Quick Tip- Using Linkedin to find your next job

If you are a regular reader of this blog you may be wondering why I keep writing about Linkedin for job hunting. The answer is really simple. Linkedin is hands down the best way (in my opinion) to find a job now and also the best way for employers to find candidates. A couple of months back, Linkedin launched a new service geared towards the job seeker. For a small monthly fee they offer various services to make it easier for the job seeker to connect with employers.

The cheapest service starts at $19.95 a month and with this package you are able to move up to the top of the list as a featured applicant. This feature is huge, with some many people competing for jobs, anything you can do to stand out from the crowd is important. Other features include, seeing the entire profile of hiring managers and premium job searching. The more expensive packages include the ability to send inmails and connect directly with the hiring managers. The most expensive package is priced at $49.95 a month.

I think this is worth it and I am a huge proponent and investing in yourself and career. With that being said, I do think you can achieve similar results through Linkedin for Free. My advice would be to create your target list of companies that you want to work for and then search for recruiters or Hr Managers from that company. Next step is to craft a well written note and click on the link that says “Add ____ to your network” and send your note.

Do not just send the standard greeting, you will be more successful if you customize your introduction, instead of the standard “I would like to add you to my network” Do not ask for an interview or sell yourself at this stage, that will come later. The first couple of encounters should be done in an effort to build a relationship. Once the foundation has been built you can then start working towards discussing job prospects.

Either way you choose the paid option or the free work around, the take away here is to include Linkedin as a primary source in your job search strategy.

Original Article

How to use LinkedIn with business savvy

By Mary Ellen Slayter

This post is by Brooke Howell, SmartBrief’s small-business editor.

When Lewis Howes crushed his wrist, along with his dream of making his fortune playing football, and ended up bedridden on his sister’s couch with no college degree and no job, he could have made best friends with Ben & Jerry and whiled away the hours watching TV.

Instead, he spent six to eight hours a day experimenting with LinkedIn — tweaking his profile and learning the ins and outs, often through trial and error. After he was able to get up and about, he cut back to about three hours a day and kept on learning.

Sound like a waste of time? Nope. We’re not talking about Facebook here. Howes wasn’t posting pictures of the people who came to sign his cast and taking quizzes to find out which Disney princess he’s most like. He was doing business and growing into a business pro.

“I believe that LinkedIn is the No. 1 social-networking medium on the planet today … for anyone looking to build their business,” Howes told participants in the Social Media Success Summit on Tuesday afternoon.

For Howes, LinkedIn has been just that — and he says it can do the same for you, too.

“Start using it aggressively every day and testing and tweaking to see what works for you,” he suggests.

Luckily, you won’t have to spend quite as many hours learning LinkedIn as Howes did, because he’s happy to share what he learned, not only at SMSS, but with co-author Frank Agin in their book “LinkedWorking: Generating Success on the World’s Largest Professional Networking Website.”

Howes says LinkedIn is so powerful for a number of reasons, including:

• You can export your contact list into a file that you can keep and analyze.
• You can have an unlimited number of contacts.
• Its members are largely business professionals, many of whom are decision-makers.

Like any powerful tool, though, you have to put some thought into how you use LinkedIn, starting with your profile. And every profile, says Howes, must start with a keyword or two. For Howes, the word is “sports.” For you it could be “kitchen contractor,” “tax expert” or “French chef.” What’s important is that it gets at what you are all about.

That keyword needs to appear in five places in your profile:

1. Headline
2. Current experience
3. Past experiences
4. Summary
5. List of specialties

Putting the keyword in those five places will help move you up in LinkedIn searches and help people who are looking for experts in your field find and connect with you, says Howes, who is often at the top of searches for “sports.”

In addition to putting your keyword in your summary, he says, you need to be sure that summary answers three important questions:

1. Who are you?
2. Who do you want to help?
3. How are you going to help them?

Answer these questions and write them in a narrative format, not in formal bullet points as you would in a resume, Howes says. He gave more good tips and referred SMSS participants to check out free instructional videos on his website for more information.

It is worth your time to get on LinkedIn and learn to use it with savvy as an important business tool. The great thing about the medium is that you can use its best features for free, which is great for everyone and especially useful to entrepreneurs, independent contractors, solo businesses and small companies that may not have the bucks to spend on marketing and other outreach efforts.

Have you achieved business success with the help of LinkedIn? Tell us about it and share your tips.

For more great sessions on how to develop a social-media strategy and maximize your efforts, check out the continuing 100% online Social Media Success Summit that (full disclosure) SmartBrief helped plan. For access to the whole session and many others, sign up here.

How To Use LinkedIn To Find A New Job Or Career

With social networking websites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Myspace leading the way in the new world of linking the world on the internet, LinkedIn is definitely the most useful in terms of networking and job searches. It has become customary for employees of reputable organizations to have a LinkedIn profile and network and joining this league can help you a lot with job searches.

Map your network. LinkedIn helps you map and manage your network whether it is your former and current colleagues, clients, or even college friends. Once you have joined and established contact with people you know, you have a profile and an established identity on the website. This means that not only does your profile show your work experience, education, skills, and interests, but it also shows your links in different organizations and places.

Leverage Contacts. How is this useful for job searches? Once you have mapped out your network, you can figure out which contacts to leverage or get in touch with regarding any upcoming opportunities that will suit your profile. With the feature of status updates, you can keep your network updated about your availability and preferences.

Build Credibility. Your network and references from colleagues and employers can help build credibility with contacts who do not know you that well. The features on the community site can help you ease communication with people that you have not talked to for years and will let you have better results on job searches.

Job Search Feature. The Job Search feature on LinkedIn is custom-built to help you find jobs in a specific location or industry. The difference between other job sites and this job search is that your profile is more representative and can prove to be a very useful tool to convince prospective employers of your resourcefulness and experience.

Industry Insights. Another useful feature that you can use by joining LinkedIn is the access to public profiles of millions of users. If you are looking for a job in a particular industry or organization, you can get additional insights from viewing the experience level and skill set of current employees and new hires. This will give you an idea of whether your experience matches that of current employees and which skills and background should you leverage the most in your application and interview.

Be Available To Recruiters. From the perspective of recruiters and Human Resource departments at organizations, LinkedIn is a huge pool of potential employees that they can scope for job openings. If your job skills and experience match their requirements, you may soon be hearing about relevant opportunities in your industry. So, with that respect, it may pay to keep your online “resume” or profile as up-to-date as possible.

LinkedIn provides an easy opportunity to use untapped resources on the internet that will put you forward in your search for a job or better career opportunities. If you do not have an account on LinkedIn, you should definitely head over there as soon as you are done reading this article. Even if you are not currently looking for a new job, now is the best time to lay the ground work before you need a network of friends and associates.

Don’t forget to sign up for a Twitter account as well. If you have a large following on Twitter, what a wonderful way to announce to thousands of followers instantly that you are back on the job market.

Original Article

How to Share Your LinkedIn Profile

by Jason Alba

Here’s a simple question that a lot of people mess up. Many times I’ll get an email that says “will you check out my LinkedIn Profile, here’s the link: http://www.linkedin.com/myprofile?trk=hb_tab_pro”

Actually, that IS NOT the link to YOUR LinkedIn Profile… what they did was they went to their LinkedIn Profile and then copy and pasted the URL to me… see the red arrow:

The right LINK to share, if you want someone to see your LinkedIn Profile, is down a bit… scroll down to the bottom of all the main stuff… it is just above the LinkedIn Summary… this is the link that you actually want to share (this can go in your email signature, on your business card, etc.):

If this helped you then you definitely need to order one of the Jason Alba Products:

Want to know the difference in the top 20 Job Search Sites?

Top 20 Job Search Web Sites:
"As we all know by now, unemployment numbers are sky high . However, there is a silver lining for those looking for new employment: there are more resources than ever to help job seekers find work.

These 20 Web sites take different approaches to find you the right job. Some sites, like Indeed, simply aggregate material from all other sites, while sites like TheLadders make you pay to take advantage of their high-paying job services. No matter how select or general you want your job search to be, one of these sites has you covered.

Scroll through our list of favorites and find the career site that best fits your own needs. And good luck with the job hunt!"

Beyond

Beyond.com claims to be the "largest network of niche career communities" on the Net. It essentially hooks together different organizations like PRJobForce.com and PhillyJobs.com all in one place, which makes it easy to find leads in your community.

CareerBuilder

As the Web's biggest job site, CareerBuilder gets more than 23 million visitors a month. The company has been around since 1995, and has developed an incredible network of listing sources and job search centers since that time.



Craigslist

The granddaddy of online classifieds gives those who are focused on searching for jobs within their communities an easy way to look. It might be one of the least-polished entities listed here, but the sheer number of local job listings makes up for it.

ExecuSearch

ExecuSearch looks to be a selective, higher-tier job search property. ExecuSearch screens and reviews every resume that is submitted, and helps employers find the best possible candidates for their open positions.

Hound

Hound's search engine shows jobs from employer Web sites only. In theory, this cuts out duplicate listings and shows opportunities that are not posted on other job boards.

Indeed

Indeed works as an aggregator for listings from major job Web sites, company Web sites, associations, and other online sources. Its simplicity and ease of use are its best features.

JobCentral

JobCentral is a service formed by a nonprofit consortium of U.S. corporations like IBM and Dell, which makes it ideal if you're looking for corporate job listings.

JobServe

JobServe claims it was "the world's first Internet recruitment service." In 2008, JobServe advertised more than 2.5 million jobs across 15 industry sectors.

Jobster

Jobster uses an active approach to help employers and recruiting teams of all sizes find their candidates. The company calls its method "social recruiting," and it services 24 different job categories.

LinkedIn

Best known for being a social network for professionals, LinkedIn also has thorough job listings, some of which are exclusive to LinkedIn.

Monster

In addition to being arguably the best-known global job-listings site, Monster also offers advice on resumes, interviewing, and salary information.

Oodle

Oodle, which specializes in online classifieds, includes a job classifieds section that finely cuts job opportunities down to job title, category, industry, and company. Did you know, for example, that Best Buy has nearly 10,000 openings?

onTargetjobs

onTargetjobs owns a lot of smaller niche sites like BioSpace.com and MedHunters.com. Its expansive niche database allows users to find compatible job listings more easily than with general sites.

SimplyHired

SimplyHired is similar to Indeed, as it also aggregates listings from major job Web sites, newspapers, company Web sites, and associations. However, the site goes a little deeper and allows users to send their resumes out for posting on five other sites for free.

SnagAjob

SnagAJob is basically the antithesis of sites like TheLadders and ExecuSearch, as its focus is on hourly employment only. The site has partnered with companies like 7 Eleven, Red Lobster, and AMF, to bring the most up-to-date hourly job openings.

TheLadders

This job site has branded itself as the place to look for $100,000+ jobs only. Job seekers have to pay $30 per month to fully take advantage of the site's services.

Trovix

Trovix's free search engine makes the job-search process more personalized. Users input their work experience and qualifications and the site matches results to what info they have given. Trovix also has an innovative feature called Job Map, which allows you to type in your location and see on Google Maps how many jobs are available in your area.

TweetMyJobs

One of the newest sites to take advantage of social media, TweetMyJobs supplies Twitter users with instantaneous job listings that are derived from TweetMyJobs' Job Channels.

USAJobs

USAJobs is the official job site for the U.S. government. With the government looking to significantly increase spending during the next few years, looking at federal jobs might not be a bad move if you're in a tough place.

Yahoo HotJobs

As one of the biggest job sites on the Web, HotJobs distinguishes itself by focusing on features such as status (which shows how many times one's resume has been viewed) and the ability to block companies from seeing your resume.

Twitter Turbocharges Executive Job Search and Personal Brand Visibility

by Meg Guiseppi

In a recent chat about social media, a new client and I discussed the value of LinkedIn and Twitter. “Randy” understood that, just to keep pace with his competition in the job market, he had to have a strong presence on LinkedIn and take advantage of all it has to offer. He had already made some strides with it.

But when it came to Twitter, Randy was adamant. “If you think I’m going to waste my time on Twitter telling people what I had for breakfast, you’re crazy!”

Are you Twitter-resistant like Randy, still sitting on the sidelines, thinking it’s a waste of time, and questioning whether there’s any value at all there?

With more than 60 million users, Twitter is a powerful place to:

• Build credibility, visibility, and evangelism for your brand and unique value proposition,
• Extend your online presence.
• Position yourself in front of employers and hiring decision makers.
• Connect with new communities of subject matter experts and thought leaders, and
• Uncover opportunities that may lead to landing a job.

Many, many employers these days are hanging out on Twitter, tweeting job openings at all levels and tweeting about their organizations. Shouldn’t you be there too, connecting with them, learning from them, and staying top of mind with them?

Where else online (or offline for that matter) can you listen in on and learn from conversations your targeted key decision makers are having, without being invited?

It may take a little time to get the hang of Twitter, but soon it will all click, and you’ll get into a rhythm.

Getting started basics

• Set up your free Twitter account claiming your real name, or variation if yours is taken, for your Twitter @username. Or you may want to choose something highlighting your expertise, like “COOBobJames”, if “BobJames” isn’t available.
• Upload a professional head shot.
• Add a link to your blog or website (if you have one), or Google Profile, LinkedIn Profile, VisualCV, etc.
• Create an abbreviated version (160 character maximum) of your keyword-rich personal brand positioning statement for your Twitter “bio”.
• For now, choose a Twitter background other than the default. You can customize this later.
• Noodle around and get comfortable with how Twitter works.

Building out your network with old friends and fresh faces.

Use Twitter Search or Twellow, the Twitter Yellow Pages, to search for, find the Twitter usernames for, follow, and retweet these groups of people:

• Friends and colleagues in your existing real-life and online networks.
• Your target employers. See if they’re on Job-Hunt’s list of employers who are using Twitter to recruit.
• Major players and decision makers in your industry.
• Recruiters in your industry. Also look at recruiter Jeff Lipschultz’s list of recruiters.
• Thought leaders, subject matter experts, and other people who are talking about your industry.
• Top career people. Check out Job-Hunt’s 101 Best Twitter Job Search/Career Experts Plus 6.

See my post, Twitter Personal Branding Strategy: The Beauty of a Retweet. If you do nothing else on Twitter, you can get results by retweeting, but don’t stop there.

Use hashtags in your tweets and retweets (RTs) when you can. Read Ben Parr’s (@BenParr) HOW TO: Get the Most Out of Twitter #Hashtags, at @mashable for all the skinny.

Once you build up a strong and diverse following, tweet what kind of job you’re looking for. Put the information out there. Someone may be looking for candidates just like you. Or someone following your tweets may know someone who needs you.

Through the Tweets of those you follow you may uncover job opportunities, plus gather market intelligence and discover challenges facing your target companies which you may be able to help them overcome.

Twitter is all about micro-blogging “tweets” in 140 characters or less. For best impact, Tweet (and RT) content that is consistent with your brand and will be interesting to your followers and relevant to your target audience.

Google indexes tweets, so the more you tweet, the more you’ll expand your online identity.

A few Twitter tips:

Realize that when people look at your Twitter profile page, they’ll see your most recent 20 tweets and the time line and frequency of your postings. Avoid constantly repeating the same tweets.

Include targeted keywords – including company names, products, industry names, and people – in your tweets to lead hiring professionals to you.

Retweet your own important tweets using hashtags with the keywords.

Mix up your tweets for variety:

• Retweets
• Tweets with URLs to relevant articles and blog posts.
• Tweets that demonstrate your knowledge about best practices, trends and events, and position yourself as a subject matter expert.
• Some tweets with relevant and/or inspirational quotes.

If you’re blogging or publishing articles, book reviews, or anything else online, tweet it.

Use Twitter lists to save time and organize users into groups. Search for lists through individual Twitter accounts and by keywords through directories, such as Listorious. Also curate your own Twitter lists.

Use applications such as Tweetdeck to manage your groups of tweeps and to schedule your tweets.

Bring your Twitter stream into your LinkedIn profile (see applications on your LinkedIn home page).

Original Post

Top 3 Mistakes People Make on LinkedIn

Everyone is on LinkedIn these days. Let’s face it. Almost every CEO from every fortune 500. Last count was over 60 million users.

In contrast, job boards only have about 3.5% of available jobs. This is common knowledge in the career industry, but why do so many people spend so much time on job boards?

Answer: Because it feels safer.

LinkedIn is really all about networking. And socializing in an unfamiliar environment can be frightening. I know, I’m an introvert. I totally understand why job seekers try to spend as little time as possible in front of LinkedIn.

So what I want to offer 3 of the most common mistakes in using LinkedIn and how to avoid them. My goal is to help job seekers get over any unconscious resistance to using the most powerful job finding tool ever invented.

And if you want to register to a free webinar about how to proactively get job interviews using LinkedIn on 12/22, CLICK HERE TO REGISTER.

Mistake 1: Not Having a Brand

Shoe companies have brands, not people!

Wrong.

Looking for a job is just another sales situation. You are your product. And everything about you is going to either sell you, or turn people away.

It’s really just a choice you have to make inside.

Just like how we make buying decisions emotionally, sometimes based on silly things, like the color of the packaging. So too do hiring managers unconsciously make decisions about our candidacy.

If your Resume doesn’t quite match your LinkedIn profile, and that doesn’t match what your referral said about you, then you are in big trouble.

The risk of being inconsistent is huge, and it helps to have defined “who you are” long before you put yourself out there.

The second part of branding is knowing your audience. What are their 2 biggest problems right now, that you could potentially solve?

The trick is to align the “who you are” with the “what they need”, so that there is a nice overlap.

This, my friends, is your personal brand. It will define your strategy, your writing style, your colors, photos and everything else about you online.

Most people crank out their LinkedIn profile without doing this step first.

Mistake 2: You are NOT Your J-o-b

“Systems Engineer”

“Marketing Executive”

“Fundraiser”

These appear under someone’s name in their LinkedIn profiles. And they tell us nothing about who this person really is.

They are a commodity.

Quick story. I had a client, a network engineer, who wanted to work for a very large shoe company. No, not Nike, but good guess.

He knew they had 2 problems. First, they had no internal network. Second, their external network was so broken that it was affecting supply chain.

So in order to really appeal to this company, we needed to directly address their biggest challenges- challenges that he had the capacity to solve.

So his headline went like this, “Powerful Intranet builder|Supply Chain thought leader|Project management guru”

You have 120 characters to tell the world who you are and what value you bring.

And every communication you generate on LinkedIn will have this professional headline attached to it.

So choose wisely.

Hint: don’t use your job title as your headline

Mistake 3: Don’t Look Like an Axe Murderer

Every single time I speak about social media in the job search, someone always comes up to me afterward to ask me this question, “But I’m just not that comfortable putting my picture up”. They are either too young or too old or too something.

Yes, ageism, racism and sexism are very real. It’s sad and terrible that they still happen in our society. But using a black and white photo, or zooming way out to try and hide something about ourselves is not going to solve the problem.

The only thing we can do is put some time and effort into our photos, to reflect who we are honestly. And to make a nice looking photo.

All too often, people will put up a mug shot, and wonder why they aren’t getting call backs.

This really happened to a friend’s client. And the day he changed his photo, he got a job offer. No exaggeration. (I can hear the HR people cringing from this story, but it’s true).

So the lesson from this is that it is worth getting a professional headshot taken if you are serious about getting a job.

Original Post On Careerealism

Keep in touch to stand out

Mark Frietch has seen the labor market from both sides: as a recruiter for large organizations and, when he lost his job at Wachovia last year, as one of the thousands of the Charlotte region's unemployed.

Frietch launched his own business, TAC Services LLC, in July, advising small companies on the best ways to attract and retain talent, and coaching job candidates on the best ways to stand out in the crowded job market. And he's worked a series of contract positions since then, recruiting for companies such as GMAC, Ingersoll Rand and, now, Time Warner Cable.

Frietch spoke with the Observer last week about the job market, how to start the search and the biggest mistake job-seekers make. Questions and answers have been edited for brevity and clarity.

Q: How has the job search changed since the recession began?

Five years ago, everybody could post on Monster.com and CareerBuilder.com, and they would get a phone call, but it's not that type of job market anymore. There's that old adage: It's not what you know, it's who you know. It's no longer even that - it's about who they know. A lot of people are ashamed of being displaced. But the more people that know about your situation, the more likely someone is to help you. But don't do it in a desperate manner. Just let people know you've been displaced, and let them know to tell you of any opportunities or anyone they know that would be worth networking with.

Q: What are some tips for job-seekers, especially those who are new to the area?

Don't be ashamed. Don't get frustrated. And follow up, follow up, follow up - that's key.

I think definitely leveraging social media, like LinkedIn. Say, "Hey, I'm new to the area and looking to build my network." They may not be a hiring manager, they may not know of anything, but you can start getting a better lay of the land by just sitting down and talking.

Keep in touch. I do my best to remember people's birthdays and significant events, whether it be a wedding, or they're taking a ski trip in the Alps. I keep all those notes, and then you can say, "Let's get together for a cup of coffee and find out how your ski trip went." It's taking a personal interest in somebody else, and then they're going to take a personal interest in you.

I always keep an updated resume. If you have a smart phone, e-mail it to yourself. That way you always have a copy of it.

CareerBuilder and Monster, they're great for high-volume type of roles; however, I think you've got to be out there and in front of the hiring manager and recruiter. It's very important to market yourself and show that you've got that value for the organization.

Q: What can candidates do to stand out?

Try to find out who the hiring manager is, and maybe say, "Hey, I applied for your job. I want to sit down and introduce myself." Take that initiative - it goes a long way. A person I was connected with when I was at GMAC sent me a message and said, "Congrats on your new role; if you see any positions that I could be a good fit for, please keep me in mind." It just so happened that, within days, I got a job that fit her background. I presented her to the client and said, "I think this is the person you're going to hire."

It wasn't because I knew a lot about her work ... but she took the initiative and ended up getting hired.

You see the news stories about the billboards with a link to your resume, people wearing the placards, the T-shirts with their resume - that's all well and good, but I think it comes down to the relationships you have.

Q: What are some mistakes job-seekers make?

Not following up and not taking that initiative. I also think people aren't sure how to get in front of the right people. People think it's, "Because I post my resume and meet four of the five criteria they're looking for, I'm a good fit." Well, somebody's out there meeting five of them. How do you stack up against those individuals?

Q: What are your thoughts on the economic recovery? Is hiring picking up?

Certain positions - those that bring immediate revenue, like sales - are being filled. Once those start to fill up, companies are going to need backup support and managers. ... You always see high-turnover roles, where people get burned out easily, like call-center positions.

It's going to take a while for unemployment to get back to what we saw a few years ago. Companies are going to be very conservative with their hiring. As things pick up, companies will still have to grow ... but they're not going to do it as rapidly or aggressively as they have in the past.

Q: What's the most surprising thing, for the newly unemployed, about the job search these days?

One thing would be how closely companies are looking at the minimum qualifications. A lot of people say because they have certain parts of the job, they'd make a good fit. They can be somebody with a great personality and a really tough story, but at the end of the day, you're not going to be able to help them, because they're not qualified. The biggest thing is, everybody has a tough story. We hear them on a daily basis, but it's our job to find the right people.

Read more: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2010/05/09/1423031/recruiter-keep-in-touch-to-stand.html#ixzz0nTuPjoKD

Finding your dream job just got easier

Finding your dream job just got easier

Parker Barrile

In this economic environment it’s tough to find a job. But LinkedIn can help. Today we’re excited to announce a major upgrade for job seekers on LinkedIn: the Job Seeker Premium Account.

We spoke with hundreds of job seekers to understand their needs and designed a package of features to help them stand out from the crowd, reach out to hiring decision makers, and manage their job search more effectively. The new Job Seeker Premium Account enables job seekers to:

• Move to the top of the hiring manager’s list as Featured Applicant when you apply to jobs on LinkedIn
• Send personalized InMail messages directly to hiring managers, even those outside their network
• Save profiles, add notes and keep track of contacts from your job search with Profile Organizer

We’re also launching a new Job Seeker Webinar, hosted by career expert Lindsey Pollak, that provides guidance on how to use LinkedIn to find a job and take control of your career. The webinar includes a series of specific, tactical tips for how job seekers can make the most of LinkedIn’s free and premium features. The 60-minute session is held monthly and is free for all LinkedIn members, which you can sign up for here.

And don’t forget that LinkedIn has tens of thousands of high-quality job listings that you can search, view and apply to for free. So if you’re looking for a job, give LinkedIn Jobs a spin. We think you’ll agree with Fortune Magazine that “if you are serious about managing your career, the only site that matters is LinkedIn”.