I gave a presentation for ERE Media Tuesday entitled “Professional Networking - Beyond Sourcing”, which focused on the many ways that recruiters can use professional networking sites to support their business and their own career, not just for sourcing candidates. The way I see it, any hack can figure out how to type a few keywords and do a search — where it gets really interesting is in all the other things you can use the tools for to grow your business, attract more candidates and differentiate yourself from the thousands of other recruiters out there.

You can download the presentation at ERE, but I tend to go for a pretty minimalist presentation style, and there was a lot of information that I covered that’s not in the slides. The topic that seemed to get the most comments and questions, but I feel is kind of short-changed in the slides, was the specific ways recruiters can use networking sites for more than just sourcing. I posted the full list as a guest post at Six Degrees from Dave (Mendoza).

To see what some recruiters have had to say on the topic, or to contribute your own thoughts, check out the question I posted on LinkedIn Answers. For even more ideas, see Smart Ways to Use LinkedIn, a compilation of over 100 ways to use LinkedIn in your business and personal life.

And for ideas on sourcing in professional networking sites, check out David’s and my Fast Company article, Using Online Networks to Find Your Star Employee.