Considering LinkedIn Premium? 5 Fantastic Reasons For Job Seekers To Join

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Technology has changed the job search dramatically over the past several years. Resumes can get lost in employers' applicant tracking systems (also known as ATS's – the databases recruiters use to post jobs and accept resumes), where you're competing with as many as 10,000 other applicants who have applied for the same job.

You need every advantage you can get to find and secure a job.

The bad news: Most of the really powerful tools in LinkedIn are reserved for paying customers, in the form of a Premium subscription.

The good news: If you're looking for a job, the tools and features offered under a LinkedIn Premium subscription is worth it – really worth it – if you know how to use them effectively.

Here are 5 fantastic reasons why it makes sense to pony up for a LinkedIn Premium subscription if you're looking to accelerate your job search.

REASON #1: ENHANCED SEARCH CAPABILITY
What This Is, and Why This Matters: There are more than 467 million user accounts in LinkedIn. That means one in every 17 people on planet earth has an account. And there's 128 million user accounts in the United States – one account for every 2.5 people in this country. Think of LinkedIn as a giant employer directory, and as a paying subscriber, you are given the ability to conduct detailed searches by keyword, geographic location, company, and other criteria. You can probably find the person making the hiring decision for that job you applied to on Indeed, Glassdoor, or any other job board.
Real-World Application: There's no getting around having to fill out online applications, and it's difficult to stand out. But if you can identify a potential hiring manager, and reach out to them after you've applied, you may be able to pique their interest in your skills and experience.

REASON #2: INMAILS
What This Is, and Why This Matters: With the free LinkedIn membership, you have the ability to send messages directly to first-level contacts (people to whom you are already directly connected through an accepted invitation). Without a first-level connection in place, in order to contact a decision maker at a company you will need to either A) Send an invitation, get it accepted, then send them a note; B) Find or figure out some form of contact information for the decision maker; or C) Post your online job application and pray it gets noticed. Each scenario is risky and uncertain. Paid subscribers get a set number of InMails each month, notes that can be send to almost anybody in the system.
Real-World Application: After applying online, search LinkedIn for a decision maker at the company (see reason #1). Then send them a brief note indicating that you have applied online (this helps, because it shows that you followed their process), that you have the skills and experience needed for the job, and how they can reach you. If you've reached the right person, it's not unheard of for them to walk over to their recruiter to ask for your resume.

REASON #3: FREE MESSAGES TO OTHER PREMIUM MEMBERS
What This Is, and Why This Matters: Have you ever seen a little gold "in" badge in somebody's profile or near their name? It looks like this:

This symbol means that this person is a premium member. One perks LinkedIn provides its Premium members is the ability to send unlimited InMails to other Premium members – including people you're not connected to. It's a "Free Message." In other words, even if your subscription plan only gives you a few InMails each month, a premium member-to-premium member message won't count against your allocation.
Real-World Application: Most recruiters have paid subscriptions (they use LinkedIn to mine candidates), as do a variety of sales, business development, and other professionals, as well as job seekers like yourself. These free messages help you can aggressively reach out to multiple potential employers.

REASON #4: IMPROVED POSITIONING TO RECRUITER SEARCHES
What This Is, and Why This Matters: As I mentioned in #3, recruiters pay to get a beefed up version of LinkedIn. This enables them to search for what are known as "passive" candidates (in other words, individuals not actively looking for a job) through enhanced search capability, which enables them to see just about every profile in LinkedIn. LinkedIn advertises that as a benefit of being a paid subscriber, you will be a "Featured Applicant," where "Your job application will appear above job applications from non-Premium members, increasing your chances of having it viewed."
Real-World Application: I'm not privy to the specifics of how LinkedIn's search and reporting algorithm works, so I'm not sure exactly how high you'll appear on any given search, but if this benefit pushes you toward page 1 or 2 of search results, there's a much better chance the recruiter will take a look at your profile. (Side note: Make sure your LinkedIn profile is chock-full-of-keywords).

REASON #5: SEE WHO'S LOOKED AT YOUR PROFILE
What This Is, and Why This Matters: You can see who has viewed your profile over the past 3 months.
Real-World Application: What if you found out that a recruiter at an employer you were interested in had looked at your profile? In sales parlance, this is what's known as a "warm lead." In other words, they have a demonstrated interest in you. Why not send them a note which goes something like:

"Thank you for viewing my LinkedIn profile! I have always been very interested in working at Company X, would you be available for a brief chat?"

FINAL NOTE: In case you were wondering, I am in no way affiliated with LinkedIn other than as a paying user, and for my subscription I pay rack rate. But I've been using the system since its early days and while there are things about it I don't love, I firmly believe in its power as both a job search and recruitment tool.

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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, and career coaching services, including a free resume review. You can email Scott Singer at scott.singer@insidercs.com, or via the website, www.insidercs.com.

5 Practical & Affordable Strategies For Career Changers

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Bored in your current career? Not sure how to make the jump into a new line of work?

Making the move to a new type of career path isn't easy. Many people go back to college and get an advanced degree such as an MBA, or some other diploma in some other discipline. However, pursuing a college degree is a huge investment oftime and money, and many people don't have enough of either to make this a reality.

Let me be clear - if you're thinking about becoming an attorney or a medical doctor, for example, there's no way around the need for a highly specialized advanced degree required as the baseline for the job.

But for the rest of us? Here are five practical – and affordable – strategies to position yourself for a new line of work.

1. College Certificate Programs. This is a brief academic program which provides you a credential in a specific discipline, and which shows employers you've invested in your new line of work. Many colleges offer certificate programs in targeted disciplines such as Paralegal Studies, Human Resources, Computer Information Systems, and other tracks. There are few, if any, electives offered in a certificate program. The goal of a college certificate program is to provide you the skills you need for your new line of work – quickly.
    

2. Professional Certification. Many professional organizations offer certifications demonstrating a level of achievement in their field. There are several highly regarded certifications that can help move your career upward - for example the Certified Public Accountant (CPA) is one of the highest standards in accounting, and having a CPA can open quite a few doors; likewise, the Project Management Institute offers a Project Management Professional certification, which is considered the gold standard in the field. But professional certifications can also serve as a gateway to a new career path. There are professional certifications in human resources, compensation, resume writing, career coaching, information technology, and many, many other fields. Certification (and the letters after your name) can improve your chances with employers.
    

3. Online Classes. There are several providers of low-cost or free online training. Coursera and edX, for example, consolidate and offer classes from prestigious colleges around the world. Likewise, many universities provide their classes online, such as Harvard University's Open Learning Initiative. Likewise, there are scads of courses available online at no charge to LinkedIn Premium Subscription members. There is absolutely no reason you can't take a course and add it to your resume. Doing so could boost both your skills and your credentials, and would also provide you with valuable keywords that mayelevate your resume.
    

4. Volunteer Projects. Let's say you're trying to branch out into search engine optimization, and you find out your son's school is upgrading its website. Why not reach out to the school's administrators and offer to help out on the SEO aspects of the project? You will get hands-on experience in a real-world setting, that you can add to your portfolio of work. And yes, you can add volunteer work to your resume.
    

5. Special Work Projects. Companies are always planning new corporate initiatives. If you hear about a committee being put together to handle a special project, why not ask your manager if you can participate? Yes, it's additional work, but you will gain valuable exposure to new skills and experiences. I've seen individuals who have done great work on special projects appointed to newly created roles outside their discipline because they demonstrated an aptitude for the new line of work.

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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, and career coaching services, including a free resume review. You can email Scott Singer at scott.singer@insidercs.com, or via the website, www.insidercs.com.

The Ziggy-Zaggy Path To The C-Suite

Even a road with lots of twists and turns can get you where you want to go (iStockphoto.com / wakr10)

Careers just don't play out the same way they used to. These days, it's kind of a ziggy-zaggy path to the top.

In the not-too-distant past, when you started a new job at a company, you had one eventual goal – you wanted to be running the place. After a few jumps up the ladder, you'd be in the executive suite, next in line for the throne of CEO.

Make no mistake - upward mobility is still the dream. And it's perpetuated extensively by business schools everywhere. Then again, when you're dropping more than $200,000 for an MBA, you're hoping for the big payoff that a top job in a company can provide.

(By the way, I'm not kidding about the cost of an MBA; check out the estimated costs for one year of tuition, housing, and living expenses for business school Harvard University. These are the university's own projections – I recommend checking this out on an empty stomach.)

It's true that if you get an MBA, or another high-value advanced degree from a reputable school you'll probably see a substantial bump in pay from what you were earning before going back to school. But the ladder upward from your first job out of the program is likely going to be a more challenging climb.

There are several reasons for this, but chief among these is that companies are getting flatter In other words, many organizations are removing layers of management to (primarily) reduce cost and (secondary) increase collaboration by eliminating layers of unnecessary middle management.

Some companies take egalitarianism to an extreme. I once worked at a company that eliminated vast swathes of the organization. They tried to increase collaboration, eliminate layers, and reduce cost by removing cubicles and offices altogether, and placed the greatly reduced (and less stratified) workforce at the equivalent of park benches and picnic tables. I sat across from a Vice President, an HR Manager, and a Compliance Specialist. I can't speak to the effectiveness of this approach in terms of the impact on productivity, but it certainly sent the message that everybody was being watched and treated equally, and that rank was of less concern than getting the job done. There were a lot of unhappy people, but this company wasn't exactly trying to be recognized as "Employer of the Year," either.

The aforementioned company isn't alone. As companies try to squeeze more and more out each dollar, they continue to reduce layers and positions in the name of efficiency. The net result is fewer rungs in the ladder, with a heck of a lot more people competing to climb each step.

How do you stay engaged and challenged, and continue to grow and develop? The answer, increasingly, is diagonal or horizontal movement. In other words, if the path above you is blocked, move over and take another route.

In other words, cross-train.

For example, let's say you've been an accountant for the past several years, and the next natural step up for you would be to become a controller, but the person in that job is not going anywhere.

Why not slide over into financial analysis? Or go into corporate analytics? Or try some other role which would allow you to flex your mental muscles and apply your skill set. There are five major benefits to making such a cross-functional, lateral move.

1) Expanding Your Toolbox. By trying something different but related, you're giving yourself more skills. And perhaps, by obtaining a broader perspective, you're making yourself a little bit more prepared for that next level up. For example, in human resources the folks who tend to move up are not the specialists, but the individuals who have touched recruitment, employee relations, training, and more.

2) Taking On New Challenges. Doing the same job for too long can get dull. By putting yourself into a new role, you're forcing your brain to solve different problems. It can increase your engagement and sense of fulfillment.

3) Increasing Your Marketability. By proving yourself in a new field or area, you can be opening up a whole new set of career possibilities - both inside and outside your current employer. Your boss isn't planning on retiring for a while? Maybe the fellow in the other group is planning on a career change in the near future. Or perhaps listing that new set of skills on your resume invites calls from recruiters about new opportunities.

4) Demonstrating Your Strategic Agility. By showing your employer that you are able to succeed in not just one, but two different lines of work, you're able to demonstrate that you can handle bigger, better, and newer challenges. Perhaps your company is looking for somebody to lead a new venture, and they need an individual who has demonstrated an ability to take on new tasks and make them successful. A cross-functional assignment may put you in prime position for such a promotion.

5) Even Lateral Moves Can Be A Step Up. I've seen it happen many times - somebody is given a new role, and it's not necessarily a full promotion, but to make the move more enticing, the company offers more money and/or an increase in title. Even half-steps forward can be rewarded.

Just remember: The straight road isn't the only one that can take you to your destination.

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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, and career coaching services, including a free resume review. You can email Scott Singer at scott.singer@insidercs.com, or via the website, www.insidercs.com.