When people think of LinkedIn, the networking aspect is typically the first thing that comes to mind. This is important for your job search because networking is important to your search. Here are five other reasons to use LinkedIn for your job search that are unrelated to direct networking:
When people think of LinkedIn, the networking aspect is typically the first thing that comes to mind. This is important for your job search because networking is important to your search. Here are five other reasons to use LinkedIn for your job search that are unrelated to direct networking:
Find company hiring patterns. If you’re interested in a company, look for patterns in the employee backgrounds. Do most come from the same school or the same company? What specific skills and experiences do they share? How a company has hired before gives you an indication of their preferences and therefore how you might position yourself to be attractive to that company;
View career trajectories. If you have a specific long-term career target but are unsure how to get there, look at people who have that job and what they did along the way. What degrees and certifications do they have? What were their early jobs? If many people who now have the job you want share the same background, this might be an indication that the career track is very specific. You will want to plan your next jobs to collect those same skills and experiences;
Get salary or other unpublished data. Use the Groups and Q&A functions to collect this data. Look for tightly segmented Groups or ask your questions very specifically – i.e., years of experience, specific role, tight geographic area – to get the most useful answers;
Elaborate on your expertise. The Applications feature of LinkedIn enables you to share presentations (SlideShare), document what you’ve read (Amazon reading list), or link to your blog (several applications, including WordPress). These are substantive ways to elaborate on your expertise beyond your resume. For career changers, where a resume will reflect past experience you’d rather not repeat, these applications enable you to showcase different skills. Turn every email into a pitch. During the job search it is common to reach out to people you may not know well to request an exploratory meeting. You want to keep the email short but you want to share enough about your background to entice the person to meet with you. Attaching a resume is presumptuous. Putting your LinkedIn hyperlink in your signature enables you to subtly share your resume without the attachment. Used in your everyday email signature, your LinkedIn hyperlink effectively turns every email into a potential marketing document, as people may click on your profile and learn more about you without you having to ask.
Is Your Job Search Flexible or Just Unfocused?
As a recruiter, I’ve seen lack of flexibility on the recruiting side with employers clinging to every last detail in their ideal spec while perfectly good candidates get overlooked. As a career coach, I see jobseekers prematurely dismissing possible targets waiting for that perfect job. It’s true that you want to be focused in your job search (otherwise you dilute your efforts and come across as scattered and possibly desperate).
5 Questions to Test If Your Resume Is Recruiter-Proof
After recruiting in search and in-house for over ten years, I have read thousands of resumes. Due to sheer volume of resumes received and all the other things that vie for the recruiter’s attention in the hiring process – scheduling, interviewing, networking, reference checks, client debriefs, and more – the resume review process is ruthlessly quick.
How Do You Score On Employers’ Top Five Desired Skills?
Even if you are happily employed, work environments and priorities change. You want to make sure that you are not getting complacent and allowing your skills to rust. The above five skills are always valued, but the standards by which they are measured change over your career. Maybe you got to where you are now because of superior analytical skills and despite below average communication skills, but now you are a manager.
