I had the pleasure of presenting to graduates at the Etihad Graduate Fair today. Open to 2nd, 3rd and Postgraduate students with the opportunity to hear from a wide range of guest speakers, have 1-2-1 Careers guidance interviews with our highly qualified Career coaches and meet with a variety of employers offering Graduate schemes and full time employment. My workshop focused on how to show delegates how to use LinkedIn more proactive in their search for their next job.
There are more than 500 million users on LinkedIn* and 87% of recruiters use LinkedIn to check candidates**. LinkedIn is the leading professional networking platform and a powerful job search engine to boot!
Grow your network, raise your profile, and increase your chances of being hired through referrals and recommendations. LinkedIn can help you to get that all-important new job and here’s my steps to help you leverage LinkedIn for success.
1.The Basics – one chance, first impression!
Invest in your profile picture, it is one of the most important aspects of your profile.
Your picture should show others that you are friendly, approachable, and personable attributes to getting others to engage with you.
Write a convincing summary, this section has a limit of 2,000 characters but if people are viewing your profile via mobile *** and will need to scroll down, your first 92 characters will be essential. Because viewers will need to take an extra step to see more content, each of those first 220 and 92 characters must pull their weight: 58 percent of LinkedIn’s users are viewing it via mobile so maximising the impact of those first 92 characters will be especially important.
Keywords are king, research the keywords that you should include for each role, highlighting your past achievements. Research your current actual role and the essential and desirable skills for your current job and review the profiles of your colleagues and peers for ideas.
Add your skills to the featured skills & endorsements section, and add a maximum of 50 skills to your profile. Ensure that you list the key words that you want to be found for. This also gives you control over what you are more likely to be endorsed for.
2.Search and Connect
Having more LinkedIn connections increases your chances of showing up as one of a user’s “most viewed connections. Enter your keyword into the search bar. Select the member from the suggestions in drop-down or click the search icon ?. For example, you can search for the ”HR Manager” at ”Your Ideal Company” and they’ll appear in your search.
3.Set up job alerts
To access your alerts click the jobs icon at the top of your homepage. Click manage alerts under the search box at the top of the page where you are able to edit or delete the results relevant to you.
4.LinkedIn pages
Don’t hold back on the research! Get information on past operations, current news, products, services, culture and employees and check out their “careers” pages too.
5.LinkedIn groups
Get in on the conversation and share your expertise. Others can learn from you too while allowing you to build mutually beneficial business relationships. Find new connections and tap into the goldmine of knowledge to enhance your career.
Need help for free of charge?
In collaboration with Google Digital Garage Manchester I’ll be sharing my tips in a workshop on 12th April. You’ll be able to get the full rundown with free advice thrown in. Book your free place here.
*Omnicore, January 2018
**Jobvite Recruiter National Report 2016
*** LinkedIn 2016 Q1 quarterly results
I recently had the pleasure of running a LinkedIn workshop to members of the Seashell Trust’s multi-disciplinary team. Wendy Bray, Fundraising Manager said; “Ann ran an interactive training session at Seashell Trust and it would not be an overstatement to say she has revolutionised the way we use LinkedIn here across so many of our teams with very real benefits already. She very quickly understood our business and our needs and the training she delivered was exactly right to engage the team and show them the benefits very quickly.”
Mobile technology and social media are changing the way people donate and interact with charities. Donations through websites, social media and apps now account for £26 in every £100 donated in the UK, with an annual figure of £2.4 billion now being donated online* If you would like to read more about my work with the trust you can check it out here.
So, what does the future hold for charities and trusts? Social media can only play a bigger part in supporting your charity’s efforts in more ways than you might thin:
Building your Charity’s Brand
Social media is key in positioning your charity and helping your audience to find out more about what your charity represents. It is important to consider what impression you want to give your audience through all types of content, video as well as written content and what tone of voice do you want to adopt?
Bringing your Community Together
Social media can offer your charity the opportunity to bring together like-minded individuals. For example, if your charity supports those with a specific form of cancer, create a virtual community where those living with this illness can also support each other. Your charity can then become a hub, bringing these like-minded individuals together, generating discussion and ideas, as well as increasing the voice of your supporters.
Fundraising for your Charity
Probably one of the most important aspects why charities continue to exist and social media represents a great opportunity to communicate and reach a wider audience than might have been possible before. Create a list of decision makers, businesses and high-level bloggers who will all be more than happy to support your fundraising and campaigning efforts.
Finding Volunteers for your Charity
Are you currently looking for volunteers, the chances are that you probably are, and social media is a cost-effective way to help your charity find them? Ask your audience to help by sharing and retweeting. Remember to be clear about who your ideal volunteer is. For example, you might be looking for a specific local demographic, try creating a group and start spreading the word.
Summary
More and more charities are using social media as a very good cost-effective way to communicate putting a strategy in place is essential. Before you a start understand your audience, what are you trying to achieve and how will you action your strategy.
If you think I can help your charity please contact me on 0161 826 7181 or email info@bizwizuk.co.uk or alternatively please, check out the following resources:
* http://www.wired.co.uk/article/charity-and-social-media
http://www.bizwizuk.co.uk/free-resources/pdf-downloads/
https://www.skillsplatform.org/charitysocialmediatoolkit/
By Ann Davies, Director