Four Ways to Let Your LinkedIn Contacts Know You're Looking for a Job Change

Answers to your Questions

Reader question from the mailbag:

Question: What is a good way to let people on LinkedIn know that you are actively looking despite the fact that you have a job?

Answer: Great question! LinkedIn has become kind of the public résumé database. How do you let the world know that you're open and receptive to recruiter inquiries? Let me put a twist on your question, though. Try to think about it this way: "How can I make sure recruiters find me on LinkedIn?" Here are a few ideas:

1. Update your LinkedIn profile to look like a résumé. I don't necessarily mean that you include an objective. However, think of your résumé as a marketing document - its primary goal is to sell you as a candidate. You can transfer a great portion of the data from your résumé to your LinkedIn profile. Fill in your jobs beyond just your job title - What responsibilities did you hold? How many people have you supervised? What quantifiable accomplishments have you accomplished? Don't be modest - include all of these (but be truthful). The more information your profile contains, the more recruiters will see it when they search for candidates.
2. Upgrade your LinkedIn subscription. LinkedIn offers Premium memberships. You're paying for increased visibility of your profile through better promotion as a featured applicant, you can see who's looked at your profile (so you can contact them back to express your interest in their company - a-ha!), and you'll get a few InMails, which enable you to reach people who aren't your direct contacts.
3. Become an Open Networker. This means you accept all invites. Accepting more invitations expands your network. An expanded network means you'll show up in more searches.
4. Be Proactive. Look at what companies of interest are posting scads of jobs. Identify the recruiter at the company. Send them a note to express your interest, along with your résumé.

Good luck!

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. He is a Human Resources professional and staffing expert with almost two decades of in-house corporate HR and staffing firm experience, and is a Certified Professional Resume Writer (CPRW) and Certified Professional Career Coach (CPCC).

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.

Three Weekly Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy Job Hunting Tips - June 29, 2015

Lemon Squeezy

Here are three simple job hunting tips for you to begin your week!

1. Do you know where your interview is taking place? Companies have multiple locations. Or, sometimes mapping programs can get the location wrong (i.e., East 97th Street versus West 97th Street). It would suck to be late, and you'd look bad. Unless you're 100% certain where you're going for that interview, do a test drive before your interview. Scope out the location in person to do an "eyeball test." You could unwittingly end up at a muffler repair shop rather than at your interview.
2. Arrive a few minutes early for your interview. Being fashionably late may work at the clubs on South Beach, but your interviewer has a schedule to keep. Don't get bumped due to carelessness.
3. Want to apply to a company, but don't see any posted jobs fitting your skill set? Your first option is to go to the company website, and see if they have a "general" application, where they accept unsolicited résumés. Your second option is to search for a corporate recruiter at your target company. Recruiters will often include their email address in their LinkedIn profile, to make themselves accessible - send them a polite cover letter indicating your area of interest and a copy of your résumé.

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. He is a Human Resources professional and staffing expert with almost two decades of in-house corporate HR and staffing firm experience, and is a Certified Professional Resume Writer (CPRW) and Certified Professional Career Coach (CPCC).

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.

Why Do Companies Advertise Job Openings When They Plan to Hire Internally?

Answers to your Questions

Question from the mailbag: "Why do companies post openings when they know they are going to hire someone internally? I have lost out to many positions because the company already had an internal candidate in mind. The companies I have applied to are big and small, public and private.  I have started to ask if there are any internal candidates applying for this role and the answer is usually yes."

I love this question, because it addresses a widespread frustration among job seekers. Remarkably, there are several reasons why a company may post a job opening to the outside world while they have an internal applicant in the wings:

• Company policy requires them to post every job. Every. Single. One. The bad news is, this frustrates external candidates to no end. The good news is that the company values internal movement and promotion of employees over external applicants, and gives internal applicant a chance at mobility. Should you get the job, at least you know you hit a high bar and you'll get the same consideration for future opportunities.
• Union rules. Some collective bargaining agreements have it written into their contracts with companies that all jobs be posted for internal employees.
• The company wants to see who else is out there. Maybe the internal employee is good - but not thatgood. Often the posting rules indicate that, all qualifications being equal, the internal employee receives the nod. But if the external applicant holds better qualifications, the outsider gets the job.
• The hiring manager hopes a specific internal employee will apply. Sometimes the internal employee may be asked to apply, but ultimately decides she's happy in her current role. It happens. And if the company hadn't advertised outside, they wouldn't have any candidates in the pipeline.

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. He is a Human Resources professional and staffing expert with almost two decades of in-house corporate HR and staffing firm experience, and is a Certified Professional Resume Writer (CPRW) and Certified Professional Career Coach (CPCC).

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.