LinkedIn is an invaluable social network for both job hunters and seasoned professionals, but it’s also used by recruiters to find the candidate with the perfect mix of skills. The right LinkedIn profile can boost your visibility, improve your overall Web presence and strengthen your professional brand. Consider it your online resume, being that it contains all of the information from your resume plus a healthy splash of personality, if you’ve done it right. Using LinkedIn strategically can help give you an edge over your competition. But where do you start? CIO.com has put together this list of tips to help you get the most out of your LinkedIn experience. 1. Temporarily Shut Off Activity Broadcasts When you make a change to your LinkedIn profile, such as adding a past work experience, LinkedIn broadcasts this activity to your connections’ streams. If you don’t want people to see that you are updating your profile, you need to temporarily shut off this feature. To start, click on Settings from the menu under your name in the upper right-hand corner. In the “Profile” tab, click “Turn on/off your activity broadcasts.” In the popup that appears, uncheck the box and click save. Note: Don’t forget to go back to this setting and check the box once you have fully updated your profile. 2. Add Keywords In a Forbes article, General Manager of Lock Search Group, Peter Zukow had this to say, “We have 35 recruitment consultants” “Different recruiters have adapted to different strategies but all of our consultants have adapted LinkedIn.” Recruiters, employers and school admissions officers search through LinkedIn and other career sites using keywords to target potential hires or students. That’s why keywords are important throughout your entire profile, but especially in the “Specialties” section. That’s why you should invest some time to choose your keywords. Think here about what terms might be important to potential employers. To boost your chances of being found by prospective companies, align your keywords with the role you are trying to get into. There are several keyword tools available and you should use more than one. Here are several free ones that should do the trick. If you were really as “creative” as your resume claims, you’d use different terminology to showcase your skills, according to LinkedIn’s 2011 list of most overused words and phrases. Read more: http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/news/network-wifi/3324829/most-overused-linkedin-profile-words-of-2011-creative-organizational-effective/#ixzz277o20DZbThe online professional network, whose membership has ballooned from 85 million a year ago to 135 million, says the term “creative” is the one that pops up most often on LinkedIn profiles not just in the United States, but in Australia, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom as well. More than a few worker bees figure top executives simply sail from one six-figure job to the next, whisked along by suave executive recruiters who coach them on secret job interview tricks and help them negotiate lush compensation packages. Right. Read more: http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/news/enterprise/3304522/3-critical-elements-of-an-executive-job-search/#ixzz277o6VsQuFor most IT executives, the job search is a lonely slog. It’s an endless cycle of searching for openings on sites like TheLadders and ExecuNet, updating and submitting résumés, cold-calling executive recruiters, and pumping their networks for leads. In such a dispiriting process, it’s easy to lose sight of what career coach Ross Macpherson calls the three fundamental elements of an executive job search: the résumé, the LinkedIn profile and the professional bio. “These are the three must-haves,” says Macpherson, president of CareerQuest. “They make up the foundation for your job search.” An IT executive’s résumé, LinkedIn profile and professional bio also represent the core building blocks of his or her personal brand, adds Macpherson. They communicate an executive’s singular value and differentiate an executive from his or her competition. “You’re not competing with the unqualified and unwashed,” says Macpherson. “You’re competing against the best. Your résumé, bio and LinkedIn profile have to position you to be the best.” Indeed, your résumé, LinkedIn profile and bio are such critical elements of your job search that if you haven’t perfected all three of them, you may never land a new job. That’s why, if your job search is flagging, you may want to refocus your efforts on these three key elements. Here, Macpherson explains the unique role that your résumé, LinkedIn profile and bio play in your job search, how they complement each other, and how IT executives can make them sing to recruiters and prospective employers. LinkedIn has become a dominant player in the recruitment and human resource space in the past few years, with 150 million members and availability in 200 countries. Its launch on the NYSE was reminiscent of the dot com boom — shares began trading at $US45 each and quickly topped $US100. It has successfully carved out its own niche in a social media landscape dominated by Twitter and Facebook. LinkedIn has become the place to establish connections and find links to career opportunities, and it is frequently used by IT professionals. As of 31 December 2011, signup rates topped more than two new members per second. Last year, LinkedIn members did nearly 4.2 billion professionally-oriented searches on the platform. We take a look at the A to Z of LinkedIn — minus some of the trickier letters. Some may view LinkedIn as simply an online version of their resume, but features such as applications allow you to personalise your profile with information relevant to your industry. Applications such as polls and events encourage your network to talk and interact. “It’s important your profile of record is what people find when they Google your name or company, and obviously you want to be as well represented in that profile as possible,” managing director of LinkedIn Australia and New Zealand, Clifford Rosenberg, says. You may be solely focused on the image your organisation is presenting online, but your personal brand is just as important. Ensuring your profile represents who you are is vital when engaging with your audience. “You can set up a profile for your company. We have well over a million companies who have profiles on LinkedIn,” Rosenberg says. It’s also a great way to attract talented staff as potential recruits can keep tabs on companies they want to work for. Activating a company profile puts a personal face to your organisation. It is a simple way to see a snapshot of any enterprise — just be aware that your competition will be keeping an eye on you also LinkedIn isn’t about a one way conversation — it is based on interacting with other professionals. The discussion tab on each group page is there to allow people with similar interests to post questions and share experiences. It may seem obvious, but just because LinkedIn is online doesn’t mean professionalism should diminish. Interacting with colleagues politely when asking for something like a recommendation is important if you are to create a positive impression. LinkedIn users are able to access their personal RSS feeds through the social network. You can subscribe to industry discussions as well as external feeds from sources such as Google. There is a variety of open and closed groups on LinkedIn. Joining those relevant to your industry is a must for CIOs. You can discuss issues among peers and make new connections in the industry. Discussions in open groups can be viewed by anybody, whereas closed groups are for members-only. CIO Australia group is where Australian CIOs and IT leaders can connect and share their ideas on using IT to create business value and make the most of opportunities in a growing local market. The group is open to CIOs, IT directors, COOs, CTOs and senior IT managers. You can be working for an Australian organisation, heading up APAC operations or an ex-pat living and working overseas but the group is not open to sales executives, consultants, recruiters, business development managers or IT service executives. If you’re searching for the next IT star to join your place of employment, you might want your HR team to place a job advertisement on LinkedIn. You can share the advertisement using other social networks such as Twitter and Facebook and post them to LinkedIn groups. “Because CIOs are always on the lookout for skilled talent, and with a war for talent out there, having a good profile allows members to connect and network,” Rosenberg says. Including an up to date, professional and appropriate image as your LinkedIn profile picture is vital for IT leaders in order to make a more personal impact and connect with colleagues. Making sure that this image is consistent with your online brand is necessary too. Having relevant information on your profile is not only important to maintaining good relationships — it could land you your next big career change. LinkedIn also allows users to browse for jobs by company and informs you once a colleague or contact leaves his or her current position. Having an up to date profile with the right information is vital. It lets you reap the benefits of any career opportunities, so updating your profile with current position, location and other details is a must. The learning centre, also known as the Help Center of the social networking site, is where you can find relevant and up to date information about several topics. It is a must for anybody new to LinkedIn. There are LinkedIn apps for several mobile platforms, including Apple’s iPad and iPhone as well as phones and tablets running the Android and BlackBerry operating systems. “On certain Optus and Vodafone/3 plans you can actually get free use of LinkedIn on your mobile,” Rosenberg says. “We’ve realised that more and more of our members are mobile and not tethered to their PCs. We really want to be available where our members are.” Without networking there would be no LinkedIn. Being the world’s largest professional online network, LinkedIn is a great way to get in touch with old connections and establish new ones through groups and associations with similar interests to yours. LinkedIn Outlook Connector lets you access LinkedIn from Microsoft Outlook. You can view updates from members of your network and send invitations to new contacts to connect using LinkedIn. While keeping your Facebook profile private from your colleagues can be a good move, leaving your LinkedIn profile with some information visible to others is vital according to Rosenberg. “Make sure you have a fully complete profile; make sure you have an updated photo of yourself and preferably one that represents you in a professional light,” he says. LinkedIn’s Answers section allows members to pose questions to other members of the site, as well as respond to others’ questions. People who provide the best answers to questions in certain categories are flagged as experts on their profiles. “Recommendations talk about credibility; it shows trust,” Rosenberg says. “Because the recommendations are linked to someone’s profile, one can very quickly see it was a colleague or a boss or someone in the same industry that posted the recommendation.” One easy way to complete your profile is to get past and present colleagues to recommend your work. You may want to reciprocate by writing a recommendation for them. Adding specialties to your profile allows other LinkedIn users to get a better idea of exactly what it is that you’re good at. This doesn’t need to be a large amount of text, but provides a little more detail than your standard resume would. LinkedIn also includes [xref:http://www.linkedin.com/skills/|Skills & Expertise]] tracker. Adding your Twitter name to your LinkedIn profile provides another way for users to contact you. LinkedIn also allows you to share updates using your Twitter account. A unique URL allows you to include a link on emails or on the cover letter of a resume. It not only saves time, it shows potential employers that you care about being contacted via LinkedIn. Want to know who is looking at your profile? Click on the ‘edit profile’ button to see who has viewed your account, depending on their privacy settings, and what industries they work in. You can also see how often your profile has turned up in search results. This is a variety of widgets available for Linkedin. You may want to add a snapshot of your LinkedIn profile to your blog, for example. You can also add a ‘Share on LinkedIn’ widget to your website, which lets people share your content with their LinkedIn network.
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15 LinkedIn Tips to Improve Your Job Search – PC Advisor
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