In my own case, I have been on the hiring side for about eight years now, and I completely understand the frustration with LinkedIn because I have seen too many candidates get spammed by third parties after connecting with a recruiter, and I have also had my own inbox flooded with sales pitches that had nothing to do with my actual role. What I started doing instead was using a dedicated phone number finder like SignalHire at https://www.signalhire.com/phone-number-finder to get direct contact information that candidates explicitly shared for professional purposes, and that shift made a massive difference in how our conversations felt. The response rate jumped because candidates appreciated not being asked to connect on a platform where their activity is constantly monitored and sold to advertisers, and we could move straight to a real conversation without the awkwardness of social media etiquette. The trust factor increased noticeably, and we stopped losing good people who simply did not want their job search visible to their current employers. I also learned that many candidates actually prefer email or phone because it feels more serious and less like a casual networking request, so we built our whole recruitment process around that preference. The key is to respect boundaries, verify contact methods properly, and treat every candidate as an individual, not as another connection request waiting to be accepted.