Looking To Amp Up Your Career? LinkedIn For Job Hunters

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LinkedIn remains the top professional networking and job-seeking digital platform. For job seekers it is a place to promote your professional story, network, access training courses, and, for the ambitious, be a content creator and power user. The insider tip is that every recruiter mines LinkedIn for candidates or immediately visits a potential hire’s LinkedIn profile after reading their resume.

If you do not have a LinkedIn profile, you may consider setting one up as soon as possible. If you already have a LinkedIn profile, it never hurts to review your existing page to see if can be improved, or commit to those updates you know you need to make but haven’t. Here is a refresher on the LinkedIn basics.

1.     Your LinkedIn profile is not your resume. While your resume and LinkedIn profile will share the basic facts of your work history and education (e.g., company/school names, dates), the content should read in a much different way. If your existing profile is a mirror of your resume, it’s time to upgrade. The recruiter or hiring manager already read your resume. If you’re creating a new profile, think of it as a billboard on the job market.

2.    EVERY recruiter uses LinkedIn to look for talent. Keep in mind that the professional social network and job market is only one side of LinkedIn’s business. The other is catering to recruiters and the people hiring their users. They are the most powerful power users on the platform and they are actively looking for people like you. That is the #1 reason professionals should have a LinkedIn presence. Not only that, but if you have a premium membership, you can contact recruiters or hiring managers directly through LinkedIn‘s InMail feature. A friendly succinct note to a recruiter may make the difference when pursuing an open job.

3.     A good head shot is essential. You must have a current professional profile photo – a good one. LinkedIn is not the platform to experiment with your look. Your profile photo is the first impression people have of you when they visit your page. Keep it simple and professional. No hats.

 4.     Have a full profile. Fill in EVERY applicable field. Provide as much additional information as possible. A packed profile increases your profiles searchability for all those recruiters, hiring managers, and potential professional contacts to grow your network. You want to be found. You’re a billboard, remember? For example, certifications, languages, volunteer organizations, sabbaticals, side hustles, certifications, are just a few examples. Don’t leave any of your hard work and accomplishments out. LinkedIn likes “completeness.” Anything less than a full profile looks lazy, which is not what you want to project.

 5.     Grow your network. It is a social network after all. Grow your network strategically. Don’t be shy! Step one: Perfect your profile. Step two: connect to as many people you already know and want to follow on the platform. That will trigger an organic process through you will slowly grow your network. You will receive invitations to connect from people with a few degrees of separation, or are in LinkedIn groups you join, and you should be open to accepting them. Step three: Be proactive. You can reach out and follow your peers, companies, people who inspire you, and the list goes on. Be judicious but open. Even if you’re a long time LinkedIn user, you should periodically review your network and see if it aligns with your current circumstances and long-term goals.

 6.     Create a Headline That Pops. Your headline needs to impart significant information in 240 characters or less. You may consider this tip when creating your headline.

Format: Position type ♦ About Yourself ♦Additional Info.

 Samples:

 ·      IT Solutions Architect ♦ Systems Designer ♦ Recent Graduate – The Academy

·      Network Design & Management Analytics Lead | Pursing CCNA

·      Human Resources Business Partner ♦ Employee Relations ♦ Available Immediately

7.     Write an Effective Summary. Here is where you really have to commit. For your summary, you have 2600 characters to use and each one counts. Your summary is a high-level explanation of who you are and what you have to offer. It should include your top skills, key accomplishments, and the value you add to any endeavor. Conclude with your call to action - what is the next thing you want to do?

8.     Write a Position Summary. Once again, you need to pack a lot of focused information into only 2000 characters or less. Summarize your position, detail what you’ve done, and punch the value you added in each case. An easy formula to get your started is the Three “W”s.

a.     W-ho is the company?

b.     W-hat are you doing, or what did you do, for the company?

c.     W-hat are your key accomplishments?

9.     Write About Your Education: Reminder: your LinkedIn profile is not your resume. The key phrase here is “write about.” Tell the story of your educational experience as if you were describing it in detail to a friend. Go beyond what you studied. Think about and express its impact on you as a person, not just as a student.

·      Format

o   School Name

o   Degree

o   Years Attended

o   Activities

 10.  Skills and Endorsements

·      You can select up to 50 skills for which to be endorsed.

·      Select and prioritize your Top 10.

·      This is searchable, and will help your results!

·      Include skills in your summary.

11.  Target recruitment firms. As long as you’re growing your network, include prominent recruitment firms. They’ve got access to jobs, and it can’t hurt to build a relationship online.

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Philip Roufail contributed to this article.

Scott Singer is the President and Founder of Insider Career Strategies Resume Writing & Career Coaching, a firm dedicated to guiding job seekers and companies through the job search and hiring process. Insider Career Strategies provides resume writing, LinkedIn profile development, career coaching services, and outplacement services. You can email Scott Singer at scott.singer@insidercs.com, or via the website, www.insidercs.com.

Should I Post Editorial Content In My LinkedIn Feed?

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LinkedIn is one of the first "social networks", but with a singular focus on professional networking, professional branding, career development, and as a premier marketplace for job seekers and recruiters. LinkedIn boasts the following facts and statistics (2022):

• 810 million members.

• 57 million registered companies.

• Operates in over 200 countries and regions.

• 91% of LinkedIn users have college or advanced degrees.

• 44% of LinkedIn users earn $75,000 a year or more.

• 60% of LinkedIn's user base is millennials.

• 75% of LinkedIn users live outside the United States.

• 87% of recruiters use LinkedIn.

• 14 million open job postings (this number fluctuates).

• In 2016, Microsoft bought LinkedIn.

By social media network standards, LinkedIn is comparatively small, but its impact on the labor market is substantial. Like any other social media network, users can post original content on LinkedIn. However, not many individual users post on a regular basis or consume posts on a regular basis. The original content on LinkedIn, the currency of LinkedIn, is you - your professional history and story – not videos of cats playing the piano. *Full disclosure: Insider Career Strategies supports the cat piano playing community and says, "Rock on!".

LinkedIn users, new and old, can post whatever they want if they want. However, LinkedIn's culture does not revolve around the site's feed, likes/dislikes, or sharing. Users use the site to research companies and search for job openings. Recruiters use LinkedIn to find job candidates. Advertisers use the site to generate leads. That is not to say the feed algorithms aren't important. If you want to use LinkedIn for professional promotion, company promotion, or advertising, what you post, like, and share matters. So – do you need to post articles, videos, or other content (besides your profile) on LinkedIn?

1.     Are you a job seeker? If you are a job seeker who wants to improve your career, employers who pay to see "into the system" will find you. A LinkedIn presence that attracts attention and advances your career goals is born through your profile and professional story, not the content in the feed. A great LinkedIn profile is as far as you need to go. 

2.     Are you trying to get views? Posting on LinkedIn is a double-edged sword. First, you assume content drives people to your profile. Second, you assume the people who visit your profile are somehow positioned to help your career and will (best case scenario) reach out to you. Intelligent, creative, and well-conceived content related to your profession and skills may draw attention and increase visibility with people out of your network, but sloppy, offensive, or unprofessional content can do a great deal of damage to your professional brand. Only post if you have a definitive professional purpose, and do so with caution and care.

3.     What are your posts about? LinkedIn is not great for personal posts. Photos of your recent vacation are inappropriate and unwanted. LinkedIn's feed algorithm flags personal content as "low quality" even if shared by a kazillion people. If you take a content marketing approach and want to position yourself as an expert in your field, go all-in on your professional posts  (but for the majority of LinkedIn users posting is not necessary). To reiterate – no videos of cats playing pianos! That is not going to help your professional brand. *Full disclosure: Insider Career Strategies supports the cat piano playing community and says, "Rock on #2!".

4.     Do not post political content. Political content can be divisive. If you post content, it should relate to your profession and professional goals. Unless politics IS your job, it’s best to avoid the topic there – by posting your political views, you’ll only succeed in irritating half the audience. It’s best to keep content professional in nature.

5.     Are you using LinkedIn for business purposes? To revisit a statistic, LinkedIn has 57 million companies on its site, which means 57 million companies promoting brand awareness, generating leads, and company vying for job seekers' attention. If you are a business on LinkedIn, people will find you without posts. That is because they are actively searching for companies. A company profile is more likely to get a hit after a dedicated search than a post in the feed.

6.     Are there advantages to going all-in? Only 40% of LinkedIn's base are "active users." The majority of users are on the platform for only a short amount of time. If you are a regular content creator who generates "high quality" posts, it is easy to stand out and positively impact the LinkedIn community with a dynamite ROI. There are many advantages to expanding your professional network and opportunities. Just keep in mind the professional pitfalls. Keep to an "all business" script, and you could join the ranks of LinkedIn influencers!

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Philip Roufail contributed to this article.

Scott Singer is the President and Founder of Insider Career Strategies Resume Writing & Career Coaching, a firm dedicated to guiding job seekers and companies through the job search and hiring process. Insider Career Strategies provides resume writing, LinkedIn profile development, career coaching services, and outplacement services. You can email Scott Singer at scott.singer@insidercs.com, or via the website, www.insidercs.com.

6 Simple Ways to Stand Out in A Crowded Job Market

iStockphoto.com | farakos

It’s crowded out there and it’s getting more crowded every month. The unfortunate reality is that the economy and labor market will continue to be roiled by the Covid-19 pandemic for the foreseeable future and the buzzword of the year is “uncertainty.” Do not get overwhelmed. Focus on what’s in your control. Be kind to yourself. Get to work.

1.     Work harder and smarter. It can be more than demoralizing to be unemployed, or to be in a job with little security or satisfaction, and sometimes the obstacles seem or have proven to be all but insurmountable. It is easy yet catastrophic to slip into a state of professional paralysis at the time you need to be the most proactive. Whatever you planned for tomorrow, do today. Take whatever extra initiative you can to stand out. Be aggressive. Set realistic daily goals that will move the needle of your job search forward each week. For example, spend one day targeting companies for which you already know you would like to work and the next day researching new companies and opportunities. Nobody knows everything that’s out there. Do a little extra digging and you may strike gold.

2.     Be part of the LinkedIn community.  LinkedIn is a vital component to any job search. It may seem intimidating, but take the time to develop a strong professional story through your LinkedIn profile and it will eventually pay off. Take advantage of the extra opportunities LinkedIn gives you that a traditional resume does not. For example, each of your work experience entries can include links, documents, photos, and a variety of other data/visual rich content that provide a much more in depth panorama of your skills and achievements. LinkedIn is a large community, but as a percentage does not have that many “content creators”. If you post or share content, you will stand out and may drive traffic to your profile. The greater your activity the more potential traffic you may generate.

3.     Join LinkedIn Groups – Sure, you want to drive traffic to your profile, but LinkedIn is not a social network in the traditional sense; it’s a professional network, so if you are involved in a job search it’s not beneficial to drive other job seekers to your profile. You need the right kind of traffic. Join LinkedIn Groups. It’s part of the basic LinkedIn account, and recruiters and other professionals are in these groups and they’re often looking for great future employees. Shift some of your social media energy to LinkedIn Groups to increase your visibility, find out about job openings that may not yet be posted on LinkedIn or other job platforms, and keep up with trends in your field.

4.     Find a Hiring Manager at Your Target Company.  This is one of the trickier things to pull off and there’s no guarantee that you will be able to determine with certainty who is the actual person that will make the decision on who to hire. There are no foolproof ways to determine who the hiring manager may be of that dream job posting you just saw, but your best bets are some combination of company websites and LinkedIn. If you can determine this vital information, be sure to address any correspondence directly to the hiring manager. If you are a LinkedIn Premium member, you also have the option to send InMails (notes you can send to someone in LinkedIn without being a direct connection) to the job poster, who may be a recruiter, an HR staff member, or a hiring manager.

5.     If contacted, don’t delay. Make communicating with potential employers your number one priority. Be prompt. If you receive a call, return it as soon as possible and be prepared! Whether it’s the hiring manager or the receptionist, you should be prepared to provide relevant information and/or answer pointed questions about your interest and qualifications. If you are contacted by email, also respond as soon as possible. If any documents are requested, include them in your response. Respond once with any requested information and in a timely fashion.

6.     Pay it forward. Life challenges us in ways that are profound and unexpected, yet it is unlikely that any of us have lived through any stage of our lives without some type of support from friends and family, and, in turn, each of us are an important part of someone else’s support network. Now is the time to be selfless. If someone reaches out to you for help, give it without conditions. Karma can work in your favor during these unprecedented times – or any time, for that matter.

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 Philip Roufail contributed to this article.

Scott Singer is the President and Founder of Insider Career Strategies Resume Writing & Career Coaching, a firm dedicated to guiding job seekers and companies through the job search and hiring process. Insider Career Strategies provides resume writing, LinkedIn profile development, career coaching services, and outplacement services. You can email Scott Singer at scott.singer@insidercs.com, or via the website, www.insidercs.com.