There were smiles all-round last night as recruiters from a host of major companies attended a pop-up pub night aimed at encouraging job-seekers to use LinkedIn.
The event, which ran on both Tuesday and Wednesday nights, was jointly organised by LinkedIn and PR firm Brands2Life.
Companies recruiting new employees at the pub included Amazon, Lloyds Banking Group, ASOS, Expedia, Visa and LADBible.
A spokesperson for Brands2Life said that the event was to alter the misconception that LinkedIn is a service exclusively for people who already have jobs.
“There’s an assumption that you can’t actually get jobs [via LinkedIn]. A common perception is that the type of person who uses LinkedIn is not just in a job, but in a high-powered job, too.
“But the reality is that it’s not just for CEOs. The whole concept behind LinkedIn is to forge connections. And by forging connections, you’re helping yourself.”
This view was echoed by Chelsea Bain, a recruiter for Amazon who attended the event.
She said: “We’re the single biggest user of LinkedIn as a recruitment tool of any company in the world.”
She also emphasised the usefulness of LinkedIn as a means of advertising jobs at Amazon that most people wouldn’t think to search for manually.
“There are some things that Amazon is really well-known for, such as tech. But there are other jobs at the company.
“For example, we actively seek to recruit military veterans who want to make a smooth transition into their post-military lives. We offer roles in areas such as security intelligence analysis which are very well-suited to their skills.
“If it wasn’t for LinkedIn, advertising these roles to veterans would be much harder, because they’re not necessarily the obvious choice for a veteran’s post-military career.”
As well as enjoying the beers and canapes offered at the event, many attendees took the contact details of recruiters and expressed interest in currently-available roles, which were advertised on the main wall of the pub.
The company with the highest number of advertised vacancies was LADBible, which was mostly recruiting tech-savvy individuals for jobs in search engine optimisation.
