LinkedIn Assistance
Post your resume and profile to Linkedin.com as there are over 120 million users and adding two new members every second. The rate at which your network expands on Linkedin can be truly amazing, many of which are recruiters! It’s all about, “Connecting talent with opportunity on a massive scale.”
Ensure you are up on Linkedin with a great profile as well as keep it updated as you move forward in your career. If you’re not actively using Linkedin, you are missing out on tons of great opportunities, many of which are never advertised.
It's the fastest way to get in front of prospective employers as it's the largest professional social media network in the world. Recruiters nowadays use Linkedin as their primary shopping guide for new prospective candidates. You will be blown away by the number of responses you will get if you develop and execute an effective strategy using Linkedin as you will be way ahead of 90% of your competition. You can’t afford not to be on Linkedin.
WHY LINKEDIN IS IMPORTANT IN YOUR JOB SEARCH
Once upon a time, attending networking mixers, industry events and Chamber of Commerce meetings were the best way to make new connections and build business relationships. Now, these activities have moved online within the LinkedIn community. Much like networking in person, professionals interact on LinkedIn with the explicit intention of making business connections.
With LinkedIn, you get all the benefits of networking in person, with less of the hassle. Instead of going from business lunch to business lunch hoping to meet people, LinkedIn provides a platform for you to specifically search and research individuals who you know will directly add value to your job search.
Employers and recruiters use LinkedIn to locate both active job seekers and those who aren’t necessarily looking (passive candidates). They also use LinkedIn to vet job candidates before making an interview invitation or extending a job offer.
The ability to identify, research, contact, follow-up, engage and maintain your contacts in one place is the power of LinkedIn. Its ability to facilitate business networking is unmatched by any other social network. Essentially, your LinkedIn profile is a résumé, business card and an elevator speech all rolled up into one.
However, your LinkedIn profile is not your résumé. LinkedIn is a personal branding page. You need both a résumé and a LinkedIn profile, and they should be in sync with one another, but not be exact copies. The information on your résumé should match your profile (in terms of positions you’ve held, your educational credentials, etc.), but the content you include on your LinkedIn profile will be different than what is included on your résumé.
POINTERS
Below are a few pointers that while assist you in preparing a great Linkedin profile with several ways that recruiters will be able to search for you.
- List each job in reverse chronological order; many recruiters search candidates by company and/or position, so ensure you list company and position title for each
- Don’t go so far back that it looks like you’re too old; restrict how far you go back
- Add a great photo; if you need to, have one professionally done with only you in the photo; leave out spouses and/or significant others; don’t try and crop it yourself, leaving in someone’s hand on your shoulder; prospective employers will be looking at you, so you want to be represented in your best likeness
- List each of your associations and certifications because recruiters by these rather than employer
- Give details and achievements; recruiter what to know what you’ve accomplished
- Focus responsibilities on actions, impact and results
- Complete the ‘specialties’ section; it allows you to list your key skills and knowledge areas; think about this carefully and include as many keywords as you can;think like a recruiter for a moment– if a recruiter is looking for someone well-versed in web 2.0 technologies and you don’t have those words anywhere in your profile, he/she won’t be able to find you
- Create and edit Your Sub-header–don’t leave this blank, unless your job title itself is so impressive that people would want to hire you just because of it. For example, if you’re a Joke Writer for The Daily Show or Second Baseman for the Yankees, that might be all you need to say, but for the rest of us, our job title isn’t the most compelling piece of information, which is underneath your name on your profile, you can also have a brief narrative summary of who you are and what you’ve done following below that under the ‘Profile’ section going into more detail
More to come soon.......
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