Whether you are actively looking for a new job or you just want to keep your toe in the water of your career field, creating and maintaining an online profile is essential to people knowing that you are out there and being available for interviews.
There are a lot of companies that will regularly do a Linkedin job search to see what kind of employees are available and if you don’t have your profile updated and ready to go,
you might miss out on some very good opportunities.
How Does Linkedin Work?
If you don’t yet have a Linkedin profile, then you might make the mistake that thinking that it is just like Facebook, but it’s not. First of all, it isn’t for gossip or for posting pictures of your friends or yourself. In fact, many people don’t have a photograph of themselves up at all, simply because they are selling their background and experience and not their looks.
The whole idea behind Linkedin was to allow people just like you to create a network of past and present colleagues, friends, employers, teachers, and other people that might be able to help you. This network really takes the place of an in person network since so few of us have that kind of network anymore.
What Do You Do?
When you first log on to Linkedin, you will create a profile just like you would on Facebook, but instead of listing your favorite books, movies, music, and linking to Youtube videos, you will spend your time creating your resume, establishing a mission statement, and creating links to all of your past employers, your schools, etc. Once you have done this, you can then do a Linkedin job search of the people you are linked to, and others can find you by doing their own search, too.
What Else Should You Know?
If there is one thing that everyone should be aware of if they are going to use Linkedin job search or they will have potential employers viewing their profile, it is to make sure that you have completely separated your personal online persona from your professional one. This can be difficult and time consuming to do, especially if you have been online for a long time.
For that reason alone, it is a good idea to use one email address only for career-related emails, so that employers won’t have access to your entire history just by searching online for your email address.
Where Can You Get More Help?
There are some very good online resources that can give you more information on how to utilize Linkedin job search and other features of this social networking site to enable you to move up in your career field or get started in a new one. A site like Career Rocketeer has plenty of information to show you how to set up your profile, how to look for jobs, and how to make sure that people who are looking for employees are able to find you, too.