Job Seekers - Market Your Personal Brand: Top 10 LinkedIn Add-Ons

By Cheryl Simpson

Would you like to enhance the quality of your LinkedIn profile in a way that encourages recruiters and hiring managers to read yours more thoroughly? If so, consider supplementing your profile with one or more strategic LinkedIn add-ons.

How To Job Search On LinkedIn Confidentially

After speaking with a potential client this week who wanted us to write his LinkedIn profile for him but was nervous that his connections would figure out what he was up to, I decided to do a little research of my own. Here are some tips I found for conducting a job search on LinkedIn on the “down low.”
You have the ability to turn off your network updates. There are some great tips from Meg Guiseppi on ExecutiveCareerBrand.com.
Adjust who can see your activity and connections. Find out more at CareerThoughtLeaders.com.
Change your profile settings so you can browse profiles of target companies and make the right connections you need without anyone knowing.
Here’s how:

Go to your profile settings and click privacy settings.
Under privacy settings click profile views.
Under the last setting click that you want to be completely invisible to users that you’ve viewed.

A few additional tips to remember when job search confidentially on LinkedIn:

Do not post status updates that say you’re in a job search or include that information anywhere else on your profile. (duh, right?)
Leave the box on your profile indicating you’re open to new job opportunities unchecked.
Be mindful of what you post and reply to in job search-related groups and how you answer questions in discussion groups.

And now for a few things to make sure you DO when job searching on LinkedIn: To find out what to do read the rest of the Careerealism article

Another Way to Search LinkedIn Without Boolean

Todd Raphael

As JobSync works on a new tool for searching applicant tracking systems, an ERE reader from Glattbrugg, Switzerland, emailed me today to tell me about a new tool for searching LinkedIn.
It’s called “RecruitIn,” with the last two letters a play on the “In” from LinkedIn.

With RecruitIn, you put in some search parameters, click on the “open in Google” button, and, voila, you have yourself a search of possible job candidates, comprised of people who’ve created profiles on LinkedIn.

You can get more than 100 results, and see “out of network” connections for LinkedIn public profiles.
RecruitIn was created by a London company called Clever Biscuit (“a young company driven by passion and bucket loads of caffeine,” Clever Biscuit says). RecruitIn’s history is explained briefly here.

ERE's Todd Raphael works on ERE's conferences, the news and features on the ERE.net site, the print publication Journal of Corporate Recruiting Leadership, the ERE daily email newsletter, the ERE awards, and more.

Complete Article and More sourcecon News

What’s the most effective way to X-Ray search LinkedIn?

I’ve recently come across some blog posts and some Boolean Strings discussions on LinkedIn that inspired me to go back and tinker with searching LinkedIn via Google and Bing.
For example, I continue to see people talk about:

Whether or not you should use “pub” and/or “in” (e.g. site:linkedin.com/in | site:linkedin.com/pub)
Whether or not you should use -dir
Using country codes in site: searches
Using different phrases to target public LinkedIn profiles – e.g., “people you know”

My first reaction when people are curious about the most effective ways of retrieving public LinkedIn profiles is to encourage them to experiment on their own first instead of looking for answers to copy and paste. Quite literally 99% of everything I know about sourcing (and recruiting!) I learned through being curious and experimenting.
People learn by doing, and more specifically by failing/struggling, and not by copying and pasting somebody else’s work.
It’s also important to realize that you cannot and should not implicitly trust sourcing advice (or custom search engines) you find online or in training sessions/materials – there is never only one way of doing anything, and the CSE’s you use and the syntax you copy and paste may in fact artificially limit search results and prevent you from finding the best people.
So my advice is to take other people’s work (including mine!) and experiment.

LinkedIn X-Ray Search Syntax Experiment

I saw someone use “people you know” in their LinkedIn X-Ray search, presumably to target and isolate LinkedIn profiles and eliminate false positive non-profile results.
Can you guess what I did?
Yes, I tried it.
If you didn’t already know why someone would use such a phrase, it’s because it’s a fairly unique phrase found on public LinkedIn profiles, and it appears to be indexed by search engines like Google, so you can search for the phrase to find LinkedIn profiles without having to use things like (inurl:pub | inurl:in) to return profiles, or -dir, -jobs, etc., to prevent non-profile results from being returned.
You can see it at work when viewing your search results:

This is where it pulls the phrase from on the LinkedIn profile:

It does a decent job of isolating profile results, to the point where inurl:pub, inurl:in, -dir, -jobs (or any similar techniques) simply aren’t necessary.
But of course the next thing I did was wonder what other phrases would work.
All you need to do is look around a public LinkedIn profile and look at other words and phrases that seem unique to profile results and would not commonly be mentioned elsewhere on someone’s LinkedIn profile and experiment by including them in your searches and inspecting the results.

A quick scan yields a number of possibilities – here are a few:

“search for people”
“name search”
“join linkedin”
“full profile”
“also viewed”
“viewers”
“overview”
“million”
“contact”
“expertise”
“see who”
“introduced”

Now, I haven’t tested all of those and the others I didn’t even bother listing, but I did test a few.
Here they are below. Bear in mind the search itself is highly limiting, by design, as I wanted to have a reasonable number of results to make quick comparisons of any variances between result sets:
site:ca.linkedin.com “current * * engineer” java hadoop “people you know” “location * Toronto, Canada Area”
site:ca.linkedin.com “current * * engineer” java hadoop “viewers” “location * Toronto, Canada Area”
site:ca.linkedin.com “current * * engineer” java hadoop “overview” “location * Toronto, Canada Area”
site:ca.linkedin.com “current * * engineer” java hadoop “million” “location * Toronto, Canada Area”
site:ca.linkedin.com “current * * engineer” java hadoop “contact” “location * Toronto, Canada Area”
site:ca.linkedin.com “current * * engineer” java hadoop “expertise” “location * Toronto, Canada Area”
Don’t be fooled by the variance in Google’s estimate of results (763 to 1,220), which are different for each search.
Scroll to the bottom of the results for each search and you will see all of them only have 2 pages of results, and the actual number of results being returned ranging from 13 to 15 (13 being the most common). I will leave it up to you to compare the differences, if any, between the search results.
If you don’t have time to click and execute each search, I’ve performed a quick run through you can view here (best viewed full screen in 1080p):

View The Video and Read The Complete Boolean Black Belt-Sourcing/Recruiting Article

16 Quick Tips To Become A Better Networker

Young Entrepreneur Council, Contributor

Six degrees of separation are allegedly all that stand between you and anyone on the planet. Or, according to my father, “There are not six degrees of separation, there are two; you just have to think hard enough.”

Like him, I’m a connector, and would agree that regardless of how many people it takes to connect us, no one is too far removed. More so, it can be a great joy to facilitate those connections for people in your network.

But I’ve also learned that just because things come naturally to me, it’s not always the same for others. I learned this most pointedly with networking. Here are 16 quick, immediate tips to help you become a better networker:

Networking starts with your current contacts. Networking doesn’t necessarily mean actively pursuing making new relationships. Cultivate those you have already and invest in those relationships first.
Even if you “don’t need to network,” you do. You never know when you’ll need someone to help connect you (not always professionally). It’s improper to ask someone for help when you’ve not spoken to him/her in ages, but now are doing so simply to ask for something. Therefore, refer back to tip #1.
Think of networking as a puzzle you’re piecing together. What need does someone else have and how can you use your resources to fill that gap?
Don’t throw your cards around. We all know the person who shoves his/her business card down your throat immediately. It’s a turnoff, and not a very polite way to engage a new contact. Offer your business card after having a conversation — and asking for the other person’s first.
Remember their Rolodex. The power of networking is the people your contacts know, not always your contact directly. Keep that in mind as you help guide people towards how to help connect you.
Set expectations. Let people know how and when you’ll contact them (and then do it).

All 16 Tips and Complete Forbes Article

‘Tis the Season to Find a Job on LinkedIn

Lindsey Pollak

One of the old fashioned myths about job hunting is that you’ll never get hired in December. “People slow down for the holidays,” the thinking went. “Everything is on hold until the new year.”
Thankfully I ignored that advice back in 1999, when I interviewed for and was offered my dream job at a career-focused Internet start-up just a few short weeks before Christmas.

The same can happen for you. Here are five tips for job hunting during the holiday season, with help from LinkedIn:

Get back in touch. The holidays are the perfect time to reach out and get back in touch with people you haven’t spoken to in a while, such as former colleagues, former classmates, long-lost friends and members of professional associations you used to belong to. The key with this type of outreach is to make every communication personal.
Rather than sending a blast “Happy Holidays” message or a generic e-card, write a customized note to each person (using a LinkedIn connection request if you still have the person’s email address or InMail if you are a Job Seeker Premium account holder) to show that your desire to connect is genuine. And, save the news of your job hunt for a phone or in-person conversation. Your message should look something like this:
Hi Steve,
Happy Holidays! I know it’s been a long time and I hope you’ve been doing well. I saw on your LinkedIn profile that you’ve moved on to a higher level position – congratulations! I’d love to reconnect in the New Year since we are still working in the same field. Can I give you a call or take you out for a coffee? Thanks so much and enjoy the season.
All the best,
Lindsey

Mix business with pleasure. In addition to reconnecting with older contacts, you’ll likely spend time over the holidays with people you see on a regular basis — friends, family and current business connections. To add a touch of professional networking to the holiday fun, check out people’s profiles on LinkedIn before heading out to a holiday party or family gathering. See what people are working on, which contacts you might have in common and where you might be able to offer them career support.

At holiday events, it’s okay to talk about your job search and be specific about what kind of position you’re looking for. Most people, especially friends and family members, are happy to help or keep an eye out for opportunities. If you do have some great career conversations over eggnog and cookies, remember to send each person a connection request (if you’re not connected already) or a LinkedIn message early in the New Year to follow up on any leads and continue the conversation.

Stand out from the crowd. Remember that myth that no one gets hired in December? Use it to your advantage! If many job seekers still pull back during December, you have a better chance of standing out to employers if you do submit an application. Any recruiter with active job openings is highly likely to check his or her inbox over the holidays, so make sure your application is there.
Go ahead and follow up your application with an additional InMail message to the recruiter as well (you can often find the job poster’s name and a link to his or her LinkedIn profile right on the job posting page). You might say something like, “I wanted to follow up my application to position #12345 with a brief note to express my interest,” and then mention something specific you’ve read about the employer, such as a positive news story, an exciting industry development, a cause they support — all of which you might learn about on the company’s website or on its LinkedIn Company Page. The process may not move forward until the New Year, but you’ll show the employer that you’re ready to hit the ground running.

More Tips and Complete Linkedin Blog Post

How soloists can fire up LinkedIn for their businesses

In conversation with a fellow consultant last week, my work as a reviewer of young adult books for The Australian newspaper came up.

“I didn’t know that! Why isn’t that on your LinkedIn profile?” he demanded.

“Because it’s got nothing to do with my current work /life/profile/brand”, I answered, or words to that effect. Although more likely it sounded like, “Huh?”

“Nonsense”, he replied. “I would be interested, even impressed, to know that your critical remarks had been paid for and published by a national newspaper.”

Seen in that light, it certainly sounded impressive, even to me.

I am always encouraging others not to hide their light under a bushel but now it appears I have been doing it myself. I look anew at my LinkedIn profile and realise it is a bit bare because I have made a judgement about what fits and what doesn’t.

And yet all the disparate and apparently disconnected things I have done over my chequered past are part of what makes me an excellent resource for people. So why not let them know?

So here is a short checklist of things I am going to do to revamp my profile this week. Use it to see if too can develop your online persona so it is more than a silhouette.

1. Check the length

Your summary needs to be just that – a summary not an essay. Read over a few others and notice at which point your eyes glaze over. Readers will only scan over what you do. They are possibly more interested to know what you can do for them.

Choose your words carefully and create a statement that positions you in the centre of the area you wish to influence.

Be precise, cogent and concrete. And remember that the words you write under your name will appear in every post and connection you make – so craft them for impact.

2. Check your CV

What have you achieved or done that you are not talking about? As you can see from the example at the beginning of this article, there are aspects to your past work that may not immediately spring to mind as relevant, but you can extract some of the key skills from them.

My current work involves writing non-fiction and the publications I have worked on previously have elements of that within them, so I can now see how to emphasise that facet in my profile.

More Tips and Complete Article

13 Mistakes Your Business Might Be Making on LinkedIn

Alyson Shontell

LinkedIn isn't just a good resource for professionals.

When used the right way, it can be a powerful tool for businesses too—and not just for recruiting, the way most managers think of using the site.
Businesses that navigate LinkedIn properly engage customers, generate sales leads, and swap internal information among employees.
We got in touch with Krista Canfield, LinkedIn's senior manager of corporate communications. True, it's her job to get people to use LinkedIn, but we think she has a perspective worth sharing, since she trains companies on nontraditional uses of LinkedIn. She knows the platform like the back of her hand, having joined LinkedIn when it only had 18 million members and 200 people on staff (now it has 187 million members and 3,177 employees). Her team has also trained more than 13,000 journalists to better navigate LinkedIn.
Canfield told us the most common mistakes she sees businesses make on LinkedIn, and how all companies can use the professional social network better.

1. Your company isn't even listed on LinkedIn

"More than 2.6 million companies already have a LinkedIn Company Page," Canfield says.
So why is it a big deal to add yours?
LinkedIn shows companies statistics about their followers for free. Companies with pages can also share news and information with their followers to keep people engaged and attract new clients or employees.
Canfield recommends checking out LinkedIn's own company page (which has a hidden joke for hackers), as well as CNBC, Dell, and Philips for some good examples.

2. Your company doesn't follow competitors on LinkedIn

LinkedIn company pages can be a good way to keep tabs on the competition.
"When you follow a competitor’s LinkedIn Company Page, you can find out what talent is joining, and leaving, those companies," Canfield says. "You’ll also get updates from the companies (when they share recent news articles or discussions with their followers) and you’ll be the first to know when they post jobs on
LinkedIn. This information can help clue you in to the direction those companies might be heading in."
Canfield also recommends following company pages for partners, potential customers and acquisition targets on LinkedIn.

3. Your employees haven't spent much time on their LinkedIn profiles

Employees are an extension of your brand on LinkedIn, so it's important to make sure their profile pages are a good representation of your company.
"LinkedIn Profiles (which appear in Google search results not just for names, but also in Web searches for skills and areas of expertise) may be the first encounter a potential customer or business partner has with your company," says Canfield. "A bare-bones profile on LinkedIn suggests that your employee and your company may not have stellar online networking skills, so encourage your people to fill out their profiles so they are 100 percent complete."
Canfield suggests even little touches, like making sure employees have uploaded profile pictures. A LinkedIn profile is 7 times more likely to be viewed if it has a photo.

4. Your company isn't sharing the right kind of information at the right time on LinkedIn

"Whether you’re sharing media hits about your company via your LinkedIn Company Page or sharing articles with your LinkedIn network, there are a few useful tips you should keep in mind," says Canfield.
"Post in the morning for best reach, add links when possible, share videos to drive amazing viral engagement, and tell people what action you want them to take on your update (so specifically call out that you’d want viewers to like, share and/or comment on your discussion)."
Managers of your LinkedIn Company Page can also target messages and updates to specific people. They don't have to send it to every follower of that page.

5. Your employees aren't connecting with each other or swapping information on LinkedIn

"By connecting your employee base, you’ll be opening up a whole new world of second-degree
connections outside your company," says Canfield.
"Joe the receptionist could have a best friend that works over at Nike, which just happens to be the dream client that Sarah in sales is trying to land. Trusted introductions from colleagues are a great way for any business to locate the experts they need quickly and cost effectively."
Employers can follow what their employees are sharing on LinkedIn too.
Canfield says all updates can be sorted on LinkedIn's homepage (see photo).
"When you first log into LinkedIn, just below where you can share articles or an update with your network, you should see, 'All Updates,' in bold font," she explains. "If you hover over, “All Updates,” you’ll notice you can sort your updates so you just see what your coworkers are sharing on LinkedIn. This is an easy way to virtually hang out at your company water cooler."

6. You tell employees office gossip is off limits.

That doesn't mean employees should be able to leak company secrets on LinkedIn. But they should feel like they can share interesting news about their industries.
"Industry information is power," says Canfield. "Encourage employees to check out their industry-specific LinkedIn Today news feed to help you prioritize and sort through the news that’s making the rounds. Make sure that they connect to clients so that they catch important profile updates in regards to promotions or job changes at those companies too."

Mistakes 7-13 and Complete Business Insider Article

35 Tips To Master LinkedIn

by Pamela Vaughan

But the truth is, LinkedIn can be extremely useful -- especially when you're aware of all the little hidden tricks that don't get nearly enough exposure as they deserve. To help you master LinkedIn, below is our ultimate list of 35 awesome tricks you may have been overlooking.

We've divided these tips into three main categories -- optimizing your LinkedIn presence, using LinkedIn for professional networking, and using LinkedIn for business and marketing.

Optimizing Your LinkedIn Presence

1) Claim your vanity URL.

Make your profile look more professional and easier to share by claiming your LinkedIn vanity URL. Instead of a URL with a million confusing numbers at the end, it will look nice and clean like this: http://www.linkedin.com/in/pamelavaughan. Do so by going here and clicking "customize your public profile URL" down on the right-hand side.

2) Create a profile badge for your personal website.

If you have your own personal website or blog, you can promote your personal LinkedIn presence and help grow your professional network by adding a Profile Badge that links to your public LinkedIn profile. LinkedIn has a few different badge designs to select from, and you can configure your own here.

3) Make your blog/website links sexier.

Instead of using the default "My Website"-type anchor text links in your LinkedIn profile, you can change the anchor text to make those links more appealing to people who view your profile. So if you want to increase clicks on the website links you can display on your profile, change the link's anchor text to something more attention-grabbing than the standard options LinkedIn provides. For example, if you want to include a link to your blog, rather than choosing LinkedIn's standard "Blog" anchor text, customize it to include keywords that indicate what your blog is about, like "Internet Marketing Blog." Each profile can display up to 3 website links like this, and they can be customized by editing your profile, clicking edit on your website links, and selecting "Other" in the drop-down menu to customize the anchor text.

4) Search engine optimize your profile.

You can also optimize your profile to get found by people searching LinkedIn for key terms with which you want to be associated. Add these keywords to various sections of your profile such as your headline or summary.

5) Install applications.

Did you know that LinkedIn provides a variety of different applications you can use to improve your LinkedIn profile? Browse the Application Directory, and consider adding the SlideShare application or linking your blog to showcase your presentations and blog articles on your profile. The Events application is also a great way to see what events your connections are attending and find other popular industry events to attend.

6) Rearrange your profile.

LinkedIn enables users to reorder the sections of their profile in any way they prefer. When in edit mode on your profile, simply hover your mouse over the title of each section. Your mouse will turn into a four-arrowed icon, at which point you can click then drag and drop to another position on your profile.

7) Take advantage of "Saved Searches."

LinkedIn allows users to create up to 3 saved searches. After conducting a search, clicking the “Save This Search” option allows you to save a search and easily run it again later. You can also choose to receive weekly or monthly reminders via email once new members in the network match your saved search criteria. Just click on the “Saved Searches” tab on the Advanced Search options page and select one of your saved searches to run again.

8) Extend the life of your questions.

Perhaps you're using the LinkedIn Answers feature to grow your knowledge of industry-related topics. If so, you may have noticed that, after a period of time, the opportunity closes for users to answer questions that are posed in the Answers feature of LinkedIn. To extend the life of the questions you ask and enable more time for users to provide answers, click on the "My Q&A" tab within Answers, click on the question you'd like to revive, and click "re-open this question to answers," which will open it up again for 7 more days.

9) Quickly turn your LinkedIn profile into a resume.

Job seeking is one of the most common -- and beneficial -- uses of LinkedIn. Were you aware that LinkedIn enables you to turn your profile into a resume-friendly format in seconds with its Resume Builder tool? Just choose a resume template, edit it, and export it as a PDF that you can print, email, and share.

10) Find a job with LinkedIn's job board.

Now that you've generated that awesome new resume from LinkedIn's Resume Builder tool, you can use it -- and LinkedIn's Job board -- to help you land an awesome job. LinkedIn allows you to search for jobs by industry and location. It even suggests jobs you might be interested in based on the information in your LinkedIn profile.

Tips 11-35 and complete article

With more than 175 million users, LinkedIn is the most popular social network for professionals as well as one of the top social networks overall. Are you using it to its fullest potential? While Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and Pinterest have been monopolizing the buzz in the social media marketing world lately, LinkedIn is a powerful platform that often gets underutilized or put on the back burner.
But the truth is, LinkedIn can be extremely useful -- especially when you're aware of all the little hidden tricks that don't get nearly enough exposure as they deserve. To help you master LinkedIn, below is our ultimate list of 35 awesome tricks you may have been overlooking.
We've divided these tips into three main categories -- optimizing your LinkedIn presence, using LinkedIn for professional networking, and using LinkedIn for business and marketing.

LinkedInAdvice.com

Job Seekers - Market Your Personal Brand: Top 10 LinkedIn Add-Ons

Top 10 LinkedIn Add-Ons For Your Brand

1. A Personal Marketing Brief

2. Your Executive Bio

3. Your Resume

4. A Leadership Brief

5. A Case Study (Or 2 Or 3)

How To Job Search On LinkedIn Confidentially

How To Job Search On LinkedIn Confidentially

Another Way to Search LinkedIn Without Boolean

What’s the most effective way to X-Ray search LinkedIn?

LinkedIn X-Ray Search Syntax Experiment

16 Quick Tips To Become A Better Networker

‘Tis the Season to Find a Job on LinkedIn

Lindsey Pollak

How soloists can fire up LinkedIn for their businesses

1. Check the length

2. Check your CV

13 Mistakes Your Business Might Be Making on LinkedIn

35 Tips To Master LinkedIn

Optimizing Your LinkedIn Presence

1) Claim your vanity URL.