Almost a third of recruiters sourced 25 percent or less of their placements from LinkedIn in the past year, according to a poll of Top Echelon membership. However, almost 30 percent said they made no placements with candidates sourced from LinkedIn.

Top Echelon is a network of nearly 400 search firms.

“There’s no doubt that many recruiters use LinkedIn on an everyday basis for the purpose of finding qualified candidates for their clients’ job orders,” said Matt Deutsch, chief content officer at Top Echelon. “However, the fact that almost 30 percent of the recruiters who participated in this survey haven’t made any placements with candidates sourced from LinkedIn clearly shows that success varies from recruiter to recruiter.”

The survey asked, “How many of your placements during the past 12 months have been sourced from LinkedIn?” Responses included:

• None: 29.4 percent
• Less than 25 percent: 32.9 percent
• 25 to 49 percent: 18.8 percent
• 50 to 75 percent: 15.3 percent
• More than 75 percent: 3.5 percent

"Depending on the industry and niche in which recruiters work, superstar candidates are becoming increasingly difficult to find," Deutsch said. "Recruiters will use whatever sourcing technique or strategy that works the best for them. That approach might include LinkedIn ... or it might not."