SAP Aids Partner Employee Recruiting With LinkedIn Deal

Recruiting new employees may not be terribly difficult right now for solution providers, but when the economy turns around they will likely find that hiring the talent they need to grow will be as much of a challenge as it has been in the past.

With that in mind, SAP has struck a deal with LinkedIn, the business-oriented social networking site, to provide its channel partners with access to LinkedIn's recruiting tools and job-advertising network.

SAP has created what John Scola, vice president of SME ecosystems at SAP, called "a LinkedIn Recruiter basic starter package" that provides SAP channel partners discounted prices for a license to use LinkedIn Recruiter, a tool for identifying candidates for open positions, and for advertising to promote openings on the LinkedIn Jobs Network.

Scola said SAP was able to negotiate prices that partners would otherwise be unable to get. "We can leverage economies of scale that partners couldn't have gotten on their own," he said. Partners also will be allowed to apply market development funds from SAP to cover up to 50 percent of their LinkedIn spending.

The discounts will be available through Dec. 31 and the LinkedIn Recruiter license will be good for one year.

Scola said this was the first time LinkedIn had worked with a company to develop such a package. LinkedIn has 40 million users and Scola said that includes some 140,000 people with SAP technology expertise.