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Top LinkedIn Influencers in Recruitment

top linkedin influencers recruitment
Victoria Golovtseva
4th March, 2024 · 20 min read

The recruiting industry moves fast, making it difficult for you to stay on top of every innovation that comes along.

That's where the top recruitment influencers on LinkedIn come in — they live and breathe the latest trends so you don't have to. Their insights stem from lived experience in the field of recruiting, not theoretical concepts.

In this article, we will highlight 11 LinkedIn recruiting micro-influencers to show you:

  • The value you can gain from their insider perspective
  • How you can partner with them to gain access to their networks and expertise

Every LinkedIn influencer in recruitment on this list offers actionable advice condensed into easily consumable formats. Most have recruitment podcasts that you can also follow. Some have written books and offer training programs you can use to upskill.

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Top 11 LinkedIn Influencers in the Recruitment Sphere

This exclusive group of insiders will give you a steady supply of fresh perspectives that will help you convert trends into tactics.

1. Benjamin Mena

Benjamin Mena

Benjamin Mena is a cyber and data science recruiter who specializes in securing C-suite talent for top-secret national security agencies.

Fellow recruiter Will McGhee praises Mena, saying, "Ben is a testament to a recruiter who is always learning and getting better. He’s a gracious host whose only interest is serving his audience with the best winning strategies from other elite recruiters”.

Key contributions

  • Has over 15 years of experience in the recruitment industry.
  • Managing Partner at Select Source Solutions, where he helps companies find top cyber and data science talent.
  • Helped build teams for classified national security programs when he worked as a recruiter for various government contractors and agencies like DynCorp International, Vencore, and the United States Postal Service.

Why follow him

He hosts two recruitment-focused podcasts — The Elite Recruiter Podcast and Decentralized Careers Podcast. The first is focused on sharing tips and strategies for recruiters, while the second focuses specifically on recruiting for web3/blockchain/crypto companies.

His posts tell you how to recruit top talent on LinkedIn. His content will help you:

  • Build a personal brand
  • Learn outreach
  • Show you how to attract mid to senior-level candidates on a job hunt.

Because his podcast hosts other recruitment experts, you not only get access to Mena’s expertise but also his peers in the same industry, giving you a broader view of the same issues.

He talks about AI in recruiting as well, an increasingly important topic.

How to follow him

2. Hishem Azzouz

Hishem Azzouz

Hishem Azzouz is an experienced recruitment leader and educator with many years of industry expertise. He is the founder of the online talent acquisition training platform Hector, where top recruiters come together to teach industry concepts cohesively.

Key contributions

  • Has over 7 years of experience working in recruitment roles at various companies.
  • Hosts The Recruitment Mentors Podcast since 2018, which is considered the No. 1 podcast globally for recruiters who want to improve their performance.
  • Previously founded Azzouz Branding in 2019, focused on helping recruiters build personal brands online.

Why follow him

If you’re interested in learning more about recruiting in a structured way, his training platform Hector would help. It’s an all-in-one platform for recruiter training featuring 40+ hours of bite-sized video sessions, 50+ microlearning modules, live weekly workshops and events, and peer access for collaborative growth.

Additionally, he produces ongoing free value via:

  • The Recruitment Mentor podcast featuring sitdowns with recruiting veterans
  • A newsletter chock-full of recruitment advice called Limitless Learning

His informal yet focused podcast and newsletter come with actionable best practices that you can apply to your industry.

How to follow him

3. Brett Clemenson

Brett Clemenson

Brett Clemenson is an award-winning recruitment leader and CEO of specialist search firm ALRA. He is an environmental recruiter, with over 15 years of experience placing top sustainable business talent.

Key contributions

  • Founder and CEO of ALRA which has grown at an average rate of 135%, where he facilitated over $150 million in wages across 500+ candidate placements.
  • Speaks at universities and has co-authored the bestseller The Better Business Book to share industry knowledge.

Why follow him

He generously shares insider perspectives through The Lone Recruiter Podcast, where he has interviewed over 100 recruiters for insider strategies. He is a mentor on The Recruiter’s Mentor Project.

He also shares a lot of content on LinkedIn that aims to give recruiters and employers advice on how to communicate to employees about controversial issues like going back to the office. He also talks about goal-setting and achieving. A lot of his content is motivational and could be just what you need to see on a dreary Monday morning.

How to follow him

4. Eric Del Buno

Eric Del Buno

Eric Del Buno is an experienced tech talent acquisition leader, specializing in sales and marketing placements for SaaS and technology companies.

Key contributions

  • Founded Bendaygo in 2017, a recruitment firm focused on helping top sales and marketing talent find better roles in tech.
  • Was a top performer in the top 15% at Gartner's Software Advice division, where he excelled at advising software buyers and qualifying leads.

Why follow him

With an extensive background in the tech sector, Eric provides valuable insights into modern job seeker behaviors, motivations, and selection criteria.

He’s an expert in recruiting, having run his agency Bendaygo for 6 years, so there’s a lot of tried-and-tested advice that comes your way when you follow his account.

His content and recommendations spotlight recruitment tools and tactics that allow companies to scalably automate and personalize outreach to build strong tech teams. Tools like RecruitingCRM that speed up hiring and take manual tasks have become essential to keep up with competitors in 2024.

How to follow him

5. Clark Wilcox

Clark Wilcox

Clark Wilcox is an experienced recruitment strategist and founder of The Digital Recruiter — a 90-day specialized training program for recruiting professionals seeking to upgrade their career and business performance.

Key contributions

  • Specializes in placing top-producing recruiters at agencies, known for helping clients double team size and set agency billing records.
  • Was a high-performing recruiter at Aerotek, a recruiting and staffing agency.
  • Launched and led the recruiting division in Art of Sales Academy, resulting in 30%+ revenue growth in 2021.

Why follow him

Wilcox’s 90-day program can help you scale your skills as a recruiter in areas like personal branding and workflow automation.

A good way to gauge if this would be a good investment for you would be to go through his free offerings, namely his Digital Recruiting Show podcast and newsletter. His insights help recruiting specialists like you master critical areas like sourcing and client relations.

He has decades of insider expertise and an accessible communication style, making him a great candidate to follow if you want to up your recruiting game quickly.

How to follow him

6. Wern Di Diong

Wern Di Diong

Wern Di Diong is an experienced recruiter and content creator who leads talent acquisition for a global staffing firm. She also founded the Recruiter Insights podcast focused on empowering job seekers through the hiring process.

Key contributions

  • Senior Consultant at PentagonPlus where she manages the full recruitment cycle and specializes in placing middle to top-management HR roles
  • Studied psychology and leverages that background to better understand people, productivity, habits, etc. which informs her recruiting

Why follow her

Di Diong shares concise, scannable insider tips for both recruiters and candidates around topics like streamlining processes, crafting standout materials, and salary negotiations. Her posts receive strong engagement.

She also hosts career-oriented networking events and hosts a recruitment-focused podcast to further spotlight industry best practices.

Through platforms ranging from her bite-sized written posts to live gatherings and a podcast show, Di Diong leverages over a decade of on-the-ground recruitment expertise to help demystify hiring experiences for all stakeholders.

How to follow her

7. Michael Juhas

Michael Juhas

Michael Juhas is an experienced technology recruitment leader who serves as CEO of Global Talents, a hub focused on international IT talent placement and staffing, as well as the Tech Recruitment Academy platform.

Key contributions

  • Founded and CEO of Global Talents Hub, an international IT recruitment and outstaffing company that helps clients find qualified tech professionals.
  • Founder and CEO of Tech Recruitment Academy, which trains and enables anyone to start a career in IT recruitment.
  • Co-founded book social network BookFan, which won top start-up awards in the Czech Republic like Vodafone's Idea of the Year and Webexpo startup show.

Why follow him

Through the Tech Recruitment Academy, Juhas publishes an array of education resources.

Offerings range from certification programs to free courses so you can boost your career trajectory, regardless of your seniority. The Academy also issues detailed case studies tracking individual recruiter career journeys for motivational context.

One of Juhas's most popular offerings is his daily newsletter providing condensed readings on crucial updates. These mini-articles deliver vital intelligence on tech talent dynamics otherwise missed including global hiring reports, compensation norms, and job market analyses.

You can also absorb bitesize wisdom via Juhas’s recurring video podcast or special training events providing networking and advanced learning.

How to follow him

8. Anaïs Neumann

Anaïs Neumann

Anaïs Neumann has over a decade of global executive recruitment experience including leading in-house teams at Meta/Facebook and Amazon. She currently serves as a career coach at TheCuriousRecruiter.com in addition to her role as Global Head of Executive Talent Acquisition.

Key contributions

  • Previously built the talent acquisition function from the ground up at Pitch as Head of TA and Remote Culture.
  • At Facebook, hired 2-3 senior IC engineers per month in a competitive market as a Senior Technical Recruiter.
  • Was the first recruiter hired at Amazon Luxembourg back in 2013. Rose to lead an executive recruitment team.
  • Has 10+ years overall experience in executive, technical, and high-volume recruiting across companies like Amazon and Facebook.

Why follow her

She shares tips and hacks publicly through her coaching business The Curious Recruiter. She talks about:

  • Emotional intelligence in recruiting
  • Best practices for niche community visibility tactics
  • Creating inclusive, ethical hiring processes.

Her content is easy to consume as she posts many infographics that simplify recruiting advice. She reveals better benchmarks and real-world best practices for proactive, unbiased sourcing.

Her newsletter is a goldmine when it comes to topics surrounding personal branding.

How to follow her

9. Lewis Maleh

Lewis Maleh

Lewis Maleh, Founder & CEO of Bentley Lewis for 13+ years, runs an award-winning global boutique executive search firm that offers executive search, coaching, and assessment services.

Key contributions

  • Placed heads of departments, directors, C-suites, and boards across sectors like financial services, tech, healthcare, and insurance.
  • Developed several functional specializations at Bentley Lewis, including finance, risk, compliance, technology, HR, sales, marketing, and underwriting.
  • Led corporate governance practice that focuses on audit, risk management, and compliance at a global executive search firm.

Why follow him

He hosts an acclaimed podcast called The Recruitment Show, where he interviews industry experts and explores insights into talent acquisition, culture, and leadership.

Maleh provides story-based anecdotal posts that translate candidate experiences into tangible takeaways. He brings up current issues with this narrative style — like evaluating a company requesting TikTok videos from candidates to show enthusiasm.

He also goes live on LinkedIn for bite-sized recruiting wisdom with episodes of Espresso with Lewis, a more informal version of his bigger podcast.

Maley transparently analyzes private conversations with thousands of Directors/VPs. In doing this, Maleh gives you access to the exact frameworks of executive recruiters today.

How to follow him

10. Dualta Doherty

Dualta Doherty

Dualta Doherty is the Managing Director of boutique search firm The Doherty Group and possesses over 8 years of experience in placing top global recruitment talent at all levels.

Key contributions

  • Has an extensive network and proven track record of placing 360 recruitment consultants across various sectors globally.
  • Previously was a Senior Recruitment Consultant at companies like David Aplin Group and Robert Walters, where he focused on tech and IT sales roles. Has extensive hands-on recruiting experience.

Why follow him

Doherty produces The Recruiter Startup Podcast, a platform granting rare access to strategic guidance that answers common pain points you face as a recruiter. Specifically, the podcast:

  • Tackles crucial yet rarely addressed topics needed to build differentiated ventures.
  • Give you recruiting playbooks on everything from ideation to financing to defining niche value propositions.

His premium RecWired+ trainings will teach you processes like sourcing techniques and consultant branding.

So whether launching a new venture or elevating existing performance, Doherty can give you the critical insider perspectives you need to succeed.

How to follow him

11. Dan Alexander

Dan Alexander

Dan Alexander is an industry veteran. He leverages decades of consultative coaching experience across all recruitment role seniority tiers. He’s also published training programs to enhance recruiting performance.

Key contributions

  • Has coached over 500 students with multiple alumni reaching $500K-$1M+ in billings.
  • Was the Global Director of Training at CD Recruitment, where he led L&D strategy across 70+ people and 6 global offices.
  • At Projectus Consulting, he was the first hire and helped scale the executive search firm from 1 to 20+ people and £1.5M in revenue in 3 years.

Why follow him

His platform DanAlexanderCoaching.com, specializes in transforming recruitment strategies through psychology and neuroscience principles.

He also hosts the widely-acclaimed recruitment podcast The NeuroRecruiter, which reached Apple iTunes' UK Top 10 podcasts list. This is where he shares his high-performance recruiting blueprint forged over decades of in-the-trenches experience.

Alexander also co-founded industry gold standard RecWired+ — an exclusive digital recruiting skills platform. You can utilize these customizable e-courses to unlock overlooked areas from candidate experience optimization to closing elite hires.

He offers a combination of multimedia courses and entertaining podcasts to make it easy for you to become an expert, and get access to rare perspectives and frameworks that amplify your recruiting results.

How to follow him

Why Follow These Influencers?

With new experts emerging daily, what makes this particular group worth your limited time? Why follow these specific influencers over alternatives?

They Test Theories for You

Our featured influencers actively lead recruiting efforts. They experiment with the latest developments and tell you the results with clear context.

For example, Brett Clemenson has actively built his boutique firm ALRA and tackled issues like return-to-office tensions through first-hand interviews with recruiters navigating this dynamic. When he posts about these pain points, his advice comes from lived experience.

They Cover All Aspects of Recruiting

While each influencer has unique specialties, together they tell you everything you need to know about sourcing, leadership, technology, data, and more.

They Offer Practical Actionable Advice

Too often, thought leaders discuss ideas without takeaways. LinkedIn influencers in recruitment focus on practical tactics and plans you can implement immediately to achieve results.

Anaïs Neumann of The Curious Recruiter shares tips and hacks publicly like emotional intelligence best practices to help recruiters create inclusive, ethical hiring processes. Her content simplifies complex ideas into easy-to-apply takeaways.

Their Connections Become Your Connections

Every influencer has a cultivated professional network. Most own platforms that let you access their recruitment networks, opening doors for you.

Lewis Maleh’s acclaimed podcast The Recruitment Show and newsletter grant access to his network of thousands of directors/VPs. Followers gain insider visibility into executive recruitment leadership frameworks.

They Validate What Works Through Real-World Impact

These influencers provide you with proven frameworks designed to boost your ROI.

Dan Alexander's 500+ coaching alumni reaching $500K+ billings validate his methods' results. His podcast shares how he does things differently to build high-performing recruiting skills.

They Give You an Early Warning on Disruptive Technologies

From AI to the metaverse, these influencers will brief you on emerging technologies poised to disrupt hiring well in advance.

Michael Juhas' daily Tech Recruitment Academy newsletter provides exclusive breaking updates on overseas talent trends. If you subscribe, you can craft a killer recruitment strategy before competitors.

They Provide Realistic Benchmarks for Self-Assessment

Influencer posts allow you to compare your hiring metrics against the latest practical benchmarks, rather than unrealistic published estimates. For example, studies show the cost of recruiting one employee is $4,700. However, employers have found this number to be far from the truth, with each hire costing 3-4 times their annual salary.

The bottom line? Following select LinkedIn influencers lets you learn from experts who walk the walk, instead of outdated theory or assumptions.

4 Tips for Successful Partnerships with LinkedIn Influencers

Now that you know how following these LinkedIn influencers can help you, how do you get started?

Get Active in Their Community

Recruitment influencers rely heavily on audience engagement to sharpen perspectives and ideas. We’ve deliberately listed micro-influencers in this article, so your comments or engagement will not get lost in a sea of other comments.

If you carefully value-add to their existing comments, you become a familiar face before you proposition them with a potential partnership. The key term here is value addition, not generic comments like “Great post”, that are easily forgotten. Commenting on how a new candidate relationship management tool is working for your agency is a good example of value addition.

Offer Your Unique Angle

Every industry player has hard-won lessons from their niche to share. You’re a recruiter with an inside view that gives you credibility. If you work for a data-rich company, even better.

You could offer exclusive statistics that influencers could use to craft new content or start a discussion in the community.

Find the Right Fit

When identifying potential influencer partners, ensure there is strong alignment on goals, values, and target audiences.

An executive recruiter like Lewis Maleh of Bentley Lewis focuses on leadership roles, while technical specialist Anaïs Neumann of The Curious Recruiter spotlights engineers.

Choose influencers whose niche aligns with your needs.

Propose a Pilot Partnership

The most mutually beneficial collaborations set clear expectations and metrics upfront. Is it a short-term role? Do you just need one consultation? Do you want to see quantifiable results?

The key to mutually beneficial partnerships is approachability, generosity, and commitment to service. It lies in caring about not just what they can do for you, but what you can do for them.

Implementing Influencer Insights in Recruitment Strategies

There’s a lot you learn from following experts in your industry. But how do you leverage successful LinkedIn partnerships in recruitment?

Refresh Brand Messaging

With fresh insight, you can position your employer brand, values, and culture in a compelling way to attract top talent.

Study messages that industry influencers say are resonating most strongly with candidates right now and apply this to your own branding, job posts, and websites to engage applicants.

Diversify Prospect Pools

Often companies just target candidates from the same trusted channels over time. However, influencers using smart data analytics may discover entirely new talent communities. If talent acquisition is on the map for this year, this is one of the most effective LinkedIn influencer strategies for recruiters.

You can run small test campaigns to reach these alternative pockets of candidates or become a trusted voice in those communities.

Localize Global Campaigns

Multinational companies can look at what influencers say is working broadly, and then customize approaches for local regions and norms.

So if an industry report shows video job descriptions perform well in Latin America or Europe but not North America, you could focus efforts/funding mostly on video for the international teams.

Utilize Wider Data Sets

Influencers continually analyze wider data on what motivates candidates — is it more pay? Remote work? A solid company mission? Understand what job seekers today prioritize when considering roles. This way, you stand a better chance of persuading qualified folks to choose you over competitors.

Pressure Test Assumptions

It's easy for companies to rely on an assumption —“candidates care mostly about pay”— when designing hiring processes. But industry data may reveal otherwise.

Influencers are updated with these metrics, which you can use to see if you’re falling behind and need to upgrade approaches for better results.

Get Tomorrow's Strategies Today from Influencers

This group of recruiters pours practical insights into accessible podcasts, newsletters, training programs, and other platforms. They translate complex ideas into actionable tactics recruiters can apply immediately.

Through platforms like The Recruitment Show podcast or online academies, you can learn implementation-ready industry best practices.

One of the benefits of LinkedIn influencer recruitment: you get to lay the foundation for direct consulting relationships.

Imagine getting on a quick call with Hishem Azzouz to refine your employer branding strategy based on the latest data on what drives applicant decisions. Or having Michael Juhas review your current tech sourcing funnel's KPIs against top benchmarks privately. The high-level insights possible are invaluable, especially if you can apply their advice to the key hiring metrics in your organization.

Understanding what you need help with, collating data, and applying insider strategies to your recruiting tasks becomes easy with the right hiring software, like RecruitingCRM.

Get started with this Free Recruitment Software

To manage your clients and candidates faster

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