Arnie Fertig, Author at Job-Hunt

3 Ways to Effectively Grow Your LinkedIn Network

Arnie Fertig — Tue, 11 May 2021 17:16:32 +0000

When presenting LinkedIn seminars to groups of job hunters, I’m often confronted by attendees who are highly skeptical about the whole social/sharing experience.

“I only will connect with people I know well,” someone will defiantly contend. Piling on, someone else will often ask in a show of can’t-be-bothered defensiveness: “Why do I want to give information about myself to strangers?”

Nonetheless, there are measures to protect yourself that you can reasonably take.

Most important, however, is to jettison the “I’m going to protect my contacts” and “I’m not sharing what I know lest it give someone else an advantage” mentalities.

This is the age of connecting and social sharing

To be sure, there is legitimate reason to have a healthy skepticism of strangers.

Because my articles here on job-hunt.org, USNews & World Report, and elsewhere give me wide exposure, I typically get several requests a day to link to people who may know who I am, but of whom I have absolutely no knowledge.

Bear in mind, you don’t need to have an “all or nothing” policy of connecting with strangers. Use common sense about which invitations to accept or reject.

Determine Your Connection Criteria

My inclination is to connect with people who seem credible, and not with others. I take the time to look at the profile of everyone who requests a connection for a quick sense of their persona.

These are things that I typically screen for:

Does someone have a professional headshot?
Do they have a professional sounding headline, with a reasonable work history and stated accomplishments?
Do they appear to strictly be marketing products or services? (Thanks, but I’m not interested.)
Where are they living? I’ve found great benefit in connecting to people in distant countries, but at the same time, there are some places in the world where I really don’t want to build a network. Be sensible!
Is it possible that I might be able to be professionally helpful to someone who requests a link?
Do they appear to have a reasonably sized network themselves?

Everyone will have his or her own idea of what makes someone “credible” so your criteria may be different. If the person is impossibly attractive and has very few connections, the profile could be fake (for marketing, selling, and other purposes), another good reason to check the member’s profile before accepting or ignoring the invitation to connect.

Expanding Your LinkedIn Network

With these guidelines, above, in mind for dealing with incoming requests to connect, here are some things you can do to proactively expand your network:

1. Let LinkedIn access your email and connect with people you know.

You’ll see who already has a LinkedIn account, and these people should be your initial prime “target connections”. Don’t bother inviting people who don’t have LinkedIn accounts of their own, because by definition they won’t have any 2nd or 3rd degree connections that will dramatically expand your reach. Aim for people with more than 100 connections, and ideally 500+ (which is the most that LinkedIn will show).

To give you a sense of the power of connecting with people who have their own large networks already, consider this: at this writing I have approximately 3,500 first degree connections. That yields a network of nearly 5 million second degree connections!

Remember that when you connect to someone, their first degree connections become your second degree connections, and their second degree connections become your third degree connections. Adding even a few very high-powered first degree connections will dramatically increase your own reach. And this can help you tremendously when you are researching companies and looking for “ins” as part of your job search!

2. Let LinkedIn help you.

In the same way that Amazon guesses what products you might be interested in based on what you’ve previously searched for and bought, LinkedIn’s predictive logic will make suggestions of people you might know.

In addition, LinkedIn knows all of its members who have worked at your places of employment and studied at the same schools at the same time as you.

That’s why it is so important to have a complete profile with dates of employment and years you attended your college (and grad school)! It is a great way of reconnecting with long-lost friends, or connecting for the first time to people who have something of substance in common with you.

3. Be active on LinkedIn.

LinkedIn Groups and the other LinkedIn updates are excellent ways to increase both your visibility and your credibility. Whenever you join a Group, by default you become connected to everyone else in that Group. Members can message each other without paying for InMail up to 10 messages per month.

That’s why it is so important to join a good number of groups (LinkedIn allow you to be in 100 groups at any one time). Mix them up! Join groups based on your geography, your industry, your skills, college alumni groups, employer alumni groups and more!

Like, share, and comment, as appropriate, on the stream of updates you see on your LinkedIn home page. Stay on-topic for you and your personal brand, but try to do at least one or two “updates” a day during the week.

More: 6 Simple Ways to Keep Your Network Alive

Bottom Line

You’ll be surprised when you take these steps how quickly your network will expand, and how much more useful LinkedIn will become in making yourself visible to people who are looking to hire people like yourself!

Happy hunting!

4 Steps to Build a More Effective Job Search Network

Arnie Fertig — Tue, 11 May 2021 17:14:47 +0000

Do you remember your mother warning you over and over again when you were a young child: “Never speak to strangers”?

As adults, in order to progress in our careers we need to continually reach out and meet new people and develop new relationships.

This is what we call “networking.”

Yet, for many of us, the fear of strangers we learned as children is hard to unlearn.

Surprisingly, a seemingly gregarious state-wide office holder recently confided, “One of my least favorite things is going into a room of strangers, going from table to table to introduce myself.”

However, because he is willing to confront his discomfort on a regular basis, he has become a leader beloved by many. And, if you make a plan and stick to it, you too can become adept at mastering situations both in-person and through social networks online that will be of great benefit to you.

You are naturally a part of many networks already: your family, friends, co-workers, alumni or professional organizations, neighborhood or religious groups – the list goes on and on. Any group of which you are a part can be considered a network.

Building Your Network

Most of us are fine in any of these family, social, or community settings. But when it comes to networking for a job we panic. In this context we forget too often that networking is about building productive relationships that in turn can lead to great job opportunities.

One of the biggest “networking failures” is when you think that networking is only about you getting others to help you get a job.

A worldwide organization, Business Networking International (BNI), continually reminds its members that effective networking is when you “give to get.”

You will be most successful getting what you want when you extend yourself for the other person before asking or expecting anything from them.

To be successful networking for a new job, consider crafting a well-thought out strategy with these elements:

1. Understand Who You Are

In order to project yourself outward, and draw people to you at the same time, it is critical that you understand “who you are.”

In today’s parlance, that means developing a succinct, identifiable and unique personal brand.

You can be confident of yourself as the professional you are – and project yourself as such, even if you are not currently receiving a paycheck.

When someone asks you to tell about yourself you don’t need to say, “I’m unemployed” or “My background is…” and continue with a long story.

Instead, simply offer your brand: “I’m a such-and-such professional, with expertise in A, B, and C.”

2. Understand What You Have to Offer – and Give It Freely

Delivering information of value makes you stand out from everyone else.

It is easier than you might imagine to make important contributions to those you network with on LinkedIn’s Groups, or at live events. Ask an intelligent question about what the speaker or writer is trying to say, or shed some light on the issue from a different vantage point.

Better yet, write an article that will be of interest to others that highlights your own knowledge about your professional field, a particular tool or approach you’ve taken that gets results. Relate what you’ve learned through study, or research you’ve conducted. Offer to lead a program at an alumni dinner, speak at a professional symposium, or in any other context where you can make a contribution.

Contributors are seen as leaders, and leaders are seen as good “hires” by recruiters and executives.

3. Integrate Your Knowledge and Networks

Make yourself a pivotal individual by introducing people you know, or information you learn, in one context with people you know in a different context.

You might, for example, be in any number of LinkedIn groups that deal with your particular skills doing AAA in industry X. If you are looking to move into another industry, explore how you can share what you learned about the skill in one place as a new way of doing something in that new field.

4. Get Ahead Now by Focusing on the Future

Often, people only think about networking when they need something: a job. But if you approach people with an air of desperation, they will flee before you. “Yes, but this is what I need, NOW!” you might respond. Of course it would be great if you could snap your fingers and someone would wave a job offer in front of you. But in reality, it rarely happens that way.

The Bottom Line

An often-used rule of thumb suggests that you should anticipate spending a month looking for a job for each $10,000 of base salary you expect to earn.

It will take time, but if you become an active and purposeful networker, it will ultimately pay off. You will be a stronger, more valuable professional for your next employer when you take the time to learn, to teach, and most especially engage with an ever-broadening network of your peer professionals.

Happy hunting!

More About How to Network Successfully

If You HATE to Network…
If You Don’t Have a Network
How to Nurture Your Network and Empower Your Career
7 Strategies for Painlessly Building Your Network
Stealth Job Search Networking (how to network without losing your job)
Guide to Job Search Networking — more articles

About the author…

The post 4 Steps to Build a More Effective Job Search Network appeared first on Job-Hunt.

The 3 Elements of Great LinkedIn Recommendations

Arnie Fertig — Tue, 11 May 2021 17:14:39 +0000

We rely on recommendations for everything from where to eat, shop, or travel, to what products or services to buy.

Recommendations have always been a part of the hiring process, as employers rely on the word of someone who knows a potential employee to vouch for his or her talents, expertise and character.

Naturally, LinkedIn has provided a method of making recommendations available for members.

Do NOT Do This…

Imagine receiving this message via LinkedIn in your regular email account as I did recently:

“[Name] has shared his profile with you. Click below to leave him a quick recommendation. He will be much obliged you have supported his efforts!”

At first blush it seems like a routine use of social media to enhance the reputation of a contact.

However:

Rather than coming from someone you know, it turns out that it came from a total stranger.
This stranger has also copied more than 20 other total strangers on the message.
Rather than directing you to LinkedIn’s own recommendation feature, the link sends you to another site altogether.

This is a case of brash networking incompetence. When you act this way, you can easily lose potential friendships and alienate people.

I regarded the email as shameless self-promotion, asking me to lie about knowing a person and to make up something positive about him to lure others into a relationship with him.

Use LinkedIn’s Recommendations Wisely

One of LinkedIn’s most under used, but a potentially valuable function, is the Recommendation (as opposed to the Endorsement). A recommendation actually requires someone to use words instead of just clicking on a Skill (learn why LinkedIn Skills are important).

Some recruiters depend heavily on Recommendations, while others don’t take them very seriously. However, a Profile which lacks any Recommendations is looked at with a bit of skepticism by most recruiters.

LinkedIn safeguards its users from having negative or inaccurate things said about them by requiring that the person being referred to approve a recommendation prior to it being posted on their Profile. And, it allows the two people involved to work with each other to tweak the language until both are entirely satisfied with it.

When you give someone whose personality and work you admire a recommendation, you show yourself to be a strong networker and team player. And, of course, what goes around tends to come around in the form of a return recommendation.

**How to Give a Recommendation**

To give a LinkedIn connection a recommendation, simply navigate to their Profile.

As you see in this image (same on both smart phones and computer screens) —

Click on the “More…” next to the blue and white “Message” button to open up the menu.

It is the seventh item in the menu, just below the “Request a Recommendation” option.

NOTE: The person you are recommending must be a 1st degree connection for you to have this option available.

Key Elements of a Great Recommendation:

A great recommendation will have 3 main elements, each made powerful by the specific facts a solid reference can bring to bear:

1. The relationship context.

Example: “I’ve known Joe for X years. We worked together at Moonscape, Inc. on a project to prepare and ship green cheese to the moon.”

2. What the person has done.

Example: “Joe’s job was to load the green cheese on to rocket ships. His work was always accurately executed. But in order to ensure that the launch was flawless and on time, he took the extra steps of staying late and coming in weekends to help out a coworker who lost several days of work for her own personal reasons.”

3. The person’s key strengths and talents.

Example: “Joe knows his way around our organization, and does whatever it takes, within the rules, to get things done. He has a good sense of people’s capacities, and, as a loyal team member, brings out the best in those around him. He knows our line of green cheese, and makes sure the product is where it needs to be, when it needs to be there. He’s really made a difference in our department’s success!”

The Bottom Line

Traditionally, companies only bothered to check references at the end of a hiring process. But your ability to give and get references posted on LinkedIn can turn the process upside down.

In effect, a LinkedIn recommendation says to an employer: it is worth your time to get to know this person, because this is what you will find of value in him or her as a potential new employee.

To boost your job hunt, remember that good networking is not about shameless self-promotion, but rather building solid relationships. It’s about “give to get” and not “give me!” When you act this way you will enhance your own reputation, gain public standing, and evidence yourself to be the kind of person that others want to be around.

7 Ways to Attract Recruiters on LinkedIn

Arnie Fertig — Tue, 11 May 2021 17:14:38 +0000

Like so many things, there is no one “right” way to use social media in general, and LinkedIn in particular. This is particularly true when it comes to your job hunt.

But what is equally true is that failing to take advantage of LinkedIn is tantamount to negligence in the business of job hunting.

There are numerous ways to use this mega-site for your job search, but you can break them into three main categories:

Making yourself findable.
Finding specific job opportunities.
Gaining valuable business intelligence.

In this article, I’ll focus on what you need to do to establish a solid LinkedIn presence so you are findable.

Be Easily Found on LinkedIn

Why use LinkedIn to get yourself found?

Survey after survey points to the fact that over 90% of recruiters and their sourcers, both within companies and external headhunting agencies, use LinkedIn to identify potential “good fit” candidates.

These are all people with jobs to be filled, and these are opportunities you would likely never even hear about.

For a variety of reasons, recruiters often like to “find” talent rather than being beseeched to help desperate job hunters.

Think of your job search as a game of “hide and seek” with a twist: Recruiters are always “seeking,” and you want to “hide” right in front of them in such a way as to be easily found.

Here are things you should do to accomplish this goal:

1. Create a strong, compelling Profile (About) section.

Include your name and email at the very top of your About section (formerly called the Summary). This way, in case you come up as a 3rd degree masked connection on someone else’s search, they will know who you are and how to reach you.

Use your Summary to convey the content or aspects of your work/profession that get your juices flowing. It’s common to the point of cliché these days to see people lead with, “I’m passionate about…”

Nonetheless, it is truly important to show what you really care about. Think of it this way: If you were hiring someone, would you rather give the job to someone who clearly just wants a paycheck, or someone who loves what he or she does, and comes to work each day with a sense of enthusiasm?

[MORE: 5 Secrets to a Knockout LinkedIn Summary and Choosing the Best Keywords for Your LinkedIn Profile.]

2. Complete Your Employment History.

Include dates for your jobs. Add relevant keywords to the job title, if necessary. For example, maybe your official job title is “admin wizard.” Few people will be looking for an admin wizard, so change the title to “admin wizard | senior administrative assistant.”

Don’t just cut and paste your resume. Leverage the room LinkedIn provides for each job!

Describe the job and, particularly, your accomplishments in each job. Be specific!

Wherever possible, quantify your results with numbers, percentages, and some context for them.
Define yourself by the difference you have made to your employers.
Highlight ways you have saved money, improved productivity, or increased revenue whether directly or indirectly.

While a strong resume bullet will include a Challenge you faced, the Action you took, and the Results (CAR) you achieved, a simple bulleted list of solid accomplishments works better on LinkedIn.

[MORE: How to Double (or Triple) Your LinkedIn Visitor Traffic with Keywords and The 25 Best Keywords for You in Your Job Search. Check LinkedIn Eye Candy for options to use to create the bullets in the list.]

3. Complete all the Other Sections of Your Profile.

Key sections include: Education, Certifications, Languages, Projects, and Volunteer Activities. The more you include about yourself, the more ways you can come up in someone’s search because you will have included more keywords in your Profile.

[MORE: Hidden LinkedIn Networking Tool: Education and Grab Recruiter Attention with LinkedIn Projects.]

4. Include Samples of Your Work.

Write a LinkedIn “Post” on a topic related to your profession, one that hopefully demonstrates your knowledge as well as your communications skills.

For each job you include in the Experience section, LinkedIn allows you to upload many different file types including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF, video, and pictures. Take advantage of this to show off a portfolio of your accomplishments.

For each job, you can also link to other websites where you may have written an article, been quoted, or have some other relevant online visibility that supports your professional image. Upload your PowerPoint presentations to Slideshare.com (owned by LinkedIn), and include it, too.

5. Skills and Endorsements.

Most of the options in Skills and Endorsements are the keywords that recruiters use to find candidates. Recruiters will often find you if you include in the Skills section of your Profile the attributes that are key to the job they seek to fill.

You can include up to fifty Skills, and you can put them in the order that you prefer. If you are having trouble coming up with fifty, review the job descriptions for positions you seek to fill. Chances are that many of the keywords used there are Skills you can identify as your own.

[MORE: Secret to Powerful LinkedIn Profile SEO: Leverage Skills & Endorsements.]

6. Join Groups and Participate in Group Discussions.

LinkedIn has groups for just about anything imaginable these days, and you can be a member of 100 groups at any one time. Recruiters are known to lurk in groups. By default (you can change this), any member of any group in which you are part can see your profile and contact you, even if you aren’t linked. Make yourself findable by joining alumni, skill-based, industry-based, geographic-based, and other interest groups.

Each group has its own discussion area, and any member can begin and/or participate in discussions. What you post is “searchable,” and recruiters will often assume that people talking about the “latest and greatest” in their field, or even sharing articles of interest to the group are the kind of thought leaders and team players that make for attractive candidates.

Be careful not to ask, “Who can help me get a job?” but instead talk about current trends or ask questions that you would ask of a trusted peer in your company or profession.

[MORE: How to Engage More Recruiters and Employers with LinkedIn Groups.]

7. Be Active Daily.

Spend ten or fifteen minutes every day, at least on week days, being active on LinkedIn. Share good information you have created or found. Comment on what others share, and “Like” good information or comments made by others, both inside and outisde of Groups.

This daily activity reassures the recruiters who find your Profile that you will be responsive if they reach out to you. If you are apparently inactive, they will often not bother to try contacting you.

Bottom Line on Attracting Employers and Recruiters on LinkedIn

LinkedIn is the place for most professionals to be found today. Being visible (and find-able) on LinkedIn takes some effort, but the benefits in increased visibility and credibility will usually outweigh the time invested.

Happy hunting!

4 Smart Ways to Be Easier for Employers to Find on LinkedIn

Arnie Fertig — Tue, 11 May 2021 17:14:38 +0000

Do you remember those open-book tests you took in middle school? Your aim, of course, was to get a good grade. The teacher’s aim was to use them as a means to get you to master the material.

Now, think of LinkedIn as that open book. Your aim is to use LinkedIn to find a job that will advance your career. An employer’s purpose in using LinkedIn is to find the most desirable candidate to fulfill a crucial role in his or her company.

The Employer’s Goal

When you step back from your own situation and view things from the employer’s perspective, you’ll actually find yourself using LinkedIn in a different way that will give you the highest probability of job-hunting success.

Companies have as much angst as you do about the hiring process.

They are afraid of getting it wrong by hiring someone who isn’t the right fit, doesn’t have all the skills s/he claims, or otherwise doesn’t work out.

LinkedIn works to help employers easily identify job candidates who may become “good hires.”

New LinkedIn Tools for Employers

When recruiters and HR staffing specialists are searching for candidates, they use all the tricks of their trade to find stellar candidates. They use keywords to identify people with specific successes. They use an array of multiple filters. And they have other tools at their disposal about which most job seekers have never heard.

Any company of size is likely to pay for an expensive recruiting LinkedIn package that adds features geared to help them to find and manage a quality talent pool. Some levels of the recruiter subscriptions allow a company to view literally every single bit of data on every profile on LinkedIn. With somewhere around 400 million profiles on the platform, that is a huge amount of data to sift, sort, segregate, and analyze!

Moreover, HR staff and recruiters can plot out relationships, funnel profiles into various user-defined folders, and mail merge personalized emails out to any number of potentially interesting contacts.

And now, LinkedIn is in the midst of rolling out brand new capabilities to corporate recruiters. If you are looking for a job, you need to be familiar with these tools in order to position yourself to be found.

LinkedIn’s “Referral” Program

You’ve probably heard of employee referral programs, where a company will reward its own employees for bringing to its attention high quality candidates who eventually get hired. It is a great tool, but often employees are so busy with their own jobs they don’t bother to give any thought to who else they would like to bring into their company.

Enter LI’s Referral Program that puts this whole process on steroids. With this feature, LinkedIn enables in-house recruiters to learn to whom all current employees are connected, and search among this pool for potential candidates of interest. Then, HR can ask for specific referrals from company employees.

Everything is tracked. And companies will be able to truly capitalize on their own employees’ contacts. Wouldn’t you like to be found that way?

LinkedIn’s Talent “Spotlights”

There is yet another LinkedIn search revolution in the works, and it is rolling out very soon. Up to this point, employers would conduct search for people on LinkedIn pretty much the same way you do, except they have more filters that they can apply to precisely target their queries.

Now, rather than doing complex queries, an employer will be able to identify one or two stellar LinkedIn profiles (perhaps of the person who currently holds a job or someone like him in a different company) and then LI’s artificial intelligence will quickly return those profiles that most closely match the entirety of the already identified “best fit” profile. These are called “Spotlights.”

So, what are the implications for job hunters? Immense!

How Job Seekers Can Leverage Referrals and Spotlights

Here are four things you should do:

1.Make your Profile complete and robust, adding your accomplishments.

If you have just a basic profile without much information, you are likely dooming yourself to oblivion. Make certain that you go above and beyond just listing your current and past employers and roles to include relevant accomplishments. Then flesh out your profile to include up to 50 key skills that are needed (and which you have) for roles appropriate for your career advancement.

[More: Read Choosing the Best Keywords for Your LinkedIn Profile to determine the most appropriate keywords for your Profile.]

2.Research your competitors.

Do your own search for people who currently have the jobs you are most interested in filling, and to the full extent possible, mimic them. Present yourself as the person who is doing what needs to be done whenever it is honest to do so.

Match up your skills to theirs, your accomplishments to theirs and so on. Make yourself look like the person who has the job you seek, without misrepresenting yourself or copying someone else’s Profile (because no one is exactly like you!).

[More: Read How to Leverage Your LinkedIn Competitors for a 5-step process to find your competitors.]

3.Leverage LinkedIn Groups and Updates.

Join the same LinkedIn groups as the people who hold the jobs you seek belong to. Look at the updates those people post, and post similar things that show yourself to be like them.

4.Focus on your target employers.

Make certain to network and get connections in your target companies. That way, you will show up as a connection for LinkedIn’s recruiters referral search. And if you have an interesting profile, someone from that company is likely to reach out to you.

Happy hunting!

4 Ways to Find Jobs on LinkedIn

Arnie Fertig — Tue, 11 May 2021 17:14:38 +0000

In this article, we’ll explore not only the job board aspect of LinkedIn, but also three other ways you can find job listings that are hidden in plain sight.

Search for Jobs on LinkedIn

LinkedIn offers many ways to find job postings.

1. LinkedIn’s Job Board

“Jobs,” one of LinkedIn’s top menu items, provides you multiple ways to access the multitude of ads that employers and recruiters pay LinkedIn to feature, as well as others that the site aggregates from throughout the internet.

Making things real simple, the site leads you through a process whereby you can create your own profile of what job you are seeking based on location, industry, and more. Of course, you can change your profile at will, but however it is set will determine what ads LinkedIn will feed you.

After you have clicked on the “Jobs” link in the menu at the top of most LinkedIn pages, you can search through the jobs by title, keyword, or company (employer) and location.

Once you have typed in a query and clicked the “Search” button, pay attention to the options LinkedIn offers you in the right column of the results page. You can focus the search results on specific employers (a.k.a. “Company”) and locations. LinkedIn also offers additional interesting filters like the date the job was posted (ranging from the last 24 hours to the default “any time”), experience level (from entry level to executive), to job function which varies depending on your original search.

It’s a good idea to start with a fairly broad search with a limited number of parameters, and then add or filter the results (i.e. jobs posted this week for specific employers) until you get a reasonable number of positions you can fruitfully examine.

2. Update Feed

The center of your LinkedIn homepage is devoted to updates. Here, you’ll not only see articles that the Pulse feature thinks you might be interested in, but more to the point of this article you’ll see the status updates of your connections. Take time to scroll through these updates on a regular basis.

Often you’ll find recruiters, hiring managers, or HR staffers post something like “Looking to hire XXX” with a link to a description of the role to be filled.

Try searching through the updates (or “Posts”) using hashtags, like #jobs, #hiring, #salesjobs, or whatever is appropriate for your job search. Not every update will be a job posting, but many will.

3. Groups

You can join up to 100 LinkedIn Groups at any one time. There are groups based on everything imaginable: college alumni, location, skill set, job function, industry, hobbies, etc. Many groups exist to help people with job search, too.

To find Groups, click on the “Work” grid icon in the top right of most LinkedIn pages, and a drop-down image will open offering you several options. The options for Groups is circled below.

Each LinkedIn group has posts presented in chronological order, and, often (depending on the Group), recruiters will post jobs in Groups which are relevant to the job or the employer — the location, the profession, the skill, the industry, etc.

4. Company Pages

Company pages abound on LinkedIn. Find them by typing a company name into the search bar at the top of the page.

Most often company pages are used for employer branding. That is to say, they create the best possible image of a given company as a desirable place to work. Typically there will be a listing of open jobs at the company, or a link to the company’s employment portal on its website where all the open positions are listed. You can find information on companies in the main Interests menu at the top of LinkedIn, or you can do a search for companies.

Now that you’ve found a job opening, don’t apply!

Of course, the easy thing to do is simply apply to multiple jobs in a short period of time by clicking “Apply” numerous times. Yet when you do, you take a wild leap into the uncharted resume black hole. And then you typically will have no way to assure that your resume will actually be read by a decision maker.

Instead, take more time with each great job prospect. Use LinkedIn’s features to see who posted the job, and who you might know or be connected to that works in the company. Build those contacts into networking partners.

Most companies have some kind of employee referral bonus program, and it will be a “win-win” for you and your company contact if he/she brings your resume to the attention of the hiring manager or the HR staffer assigned to fill the position. You’ll minimize the probability of your resume disappearing into the vapors, and maximize the likelihood that your credentials will be reviewed with care.

The other articles in this LinkedIn Job Search Learnings series:

Happy hunting!

About the author…

The post 4 Ways to Find Jobs on LinkedIn appeared first on Job-Hunt.

Using LinkedIn to Collect Business Intelligence for Your Job Search

Arnie Fertig — Tue, 11 May 2021 17:14:38 +0000

There are numerous job hunting tactics you can employ on LinkedIn.

3 Major Ways to Leverage LinkedIn for Job Search

In one way or another, all of these LinkedIn job hunting tactics serve three larger purposes. I’ve written in previous articles about the first two of them:

Be findable – using LinkedIn to “put yourself out there” in order to be found by recruiters and others who you want to find you.
Find job postings – using LinkedIn to find specific job opportunities.

Of course, you need to do both of these things for a successful outcome to your quest.

However, it is important to step back and understand that you need to sift through a great deal of information in order to do those things well. And LinkedIn is nothing if not among the largest sources of information and insight available!

Building Business Intelligence with LinkedIn

LinkedIn’s third function, building your own ever-increasing business intelligence, is crucial. Unfortunately, it is far too often overlooked!

When you build a large network of LinkedIn connections, you’ll gain access to information that can give you a “leg up” at every stage of the job-hunting process.

While space prevents this article from an exhaustive exploration of this topic, here are three types of business intelligence that can propel your job search, and four tips about how to use LinkedIn to find beneficial information:

1.Get the Inside Scoop On Your Target Companies.

Of course you want “the job”! But remember: after you get it, you have to live with it. The negative consequences of accepting a poorly fitting job can be serious and long lasting. You should go to sites like Glassdoor to get anonymous feedback from current and former employees. But that only gets you so far.

It is so much better to actually get into a dialog with former employees of your target company. Learn from them about the corporate culture, challenges and opportunities of working in that environment, and get their tips about how to proceed.

TIP: Click on “Advanced” just to the right of the search box at the top of the Home page and begin a People search. Fill in the company name in that field, and as you do another search field will open asking you “Current or Past.” Select “Past,” and you’ll see the people in your network that used to work at the company. If the list is large, add other parameters to narrow it down, one by one, until you get to a manageable size.

Reach out to people on your list, and ask if they would be willing to talk with you about their experience at ABC Company. Make sure you offer to do so at their convenience, and only for a limited period of time. You’ll be surprised by how many people will be willing to freely give you information that you’ll never see elsewhere.

Caveat: some people will have sour grapes due to their own frustrations at the company or the manner in which they separated. You will need to evaluate carefully if the negatives you hear are theirs alone, or if they are shared by others and, therefore, represent something of greater concern.

2.Network Yourself into the Company.

Somewhere around 80% of all jobs are filled by somebody knowing somebody: networking. But how do you learn with whom to network and how to get to these people?

TIP: Look up your target Company on LinkedIn. See who among your network works there, or can put you in touch with someone who works there.

Reach out to those whose background is closest to yours, and network your way in by having a current employee submit your resume. It is a win-win-win: you will get your resume at the top of the pile, the company’s employee can get a referral bonus, and the company has the opportunity to met you!

3. Gain an Edge in a Job Interview.

You’ve made it past the initial screenings, and are ready to actually speak with the hiring authority. When you do your homework in advance, you can transform a “grilling” into a “conversation”. To do so you must evidence self-confidence and the ability to show that you know about the company, its challenges and how you can add value.

TIP 1: Make certain to find out with whom you will be speaking in advance, and examine their profile carefully before your conversation. Look in particular for areas of commonality that you might share, such as colleges you have both attended or places you have both worked.

You shouldn’t be obvious about it, but when the moment is right you can reference that commonality in the course of your discussion.

TIP 2: When looking at the interviewer’s profile, scroll down to find out to what LinkedIn groups she or he belongs. Join groups that relate to your skillset and industry, and carefully look through their discussions.

Here you can learn the “hot-button” issues and what people are saying about them. Be prepared to talk about these topics, and ask the hiring manager’s perspectives as well.

The more you explore LinkedIn, the more you’ll be able to piece together its different elements in a strategic fashion to advance your campaign for a new job. There is no limit to what you can learn from this tremendous resource!

The other articles in this LinkedIn Job Search Learnings series:

Happy hunting!

About the author…

The post Using LinkedIn to Collect Business Intelligence for Your Job Search appeared first on Job-Hunt.

Arnie Fertig, Author at Job-Hunt

3 Ways to Effectively Grow Your LinkedIn Network

Determine Your Connection Criteria

Expanding Your LinkedIn Network

1. Let LinkedIn access your email and connect with people you know.

2. Let LinkedIn help you.

3. Be active on LinkedIn.

Bottom Line

More About LinkedIn for Job Search:

4 Steps to Build a More Effective Job Search Network

Building Your Network

1. Understand Who You Are

2. Understand What You Have to Offer – and Give It Freely

3. Integrate Your Knowledge and Networks

4. Get Ahead Now by Focusing on the Future

The Bottom Line

More About How to Network Successfully

The 3 Elements of Great LinkedIn Recommendations

Do NOT Do This…

Use LinkedIn’s Recommendations Wisely

How to Give a Recommendation

Key Elements of a Great Recommendation:

1. The relationship context.

2. What the person has done.

3. The person’s key strengths and talents.

The Bottom Line

More About LinkedIn for Job Search:

7 Ways to Attract Recruiters on LinkedIn

Be Easily Found on LinkedIn

1. Create a strong, compelling Profile (About) section.

2. Complete Your Employment History.

3. Complete all the Other Sections of Your Profile.

4. Include Samples of Your Work.

5. Skills and Endorsements.

6. Join Groups and Participate in Group Discussions.

7. Be Active Daily.

Bottom Line on Attracting Employers and Recruiters on LinkedIn

More About LinkedIn for Job Search:

4 Smart Ways to Be Easier for Employers to Find on LinkedIn

The Employer’s Goal

New LinkedIn Tools for Employers

LinkedIn’s “Referral” Program

LinkedIn’s Talent “Spotlights”

How Job Seekers Can Leverage Referrals and Spotlights

1.Make your Profile complete and robust, adding your accomplishments.

2.Research your competitors.

3.Leverage LinkedIn Groups and Updates.

4.Focus on your target employers.

More About LinkedIn for Job Search:

4 Ways to Find Jobs on LinkedIn

Search for Jobs on LinkedIn

1. LinkedIn’s Job Board

2. Update Feed

3. Groups

4. Company Pages

The other articles in this LinkedIn Job Search Learnings series:

Using LinkedIn to Collect Business Intelligence for Your Job Search

3 Major Ways to Leverage LinkedIn for Job Search

Building Business Intelligence with LinkedIn

1.Get the Inside Scoop On Your Target Companies.

2.Network Yourself into the Company.

3. Gain an Edge in a Job Interview.

The other articles in this LinkedIn Job Search Learnings series:

**How to Give a Recommendation**