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