With over 722 million users worldwide, LinkedIn has become the go-to platform for recruiting and job searching. As more and more companies leverage LinkedIn to source talent, the number of applicants per job posting has skyrocketed. This creates a challenge for recruiters and hiring managers to efficiently filter through applicants and identify truly qualified candidates.
But what percentage of LinkedIn applicants actually meet the job requirements? Let’s take a data-driven look at applicant qualification rates on the platform.
The LinkedIn Recruiter Screening Process
When a job is posted on LinkedIn, it can attract hundreds or even thousands of applicants. Going through each profile manually would be extremely time-consuming for recruiters. To help streamline the process, LinkedIn offers recruiters a suite of screening tools:
- Keyword screening – Filter profiles based on essential hard skills and requirements in the job description.
- Questions – Send screening questions to applicants to test their skills and qualifications.
- Assessments – Have applicants complete online pre-employment assessments to evaluate capabilities.
- Signals – Leverage profile data like Skills, Education, Experience and Recommendations as candidate signals.
Using these tools, recruiters can systematically filter applicants and identify a smaller pool of qualified candidates to move forward. But how effective are these tools? Let’s analyze qualification rates at each screening stage.
Applicant Pool Funnel Analysis
Here is a step-by-step analysis of a typical LinkedIn recruiter screening funnel:
1. Initial Applicant Pool
For a typical professional role on LinkedIn, an initial job posting may attract 500-1000+ applicants. At this stage, the recruiter has not evaluated any candidates yet. Let’s assume an initial pool of 750 applicants.
2. Keyword Screening
The first screening step is usually keyword screening. Recruiters will configure filters to automatically exclude profiles that don’t contain essential hard skills, certifications, education, years of experience etc. listed in the job description.
This could exclude 50-75% of applicants immediately. To continue our example, the pool might be narrowed down to 250 applicants after keyword screening.
3. Screening Questions
Next, the recruiter sends a short set of multiple choice screening questions to the remaining applicants. This tests hands-on skills and job-related knowledge beyond what resume keywords can show. Typically another 50-75% of applicants are excluded at this step if they fail the questions.
Our example pool could be narrowed to 100 qualified applicants at this stage.
4. Assessments
For some roles, recruiters require applicants to complete an online skills assessment from LinkedIn’s library. This gives the deepest look yet into hands-on abilities for the role. Assuming another 50% dropout rate, we could end up with 50 applicants moving to the next stage.
5. Profile Review
At this point, the recruiter manually reviews the remaining profiles, leveraging signals like Skills, Education, Experience and Recommendations. After careful consideration, the recruiter may identify 20 “shortlisted” applicants to move to the next phase.
Overall Qualification Rates
Reviewing the analysis above, only 20 out of 750 initial applicants, or 3%, were considered fully qualified after passing through LinkedIn’s screening tools. The other 97% were eliminated through the screening process.
For simplicity, the example above assumes fixed 50-75% dropout rates at each stage. In reality these will vary for each role based on difficulty and competition. But it illustrates how the vast majority of LinkedIn applicants end up filtered out as unqualified.
Here is a summary view of overall qualification rates:
| Stage | Applicants Remaining | Qualified Rate |
|---|---|---|
| Initial Applicants | 750 | 100% |
| After Keyword Screening | 250 | 33% |
| After Screening Questions | 100 | 13% |
| After Assessments | 50 | 7% |
| Shortlisted Profiles | 20 | 3% |
So in summary, when looking at the initial applicant pool, only an estimated 3% make it through LinkedIn’s screening tools as fully qualified candidates.
Factors Impacting Applicant Qualification Rates
LinkedIn’s own data scientists report qualification rates of just 3-5% on average across openings. However, there is significant variation between roles. Here are some factors that impact applicant quality:
Job Seniority
Entry-level roles tend to have the lowest qualification rates. Many applicants will not have the required education or experience yet. Senior-level roles have the highest rates, as applicants already have extensive proven track records.
Industry
Specialized industries like tech and finance tend to attract more qualified applicants on LinkedIn. Generic corporate roles in non-specialized industries draw more unqualified applicants.
Job Function
Highly technical roles like engineering and data science have higher qualification rates. More general corporate functions like marketing and sales tend to have more unqualified applicants.
Company Brand
Well-known firms and “destination employers” tend to draw much more interest and applicants. This larger volume lowers the overall percentage of qualified candidates compared to a less recognized company.
Best Practices to Improve Qualified Applicants
While 3-5% qualification rates may seem low, this is common as LinkedIn opens up access to apply. Here are some best practices to help improve applicant quality:
Tightly Define Required Qualifications
Clearly and tightly define must-have skills, experience levels and requirements in the job description. This helps deter unqualified applicants through keyword screening.
Ask Targeted Screening Questions
Well-designed screening questions can efficiently filter for job-related knowledge beyond the resume keywords.
Use Skills Assessments
Skills assessments provide the deepest evaluation of hands-on abilities to qualify applicants.
Promote Culture and Values
Highlighting company culture, values and mission will help attract applicants specifically interested in your organization.
The Takeaway
With open access to apply, LinkedIn job postings tend to attract a high volume of applicants. But recruiters have powerful screening tools to efficiently filter out unqualified candidates. While only 3-5% will make it through the full screening process, those that do are much more likely to have the required skills and experience to succeed.
Overall, LinkedIn provides tremendous reach to source talent. But the platform requires leveraging the right screening processes to identify true qualified needles in a vast applicant haystack.