Your LinkedIn network can help you find a new job by ensuring recruiters and hiring managers can easily find your profile when searching. To do this, optimize your profile by adding a professional photo, concise and engaging summary highlighting your specialties, a biography with relevant details from your CV, and recommendations from past managers and clients. Also engage with relevant LinkedIn groups and register all email addresses to avoid duplicate profiles that may cause you to be overlooked.
2. Why bother with a LinkedIn Profile? Competition - Plaxo, Xing, ecademy etc. Who might be looking for me? Recruiters & Hiring Managers Ensure you can be found – no duplicates Once found, are you selling yourself? Register all email addresses (plug-in) Relevant Groups – Join/Create
6. Summary Profile picture - should look business-like Summary - concise, engaging & specific Specialities – relevant keywords Biography – info from your CV & more Vanity URL – create & promote Make profile public Recommendations - managers, peers and clients
See http://www.slideshare.net/brianloveland/presby-job-seekers-linked-in-presentation-2-8-10I’m going to talk about what you can do to make a LinkedIn profile work passively in the background to complement your other job searching activities. I’ll cover why it’s a good idea to have a LinkedIn presence, how you can make it more effective and discuss some specific elements which require attention.LI can be used for active job searching, interview prep , lead generation etc. but that’s for other presentations.
I prefer Linkedin to others due to the size of its database and the fact that its structure lends itself to effective candidate searching.Next we’ll look at the search interface and how profiles appear in it.I’ll show you an example profile to show how it shouldn’t be done, and one where good use is being made out of the website’s functionality.
http://www.linkedin.com/search/fpsearch?keywords=unemployed+redundant+executive&searchLocationType=I&countryCode=gb&page_num=1&search=&pplSearchOrigin=MDYS&viewCriteria=2&sortCriteria=R&redir=redir(Replace this with a more focused search once Peter has provided the profiles of the course attendees)This is one of the standard views I find most useful.As you can see the snapshot of your profile includes a photo if available, as well as your name, location & industry.The two most recent positions are also listed.It’s important that the information listed in this view should enable someone to make an assessment on whether it’s worth their while opening up your full profile.
(Consider replacing this with a more relevant profile once Peter has provided the profiles of the course attendees)This person has created a profile with about the minimum possible information content. There is no further information beyond what you would see looking at the snapshot of their profile in the search results view previously.They have no connections and are unlikely to be found in the first place, let alone contacted by recruiters or hiring managers.
(Consider replacing this with a more relevant profile once Peter has provided the profiles of the course attendees)In contrast, this person is doing pretty much everything they can to ensure they can be found.Perhaps they could include a more descriptive title for themselves rather than just repeating their current job title, but otherwise they’ve populated the relevant fields and stand a good chance of being found.It looks like they have a duplicate (almost empty) profile with only 3 connections, so they could help their cause by merging their connections and removing the duplicate details.Scroll down to show more of the profile sections if live system available.
http://www.cio.co.uk/article/3201333/linkedin-etiquette-five-tips-for-improving-your-profile/http://jobmob.co.il/blog/gigantic-linkedin-job-search-tips/http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2007/01/linkedin_profil.html#axzz0hJecNf5MPic needn’t be professional but in suitable business attire for your industry and against a plain background.Promote LI profile on CV, email sig, business cardMake sure you set the contact setting to indicate you want to hear about career opportunities.Offer to reciprocate recommendations where you can.
To sum up, I’ve shown you how people are using LinkedIn as part of their candidate sourcing strategy and how you can take advantage of that situation to help you find your next position.If anyone has any questions on the material I’ve presented or any other issues relating to LinkedIn I’ll be happy to try and answer them for you.