Hello Friends!
Good to be with you this month as we all dream of spring.
This month I'm going to share with you 3 LinkedIn secrets to attract hiring authorities and executive recruiters. I've also provided 6 bonus tips to keep you from getting screened out.
What's New on my Site?
- Job-Interview-Wisdom.com, has a new 3 column Look and Feel
- Check out these popular posts on my blog: Job Interview Blog or in my Job Interview Blog Archive
- OK to Collect Unemployment & Launch Business?
- 10 Outdoor Careers with High Income Potential
- Solved: 6 Job History Problems on Your Resume
- Good Informational Site for Unemployed
- Companies Scale Back Use of Job Boards
- New webpage for unemployed with 5 ways to deflect the damage done to your career by layoffs and downsizing
Job search blues? Check this out: Why Don't They Call Me?-Job Search Wisdom to Get you Unstuck.
Every adversity, every unpleasant circumstance, every failure, and every physical pain carries with it the seed of an equivalent benefit.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
3 LinkedIn Secrets to Attract Employers
Everyone should have a LinkedIn profile...regardless of whether you're an active job seeker or not. It's important that you set yourself up to be found by recruiters, corporations, and industry movers/shakers.
FACT: 70% of all major corporations now hunt for candidates on LinkedIn. A recent survey of corporations revealed that for 2011 companies plan to scale back their ads on major job boards by 24%. LinkedIn is the social media network of choice for corporations. 80% of all executive recruiters use LinkedIn to recruit candidates.
Perfecting your LinkedIn profile is not easy. It's a lot of work. But, it will pay off forever.
Pearl of Wisdom: The best jobs are never posted on the web or in newspapers. If your LinkedIn profile is set up right, good job opportunies will come to you.
Here are 3 MUST DOS on LinkedIn to attract hiring authorities:
- Post a professional head shot picture of yourself. Hiring authorities are very disappointed when they can't see your smiling face. Go to a professional photographer and tell them how you plan on using the picture. Emphasize that you must project a professional, attractive, positive image.
Listen to their suggestions and respect their opinion over your spouse or your own opinion. You need an expert to give you staightforward, unbiased advice. If your photographer tells you to lose the handlebar mustache, do it. Even so, a crappy picture is better than no picture.
- Your profile summary should not have the same information as your resume. Engage your visitors by sharing your elevator speech with them so they get a flavor of your personality and what problems you can solve for them. You are allowed 2,000 words max. Use all 2,000 words, if possible, and make sure they contain several important keywords relative to your profession.
TIP: Go to Indeed.com and pull up several job postings in your field of expertise. Print them off and highlight keywords. Then, use some of these keywords in your profile. Companies and recruiters search the LI database by keywords. This will set you up to be found.
Three examples of good LinkedIn summaries:
- Join and participate in LinkedIn Groups related to your field of expertise. LI allows you to join up to 50 groups. If possible, join 50. Membership is free and you can send a message to anyone in the group without cost. Each group has a discussion board. Lead or participate in a few discussions each week, but make sure you add something of value. All kinds of people hang out on these discussion boards...including hiring authorities.
Inside Tip: LinkedIn will soon provide keyword searches on discussion boards. This feature is currently not available and is only in beta testing. Now that you know this, be one of the elite to pop up on hiring authorities radar when this feature goes live in the near future. It will be called Signal.
Bottom line: You will be viewed by movers and shakers as, someone who is in step with the times and on the cutting edge, if you follow the 3 LinkedIn secrets shared above.
Bonus LinkedIn Tips:
- To avoid age discimination:
- Only go back 20 years on your job history
- Don't post your education graduation dates
- Don't post military veteran wars like Vietnam or Korea
- Don't come across as a desperate job seeker
- Don't list a pile of hobbies or special interests...just a few
- Make your contact info public, but provide gmail and cell for safety and spam protection. Make it easy for hiring authorities to reach you.
- Pick up the phone and call people in your network
- Nurture your LI relationships after you get a job
For more information about how to best us LinkedIn to your advantage, read I'm On LinkedIn - Now What???, by Jason Alba.
Hope these insights push you into new hiring territory.
Until next month...keep putting one foot in front of the other. Blue skies and calm seas are on the horizon.
Mike Petras
P.S. The best way you can help me with my work is to tell your friends, family, and associates about my website. The more visitors to my website, the more advertisers and affiliates I attract. This allows me to provide lots of free quality content.
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