I find it really interesting to see how job search strategies have changed dramatically over the years. Fewer employers are actually advertising job vacancies and I have had several clients looking to work on their interview skills recently who never actually applied for the job they are being interviewed for – instead they have been approached by companies who have found them on LinkedIn! This is why I decided to share a few of their secrets of how to get a job using LinkedIn.
For my clients the number one thing that made them stand out on LinkedIn was their profile. They all have a completed profile on LinkedIn (and as LinkedIn states, if you have a fully completed profile, you are 40 times more likely to receive opportunities – 40 times, that is a lot and the great thing is that it is easy to do. LinkedIn makes it easy by showing you how complete your profile is as a percentage on your home page and providing you with suggestions for areas of improvement. Make sure that you have a good quality, professional looking photograph too; your profile is not complete without one and yet there are still a lot of profiles on LinkedIn without a photo which gives the impression that you have something to hide!
Secondly, they have an attention grabbing professional summary. LinkedIn lets you create a professional summary that is longer than you might have on your CV so use this space to create your effective personal brand (see issue 1 – 7 tips for a successful brandfor help in creating your personal brand)
Thirdly, my clients have also have an accurate and attention grabbing professional headline, which appears just below their name at the top of their profile, and which encourages people to want to read more about them.
There are a lot of other things you can do too, for example:
- If you have a professional blog where you write industry related articles, you can share this on your profile (you can find out how to do this here, http://help.linkedin.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/2968 );
- Set your public profile so that it is visible to everyone so that recruiters will find you via Google searches;
- Get people you have worked with to recommend you, preferably mentioning some specific projects you have worked on and what you achieved – these recommendations are worth far more than testimonials on websites etc, because they can be traced back to the profile of the person who wrote it.
- Get more connections – the Six degrees of separation refers to the idea that everyone is on average approximately six steps away, by way of introduction, from any other person on Earth, and that person may have the vacancy you are looking for!
If you would like any help on using LinkedIn and social media in your job search strategy please get in touch, anne@power-to-change.eu
