1 SEP 2015
LinkedIn: 10 Top Tips
LinkedIn is a social networking site specifically designed for the business community.
LinkedIn is a social networking site specifically designed for the business community. LinkedIn has grown to be the world's largest professional network, with 300 million members in over 200 countries and territories around the globe. The goal of the site is to allow professionals to connect with networks of people they know and trust professionally. You set up a profile where you demonstrate your professional skill set and talents, and network amongst other professionals. As such, LinkedIn is a great platform for HR professionals, who can easily find out about candidates for roles, and connect with them where appropriate. This makes it a strong platform for job seekers too, who benefit from making themselves findable and presenting themselves well. The platform is used by companies, job seekers, human resource departments, sales, business development and professionals of every sort, making it one of the world’s most ideal professional business tools online today. .
How to make the most of LinkedIn
If you're not on LinkedIn already, you can join here. Then this post gives you a bit more 'how to' if you're just starting out.
Now you're up and running, keep the below in mind and you'll be onto a winner:
1. Treat LinkedIn Like More Than A CV
LinkedIn has loads of capabilities to help you show off your full potential. Try using their extra features and add previous work, videos or presentations to your LinkedIn profile that demonstrate your work capacity to the full.
2. Make It Easy For Them To Find You
Recruiters use straightforward keyword searching on LinkedIn to find their clients the right individuals, in the right industries, seeking the right jobs. So you can make a job hunt much easier by helping recruiters to find you.
Your LinkedIn headline gives you the opportunity not only to sum up who you are but also what you want, making it more likely you'll be found through searches. You need to think about how someone is likely to come across your profile – consider what recruiters are likely to search, and fit this into your profile headline.
3. Make Use of All The Sections!
Completed profiles are seven times more likely to be viewed, and eleven times more likely when they include a photo. You can even improve your profile by up to 12 times, just by adding more than one previous position, no matter how relevant you think it is.
4. Hand Pick The Right Skills
Be specific about the skills you have that make you good at your job. Your connections can now endorse these skills (proving to a reader that you are trustworthy) and previous employers can also reference them in recommendations that they give on your profile (reinforcing your suitability for a role).
5. Follow Your Dream Companies
This is really a matter of staying in the loop. Following your dream companies means you'll get updates when people leave or join the company, and get notified when that company posts jobs. LinkedIn Company Pages also show you if any of your contacts know people who work at those companies, so can be a good way to schmooze your way in.
Most FE Colleges will have company pages on LinkedIn that you can follow, so it is definitely worth looking up those you would be interested in working for.
6. Tailor Your Profile To Your Chosen Career
Think of your LinkedIn profile as your covering letter for your dream job. Pick out the key skills that are asked for in job adverts that you're interested in, and emphasise your capabilities in these areas. The chances are that you’ve used skills, such as time-management, organisation, team-work and flexibility, in other areas – so highlight when you’ve used these ‘transferable skills’ and make your CV tailored to their requirements.
7. Build Your Network
It’s an unwritten rule that 50 is the minimum number of contacts needed for a successful LinkedIn profile, though the more connections you're able to build the more you will start to show up in sidebars and searches.
Family, friends, colleagues and peers are all valuable connections. Rather than sending out a cold call to your inbox when requesting to connect with the standard LinkedIn message, keep it personal to help forge a relationship.
8. Open Your Own Opportunity Doors
If you're without a job, it's easy to feel like you're invisible. One great feature of LinkedIn is ‘Groups’. Groups exist in a number of guises including industry specific, entry level specific and job type specific, and the more involved you are, the more your visibility improves because recruiters are quite often carefully following Group discussions. LinkedIn members are sharing insights and knowledge in more than two million LinkedIn Groups. They give you common ground and a reason to reach out to other professionals. So if the job won't come to you, it's much easier to take matters into your own hands.
We have two LinkedIn Groups you may like to join, The Further Education Network and The HR in FE Network. We regularly post about the FE sector and have further discussions on the topics in the comments.
9. Keep Up With The Current
For most industries, serious conversations are taking place on social media, and being a part of them can really make you stand out from the crowd.
Take the time to find relevant content to your desired industry, comment on posts that interest you and re-post, share and re-tweet. Doing so demonstrates an active interest in your industry, shows that you are listening to what is being said and are passionate enough to share it.
10. Stand Above the Rest
Sophisticated online search methods are becoming increasingly prevalent in recruitment as suitable candidates are actively sought out. Demonstrating an active interest in current issues, hot topics and influential individuals will make you incredibly desirable for top employers who are looking for the best candidates.
Your top LinkedIn tips?
Do you have any points to add? Let us know in the comments!