Dragi and The Big Search team explored Talent Insights and discovered many exciting features. They learned that they could use Talent Insights to help clients understand the recruitment and skills market within specific sectors and locations, they learned that they could use Talent Insights data to assess their own performance and standing within the IT marketplace and they learned that they could use Talent Insights to easily source skilled talent too, including talented individuals from diverse backgrounds.

“LinkedIn gives you the information to make data-backed decisions and gives you the information that you need to push back with clients, including those looking for mythical creatures that just don’t exist,” Dragi continued, laughing. “It’s an excellent sourcing tool and it enables us to target talent with relevant skills, and in relevant sectors.

“It has also enabled us to prepare pitch documents and we can compare Talent Insights data with our own CRM data. It means we can do a deep dive of an entire market and use it to develop a strategy and a hunting ground. For example, The Big Search uses Talent Insights a lot when we want to explore new markets.”

In just two years, The Big Search has generated more than 3.000 Talent Pool and Company Reports, which have informed the company’s hiring strategy. LinkedIn data has helped The Big Search to identify and unlock pockets of relevant talent and LinkedIn data has also enabled The Big Search to prove talent scarcity within certain sectors. But what’s more, Talent Insights data has then also facilitated the company’s subsequent search for skilled talent.

For example, compared to the start of 2021, the number of skilled applicants has decreased by 30 per cent. However, The Big Search has hired 2x the number of applicants compared to 2020. Talent Insights has ensured that The Big Search understands the pool of available talent. As a result, The Big Search has been able to more targeted in its approach.

“The talent pool is smaller, but the candidates are higher quality,” explained Ceci.

“Talent Insights is straightforward, it’s easy to use,” Ceci added. “You do have to be motivated to use it and use the data in creative ways. For instance, when you look at the data, you can see new patterns and trends. It heightens your awareness of the market, which allows you to make informed decisions.”

The Big Search uses Talent Insights to recruit skilled individuals internally, as well as for clients.

“Our time to interview placed candidates has reduced from 37 days to 13,” Ceci revealed. “This is down to the quality of candidates that we get through LinkedIn. This demonstrates that we have significantly improved how we identify and navigate our sourcing strategy.

“We have been able to do this because we have learned how to get the best from all of Talent Insights extensive and helpful features. As a result, LinkedIn has been and continues to be super valuable.”

LinkedIn Jobs

LinkedIn Recruiter

LinkedIn Live Page

LinkedIn Career Pages

LinkedIn Talent Insights

In their own words

Using Talent Insights enables you to easily position your sourcing strategy and identify a well-defined direction. Talent Insights brings additional value, as it gives you the opportunity to approach the market from a data-driven perspective and manage client expectations with data-backed insights.

Dragi Pavlovski

Research Lead at The Big Search

The combination of services that LinkedIn offers had a significant impact on our growth. We hired faster and better. LinkedIn’s variety of products are shaped to satisfy and meet the needs of many businesses. What I really value is the up-to-date and data-driven approach. It has improved so much in the past six years. LinkedIn is more of a partner, than a service to us.

Ceci Dimitrieska

Head of Research at The Big Search

A BIG search for data: How The Big Search used LinkedIn Talent Insights to identify talent pools and reduce time to hire

SUCCESS STORY

Raising awareness and achieving incredible results

THE CHALLENGE

Recognising true value

THE SOLUTION

Unlocking opportunities and sourcing true talent

Using data to inform strategy

Identifying trends and influencing outcomes

Main products used:

THE RESULTS

In their own words

About The Big Search