With jobless totals still rising, there is seemingly less advice (of the quality variety anyway) being given to job seekers. One thing that is surprising for me, is that many more people still don't use -and even worse- don't even know about the business networking site LinkedIn.
It is a great site to project yourself in the working environment, and while it may well be populated by large numbers of recruiters (a big criticism in the US I hear), is that such a bad thin when you are trying to find a job?
I have already written a LinkedIn beginners guide( Download LinkedIn for beginners here) that will help all the LinkedIn newbies get started, but I just wanted to highlight a few tips that I find myself sharing with job seeking friends on a regular basis at the moment.
So here are my key tips for using LinkedIn to help job seekers looking for a job:
- Don't sign up with LinkedIn unless you are committed to spend some time making it work. Networking is about investing your time, and if that is something that doesn't interest you, or you can't be bothered, then stop now, buy a book and sit on the beach all summer waiting for a job to come your way! (You will have a long wait!)
- Profile. This is absolutely essential and something that you shouldn't take lightly. It should effectively be your online CV, and with this - unlike a paper cv - make sure you upload a decent looking photo (headshot) of yourself. Make sure you have all the correct dates for your work history, and that it reads well with NO TYPO's! Don't forget, many employers check for online profiles before they interview people (whether they should, is a different conversation!), so you don't want any glaring mistakes making their decision for them.
- You need to expand your LinkedIn network with as many people that know as possible. Get all you business cards out, go through your email contacts and spend some time writing down all the people you have interacted with, directly and indirectly. Then search for them on LinkedIn and invite them to your network. Size matters with LinkedIn - the bigger your network, then the bigger you 2nd and 3rd level search network will be. For example I have 872 connections which makes my overall search network 15,500,000 - quite a powerful tool isn't it?
- HOT TIP! Make sure you join a number of the groups (that are relevant to your sector), as these will become part fo your search zone as well. Many groups can be joined simple by requesting to join. Once accepted (usually very quickly) the people in that group will become part of your search network!
- Make sure you tell people that you are actually looking for a new job. You have two opportunities to do this on LinkedIn -in your personal profile, where you can explain what you are (by red line in example), and then in the status section (by green line) where you can update you statuses as often as you like. It may sound obvious, but if people don't know you are available, then they won't talk to you about opportunities!
- Ask current/previous colleagues for recommendations. Fortunately, LinkedIn makes this easy, and takes you through this process well by prompting you. This is a great way of adding to your credibility, and your online profile by showing your strengths, and the fact you were a valued employee (well hopefully anyway!). Also if you are/were a manager, recommendations from your staff is as equally powerful.
- Use the power of LinkedIn to help you find the people you need to speak to. Hopefully you will have highlighted a number of companies that you want to work for (if not, don't worry, I will cover this aspect soon in this blog). These may be entirely new companies to you, and you will have no names to start with. There are three things to do next:
- Look at the 'company profiles' of the companies you want to work for. Find out what the background are of the people who work there. Have you got similar skills?
- Find out where current employees have previously worked - check their profiles - have you worked for a similar company?
- Find the names of hiring managers, or HR staff that work there. You probably will have to contact them offline, but having the contact name will be a great start.
- Do it now! If you are currently working, don't wait for you to become unemployed to start using LinkedIn, start now! Build your network before you need it, then when you need it, it will be one less area to get started.
LinkedIn is a brilliant tool, and combined with other social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook, it then becomes a very powerful tool to help find a job.
Don't forget to link up with me, if you haven't already done so - I will happily accept!
