Wednesday, February 26, 2020

How To Let Recruiters Know You’re Open To A New Job Using LinkedIn

Robin Ryan

I was working with Tim, a 57-year-old career counseling client, and we were creating his LinkedIn profile. He was surprised when I mentioned that you could turn on a feature that would allow recruiters to find you and know that you are open to new job opportunities. I just assumed that he was only one of a few who might not know how to do this feature yet three days later I had another Baby Boomer client doing her LinkedIn Profile creation, and that client was also surprised that LinkedIn had this feature. Although it’s not a brand-new feature, you don’t want to miss out on having this tool turned on. 

If you are open to a new job, you are going to want to use this so recruiters can find you. It’s a signal that goes out only to recruiters, so you don’t have to worry about your boss or any employees from your company finding out that you’re looking for a job. This is great because, for some of you, it’s risky to state on LinkedIn (like in the About summary section) that you’re looking for a job. Think about what might happen if your boss goes to your Profile and sees you advertising yourself to other employers. That could be a very uncomfortable conversation. This LinkedIn feature “hides” your signal from your current employer. That’s why this feature is a great one to use. It works behind the scenes. 

According to LinkedIn, 94% of recruiters search LinkedIn for job candidates. 94%. They know that most of the talented applicants are already working. They want to find you, and by using this feature, you will enable recruiters to locate you more easily. 

Turn On Your Notice to Recruiters - Read the rest of the Forbes article to see how plus other advice...

Thursday, February 20, 2020

LinkedIn Launches New 'Featured' Section on Profiles to Highlight Key Achievements and Links


Get ready to update your LinkedIn profile.
The professional social network is rolling out a new profile element which will enable users to showcase key achievements and updates in a separate 'Featured' section right at the top of their LinkedIn profile.
As explained by LinkedIn:
"The Featured section allows you to showcase samples of your work to people who view your LinkedIn profile. This is a great way to provide evidence of your skills and experience."
As you can see below, the new section will sit below your main profile header, and above your Activity listing.
LinkedIn Featured

Users will be able to add any of their LinkedIn posts to their Featured listing, while you'll also be able to add links to external websites (for example your personal blog or portfolio), images and/or documents, in order to showcase specific aspects and achievements to your profile visitors.

Tuesday, February 18, 2020

A 4-Step Guide to Using Hashtags Effectively on LinkedIn

In this post, I want to remove that confusion by answering several common questions about using hashtags on LinkedIn. So, if you’ve been wondering what's up with LinkedIn hashtags, this overview is for you.

What's the value of using LinkedIn hashtags?

Much like on Twitter and Instagram, hashtags on LinkedIn are a way to categorize your posts, and differentiate them from the rest of the content being uploaded to the platform each day.

By adding hashtags, you make it easier for users searching for content about specific topics (or who are following the hashtag) to find your posts.
LinkedIn hashtags

1) When should I use hashtags on LinkedIn?

Adding hashtags on LinkedIn is all about finding your sweet spot. Using a long list of hashtags in each post is best saved for Instagram. In general, Twitter best practices suggest a maximum of three to four hashtags per post, which is closer to what you want to aim for when posting to LinkedIn.

Also, hashtags should be specific to your post, not just your brand. More likely than not, people aren’t going to be searching for a branded hashtag on LinkedIn - instead, they’ll be searching for hashtags related to their industry or interests. For example, marketing guru Mark Schaefer weaves hashtags into his LinkedIn posts sparingly but with great impact. When sharing his speaker reel on the platform, he included just two hashtags at the end: #marketing and #keynotespeaker.

By including #marketing, he's tapping into the broad industry that he appeals to, and establishing that he’s a marketing speaker. By adding #keynotespeaker, he’s not only identifying one of his key strengths and business services, but he's also helping people to find his posts if they’re searching for keynote speakers.

Steps 2-4 and the complete Social Media Today article



Wednesday, February 12, 2020

3 ways to improve your LinkedIn profile to get more job offers - One of these things can boost your chances of getting hired by 30%.

By Pete Davies

Not all roads lead to the perfect career. That’s why it’s called a career journey, with twists and turns and likely many lessons learned along the way. How you embraced the journey is what matters to potential employers: the skill sets you’ve developed, how you’ve navigated change and overcome challenges.
Your LinkedIn profile serves as a digital and visual representation of this journey and your unique personal brand. Capturing your professional experience in one place helps you best represent yourself and tell your story. Your LinkedIn profile can be your ticket to a variety of new opportunities like partnerships, jobs, volunteering, or new business.

It’s always a good time to think about how you can spruce up your LinkedIn profile. Here are a few suggestions to make it shine.

1) Tell the world who you are and where you want to go

It sounds simple, but start with your profile photo. Profiles with a photo get seen 21 times more often than those without. Your profile photo should be professional yet approachable, giving people a true sense of your personality. And, don’t forget to add a background cover photo that supports it and works with the story you are sharing about yourself.

Equally important is your summary. Your summary is the first section people visit to read about you when visiting your profile, and it’s worth taking a little extra time to capture your professional strengths and unique capabilities. Don’t put too much pressure on yourself though. Try to sum up your experience in about 40 words, and think about keywords relevant to future job opportunities to help you be found.

Recommendations from professors, alumni, managers, colleagues, and even direct reports help validate what you’re saying about yourself and helps people understand a little more about what you’re like to work with. Whether you’ve been working for a few days or a few decades, don’t be afraid to ask for one and perhaps offer one in exchange.

Finally, location, location, location. Adding your home-base city makes you up to 23 times more discoverable in searches, making it even easier for you to be connected to your next opportunity or to be found by an old friend or colleague.

Read ways 2,3, and the complete Fast Company article

 


Wednesday, February 5, 2020

7 LinkedIn Tactics To Attract Recruiters

by Robin Ryan

Do you wonder what else you should do to get recruiters to discover you on LinkedIn? I had an in-depth conversation with LinkedIn expert Susan Joyce, editor of Job-Hunt.org, as we discussed the strategies must people miss when they create their LinkedIn Profile. These are mistakes and omissions you can quickly correct once you know what to do. Joyce was a former researcher at MIT. Currently, she devotes herself to helping job hunters land jobs by sharing information via her blog and website. Here are her seven proven tactics to help you get found by recruiters.

3) Mark profile for all to see. Most people restrict their LinkedIn profile to just the people who are on LinkedIn. If you do this, you are missing all the recruiters who are using Google or Bing to try to find you. When you look at the settings options, select "Public" to broaden your scope and reach more to recruiters.
4) Put work titles into the headline. The headline is the most searched part of LinkedIn. Unfortunately, some people have a job title that is not very explicit as to what their skills are. For example, they use Engineer 2 because that's their real job title. Instead, clarify the work so that it's more findable in the recruiter's search. This example: Structural Engineer l Manufacturing Engineer l Aerospace Engineer