Using LinkedIn to Get a Job

LinkedIn is an essential tool for all job seekers. See the full article – Use LinkedIn to Get a Job

There are a few important tips that must be clarified on this list.

1. A complete profile is important as stated, but you should keep your job titles consistent whenever possible. If you led a marketing group and one position was the director of marketing and the other vp of marketing this will look different in the search results. What can you do to make these similar for a search? This is as important to optimizing the search as having many contacts. You also want to use the phraseology consistently within your job descriptions and summary areas.
2. Inviting people into your network is important, but they should be quality people. What I mean is they should be connected. Inviting someone with only a handful of connections does little for extending your sphere of influence. Compare inviting someone with 5 connections to someone with over 500 or even a few thousand. It makes a world of difference in your connectivity and exposure.
3. LinkedIn can have a lot of information on your target company in addition to people. Glean the information on dollar sales, number of employees, etc. Be especially watchful of the comings and goings of individuals. You can see who has joined recently, who has been promoted recently, who has left, executives, etc. Is there upheaval happening, LinkedIn could tip you off.
4. Join groups wisely. You are limited to 50. If you have target companies find out which groups the people working for that company have joined and join them yourself and become a participant. When they see your name coming from multiple directions it adds to your credibility. Join active groups. Look at the number of members, the number of discussions, the number of jobs posted; if the group has no activity it will not be effective. That is a group of joiners, not participants.
5. When you participate, really participate. Don’t think that an off-hand great post, means you are participating. You need to be sharing information that will resonate with the group.
6. Remember there are two types of job postings on LinkedIn. Those posted by recruiters, HR departments, etc that are paid and found under the jobs search and those that are posted by group members. From my experience these are separate and distinct lists.
7. Participating in the questions and answers is great. One caution, however, post based upon your expertise, don’t hang yourself out there as the expert. There is always someone that will want to prove that you are not the “expert”. I have seen some very long and boring conversations as someone tries to push someone else off their perch.
8. The LinkedIn search has awesome power and most people barely scratch the surface. Get daring and experiment with your searches; I guarantee that you will be amazed at what you find.
9. Great point on promoting your blog and website. You must change the name to something that is more descriptive. Remember there is a search process that goes on and anything on your profile page is fair game for the Search Engine.
10. My tidbits – contribute, contribute, contribute, and be consistent! When you add value to your network and groups you build your credibility, reliability, and trust. Consistency shows that you are not just someone that jumps in because you have nothing better to do.
11. Comment on promotions of others in your network. Those comments get displayed to everyone on the recipients list.

The Value of Your LinkedIn Connections

The Value of Your LinkedIn Connections.

Here are four ideas that you can put to use immediately to make LinkedIn work for you.

The use of keywords in your profile, job titles, summary, current position, etc are key to great search results. Make those keywords consistent as long as they do not change the accuracy of your profile. If you were an IT Security Consultant; you should try to avoid having other entries as an IT Security Project Manager. The repetitiveness of the keywords will raise your Search Ranking and therefore your placement in the results. Read my Blog Post The Value of Using Keywords in Your LinkedIn Profile.

Build your connections – when you add LinkedIn connections you are increasing your sphere of influence. Your LinkedIn connections are just the tip of the iceberg; you know the part that is out of the water. As with icebergs, the strength lies in the part that you cannot see. If you have 100 of your own connections you are connected to a several thousand below the water line.

LinkedIn’s search capabilities are an untapped resource for most job seekers. For a simple experiment go to the search box, pull down and select companies, and click search. I guarantee you will be amazed at the number of companies that come up. You will only see those where you have contacts of current or previous employees. Next select a company and look at the details. You will find the names and level of contact for each of those companies. You can also find the open positions within that company.

For the companies that you have targeted; look at the profiles of current employees and find out the groups they have joined. Join the groups and be an active participant so your name has the opportunity to get in front of the current employees. If you see something in the news about that company; you can use this group connection as a means to reach out to the individuals and share what you have learned. Just because they work for the company does not mean they hear all the news. A good way to get the latest is by setting up a Google alert on the company and even key employees.

Stay tuned for more ideas on how you can use LinkedIn or other Social Networking sites to enhance your job search.