Increasingly the savvy job hunter, especially anyone working in a professional setting, is leveraging the awesome power of online recruitment tools with a LinkedIn profile. (Although other professional networking sites exist, such as Naymz and Plaxo, LinkedIn remains the undisputed leader.)
How does one go about creating a presence that has impact, attracts positive attention and with time, reaps professional benefits? Here are a few suggestions to get you started.
- Get a decent photo! It doesn’t have to be a headshot; it can be something with more character.
- Stick to one career goal. If your career could take you in three directions, best to choose one. Don’t dilute your LinkedIn presence with multiple interests.
- The Summary section, with 2000 characters at your disposal, must be powerful, compelling, well written and engaging! No inventory of ho-hum statements of accountabilities here! This is the place to market yourself, fully. Share your passion for your chosen field, own your abilities, and charm your readers with a few accomplishments.
- Complete each section to achieve more than 100 percent completion rate (the rating is generated on your behalf, and communicated to you by LinkedIn itself). This means populating the usual categories – education, work history – as well as soliciting more than three recommendations from colleagues.
- Update your profile with your current reading list, and post regular personal updates. Share news stories, quotes, insights, good books – don’t be afraid of this personal touch as your LinkedIn presence should ideally provide a taste of you, the person, not just you, the employee.
- Actively request recommendations, and seek out good industry connections.
- Demonstrate your expertise, interests, and personality by responding to questions posed in the groups you join, or by the general LinkedIn community.
Recruiters are now using LinkedIn as a passive recruitment tool. That is, they use an advanced functionality to search for potential candidates. Whether you are stumbled upon or not depends on the words you used in your headline, summary and specialties sections. Whether a recruiter emails you may depend on your activity in answering questions, participating in discussions, the strength of your recommendations and so on.
Current studies show that over 70 percent of recruiters definitely “google” their short-list of applicants, looking for digital dirt and expecting a professional online presence. It is easy for the average job hunter to create a robust and professional presence using a professional site such as LinkedIn.
Today’s job hunter would be wise to take advantage of this free recruitment tool that also requires no tweaking of resume or cover letter, and no surfing for jobs.
- submitted by Stephanie Clark, www.newleafresumes.ca in Nanaimo B.C.