3 Reasons Why the Term 'Ninja' Should be in Your LinkedIn Searches

Ninjas, ninjas everywhere. That’s right, recruiters – the ninja revolution is well and truly upon us. Over the past few years, quirky job titles have been on the rise, and the trend looks set to continue well into the future. From ‘Director of First Impressions’ (aka Receptionist) to ‘Sandwich Artist’ (aka Deli Assistant) to ‘Chief Troublemaker’ (aka CEO), job titles in everything from tiny start-ups to giant corporate organisations are getting more and more creative.

Because of this, it’s important for recruiters to be tuned into the main quirky job titles that are on the rise. Because it’s often these people that could be the perfect fit for your client or organisation, and wouldn’t it be a shame for you to miss out on finding them just because they have a unique job title on LinkedIn? So considering that we know a thing or two about ninjas, today we’re making our case for why you should be including the term ‘ninja’ in your LinkedIn searches!

Reason #1: The ninja population is growing at a rapid pace

No, not just because of Social Talent, but that’s so nice of you to say! Let’s take a closer look at LinkedIn. If you search the term ‘ninja’ under the ‘Title’ section of ‘Advanced Search’, take a look at the results. You’ll immediately notice that ‘ninja’ isn’t limited to any one field. There are ‘Fitness Ninjas’ and ‘Data Ninjas’ and even ‘Cellar Ninjas’! The list goes on and on. So it really doesn’t matter what industry you’re recruiting for, you can bet your bottom dollar that there are ninjas on LinkedIn in that particular field. The same goes for ‘Wizards’, ‘Gurus’ and ‘Jedis’, by the way – close relatives of the ninja family, minus the throwing stars and espionage, of course…

Reason #2: Ninjas love to show off their skills

If you’re an avid reader of this blog (and we hope you are!), you’ll know that we talk about the importance of personal branding a LOT. We often discuss the various steps you can take to spruce up your social media channels to attract the right people to connect with you. We talk about injecting personality into your LinkedIn profile. We talk about telling a story about what it is that you do for a living, as well as who you are as a person, rather than sticking with a headline that doesn’t separate you from anyone else in your field. So surely the individuals that have taken this advice on board and spent time working on their own personal brand are the ones you should be interested in finding?!

Luckily, despite their stealthy nature, ninjas love to show off their skills when it comes to social media! Take, for instance, our Black Belt in Internet Recruitment. Every day, newly-qualified Sourcing Ninjas post updates on Twitter and LinkedIn showing off their sparkling new certificates, letting the world know that they are now bonafide ninjas. And you can bet it’s the same across all other industries!

So not only is it a great idea to include the term ‘ninja’ in your LinkedIn searches, you can also open that up to Twitter, Facebook and any other platform that you would use for sourcing candidates. Because they’re out there, with their personal branding on point, flexing their skills, just waiting for the right recruiter to come along!

Reason #3: Ninjas know stuff that other candidate’s don’t

A synonym for ninja (you know we love our synonyms) might as well be ‘purple squirrel’ because often you’ll find that these candidates have precisely the set of skills that you’re looking for. As trendy as it may seem on the surface, professionals will usually only have ‘ninja’ in their job title if they genuinely have the goods to back it up. For instance, ‘Sourcing Ninjas’ gain the title when they’ve learned the best ways to source, attract and retain talent. ‘Marketing Ninjas’ tend to know every social media hack there is in the book. ‘Sales Ninjas’ have their touch points down to a fine art. We could go on and on, but you get the gist! When you start to review individual LinkedIn profiles, you should be able to see clear evidence of each ninja’s unique skills and from there you can decide if they will be valuable to your organisation.

So there you have it – 3 reasons why the term ninja should be in your LinkedIn searches. Now, go forth and source some ninjas! Word to the wise, though. Even though the ninja population is on the rise, it’s still early days in the grand scheme of things, so probably worth using the term with the ‘OR’ function in your Boolean strings!

Has all of this ninja talk made you want to change your own job title? Acquaint yourself with our learning platform and join in the ninja revolution yourself! Check out the full list of missions on our Black Belt in Internet Recruitment programme and if you like what you see, click here for more details!