If wish to find out more about how to find former employees on LinkedIn, read on. The experts at Aluminati Network Group discuss the best practices for finding former employees on the worlds largest business social network
LinkedIn is a useful tool for finding people that once worked for your business, particularly if you’re looking to find out where their careers have taken them since parting ways. However, this doesn’t necessarily make it the best place to stay in touch with them.
On LinkedIn, past employees of a company may be visible, but having your own manageable platform to continue communicating and networking with them is preferable.
So, how to find former employees on LinkedIn?
The intelligent search capabilities it possesses makes how to find former employees on LinkedIn straightforward. Searching by name and going by profile pictures, like most social media platforms, will often lead you to the right individual.
Of course, there are some setbacks to this approach, and there is no guarantee that you’ll be able to find what you’re looking for or even find people this way.
LinkedIn’s users have a range of privacy options that can limit the visibility of their profiles, meaning you may not be able to see the work history of an individual or locate their profile through searching.
Why can’t I find former employees on LinkedIn?
LinkedIn uses a ‘network’ system to help users understand who’s connected to them and to what degree this connection exists. There are first, second, and third-degree connections.
First-degree connections are people who are directly connected, having accepted an invitation to be in each other’s network. Second-degree contacts are those with whom you share a connection but aren’t connected, and third-degree connections are the same but applied to second-degree connections.
These three degrees of connection comprise a user’s network on LinkedIn. Using privacy options, people can hide themselves from everybody outside of their network, rendering any searches for them useless.
If you’re looking to find a former employee, there’s a good chance that you share the necessary contacts to be at least on the fringes of each other’s networks. However, if this isn’t the case, it can be impossible to locate somebody using LinkedIn alone.
How to stay in touch with former employees
You can add former employees into your LinkedIn network, but this is arguably different to actually staying in contact with them.
By having your own corporate alumni platform that you directly manage, you can bridge the gaps between connections and create a community, not just another social media network. This community can of course be a place that both current and former employees can populate, letting former employees keep their place in a company culture they grew to know and perhaps helped shape.
Using your own network has many advantages over using a third-party social network like LinkedIn. Aluminate as a platform is customisable and can be tailored to better suit your company, culture, and the people working under your business.
Furthermore, company events and social days can be organised and communicated with greater ease using your network, and there’s minimised risk of private events being made public. This also makes it easier for former employees who still want to be socially involved with their ex-colleagues to join in.
Why should I find former employees?
Although the best time to conduct exit interviews is before an employee leaves a business, you might want to get back in touch with those who have already left and ask them about their time working for your organisation.
While their answers may not be as high quality as when they were still immersed in the working culture and their role, you could still obtain some valuable insights from former employees.
Using your own community platform, you may want to give the same questions to all current employees, too, to get the richest, 360-degree view of your business.
You may also be considering rehiring boomerang employees, a term given to former staff members who come back to work for the same business in a new role.
Keeping former employees in a network where they can be easily contacted greatly facilitates this, especially in the case of those who like to stay more private on social media using aforementioned privacy options.
Using your own platform
On LinkedIn, past employees of a company can have many reasons to use their profile, and it could be that not one of those is to stay in contact with your business.
On Aluminate, however, the platform can be a specific place for former employees’ to keep in touch with their past colleagues while still finding opportunities to network. This gives you a direct line of communication with them without impeding on their other social networks, creating the perfect scenario for everybody.
To find out more about the benefits of your own community platform and arrange a demo of Aluminate our specialist alumni management platform, contact us today.
