LinkedIn Recruiter is LinkedIn’s recruitment software that helps companies source, engage, and hire top talent. It comes with various pricing plans depending on the features needed by an organization. So do you have to pay to use LinkedIn Recruiter or can you access it for free? Here’s a detailed look at the pricing and plans for LinkedIn Recruiter.
LinkedIn Recruiter Pricing Overview
LinkedIn offers three main paid plans for Recruiter – Professional, Team, and Corporate. Each plan unlocks additional features beyond the free LinkedIn recruitment tools. Here’s an overview of the pricing:
- LinkedIn Recruiter Professional: $119.95 per month
- LinkedIn Recruiter Team: $259.95 per month (for up to 5 recruiters)
- LinkedIn Recruiter Corporate: Custom pricing
In addition, LinkedIn also offers short term ‘Boost’ packages to temporarily upgrade an account for a fixed duration. These include:
- LinkedIn Recruiter Boost: $79.95 for 1 month
- LinkedIn Recruiter Team Boost: $129.95 per month for 1-2 months
So in summary, access to the full LinkedIn Recruiter platform requires a paid subscription. There is no completely free version available.
What’s Included in Each LinkedIn Recruiter Plan?
Here’s a more detailed look at what’s included with each of LinkedIn’s Recruiter paid plans:
LinkedIn Recruiter Professional
- Access to LinkedIn Recruiter system
- Unlimited InMails for reaching out to candidates
- Ability to send messages to passive candidates outside your network
- Candidate management and tracking tools
- Real-time profile alerts for tracking candidates
- Saved search alerts to automatically surface qualified candidates
- Premium search filters for drilling down on candidates
LinkedIn Recruiter Team
Has all the features of the Professional plan, plus:
- Team collaboration tools
- Customized hiring pipelines
- Interview scheduling assistance
- Team analytics and customized reporting
LinkedIn Recruiter Corporate
Has all the capabilities of the Team plan, plus:
- A dedicated account manager
- Custom pricing based on expected usage and headcount
- Premium support services
- Custom analytics reporting
- Larger InMail allowances
- Discounts on job posts and other advertising
What’s Included with LinkedIn’s Free Recruitment Tools?
While LinkedIn Recruiter requires a paid subscription, LinkedIn does offer limited recruitment features for free users. This includes:
- Basic search on LinkedIn profiles and groups
- Filters for title, location, company, etc
- Saving up to 3 searches
- Viewing full profiles of your 3rd degree network
- Sending InMail messages (limited to 15 per month)
- Posting one job for free as part of LinkedIn Jobs
However, to unlock the full suite of LinkedIn’s recruitment tools that provide a competitive edge in sourcing and engaging candidates, a paid Recruiter subscription is required.
Who is LinkedIn Recruiter For?
LinkedIn Recruiter is designed for the following types of organizations and recruiters:
- Corporate recruiting teams – The Corporate plan provides enterprise-level capabilities for larger companies including unlimited job posts, custom analytics, and premium support.
- Staffing and agency recruiters – Recruiter simplifies sourcing candidates across extended networks versus only your 1st degree connections.
- Small business hiring – The self-service Recruiter platform can streamline hiring for SMBs and startups.
- Individual recruiters – The Professional plan has tools for sole independent recruiters to find and engage candidates.
LinkedIn Recruiter aims to serve any type of recruiter or hiring organization that wants access to LinkedIn’s over 740+ million members to find the best talent.
Recruiter Professional vs. Premium LinkedIn Account
It’s important to note the difference between a Recruiter Professional subscription and Premium LinkedIn account upgrade. A Premium account gives extra features like viewing full profiles outside your network, unlimited InMail messages, and seeing who viewed your profile. However, Premium does not include access to LinkedIn’s full recruitment software and tools. For that, a separate Recruiter subscription is required.
What Are the Key Benefits of LinkedIn Recruiter?
Here are some of the main benefits that LinkedIn Recruiter offers recruiters and hiring organizations:
- Robust searching – Recruiter provides advanced sourcing capabilities like boolean search, premium filters, and AI suggestions.
- Candidate management – Organize candidates into pipelines and keep track of outreach in one centralized platform.
- Passive candidate engagement – Reach beyond your network to engage potential candidates not actively job searching.
- Team collaboration – Share candidates and workflows to unite your recruiting team.
- Insights and analytics – Gain data like time-to-hire metrics to refine your recruiting strategy.
By leveraging the professional data within LinkedIn’s massive member base, Recruiter can significantly enhance a company’s talent acquisition results and competitive edge.
What Are Some Alternatives to LinkedIn Recruiter?
For organizations that don’t want to pay for LinkedIn Recruiter, here are some alternative recruitment tools to consider:
- LinkedIn Jobs – Post free jobs to LinkedIn and get matched with candidates.
- Entelo – AI-powered recruiting automation platform for sourcing and screening.
- Greenhouse – End-to-end hiring software with candidate relationship management.
- ZipRecruiter – Job board with AI matching technology.
- BambooHR – Applicant tracking integrated with HR information system.
- Lever – Modern applicant tracking system for pipeline and analytics.
The main downside of these alternatives is lacking the deep access to LinkedIn’s exclusive talent pool that Recruiter provides. But for some hiring needs, they may offer more budget-friendly options.
Conclusion
In summary, there is no free version of the full LinkedIn Recruiter platform. To unlock LinkedIn’s advanced recruitment toolkit, a paid subscription is required starting from $119.95 per month. While LinkedIn does offer basic free sourcing features, Recruiter provides the premium tools needed to source quality candidates, manage hiring pipelines, and make data-driven decisions.
For serious recruiters and talent acquisition teams, the investment is usually well worth it to gain a competitive edge in hiring. But for smaller or budget-conscious companies, there are alternative recruiting tools available that may meet basic needs.