Published: Sunday, February 06, 2011, 11:13 AM
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Mark Schnurman/The Star-Ledger
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Job hunting is evolving. Before the internet and the advent of social networking sites, organizations and recruiters had difficulty finding passive candidates. LinkedIn has changed that. LinkedIn is a social networking site for business, think Facebook for grown-ups, which allows professionals to connect with one another. LinkedIn users can post their education, career experience and expertise in the hope of connecting with other professionals.
Howard Reingold (http://www.linkedin.com/in/howardreingold), a product management executive from Morris Township who lost his job during a recent downsizing, has found LinkedIn to be incredibly helpful.
“Throughout my career I have developed strong relationships with my peers and managers. LinkedIn offers me the opportunity to stay connected and network with them. I have received several leads from my connections, and my LinkedIn profile is viewed regularly.”
LinkedIn is your professional marketing page to the online world, and these tips will maximize its efficacy and help you land your next job.
• Polish your profile. Begin by completing your online profile. To utilize the different sections effectively, I recommend using the headline to grab attention, the summary as your cover letter and the experience section as an accomplishment-oriented résumé. Since LinkedIn lives in cyberspace, everything in your profile is fair game, so keep it truthful and consistent with your resume. To get ideas about creating a strong message, view other people’s profiles. Feel free to view my recently updated profile as an example (http://www.linkedin.com/in/markschnurman).
• Include a photo. People are curious creatures and like photos, so post a professional photo and not a personal one—those are for Facebook. The photo is your representation to the business world, so choose your image wisely.
• Utilize keywords. While it’s great that you are hard-working, diligent and a team player, no hiring managers and recruiters use those terms to find candidates. LinkedIn, like job sites and recruiting software, is keyword sensitive. Repeat keywords to ensure your profile’s primacy in searches. Replace ubiquitous, generic statements with appropriate keywords for your job and industry. Recruiters do not read your complete LinkedIn profile; they find matches through keyword searches.
• Create a strong network. Create a set of associates that represents contacts with whom you can network. Don’t accept invitations from unknown people unless it benefits your network. People assess you by the quality of your connections. There are several ways to find connections. First, you can do a name search. This is easy when looking for a “Schnurman,” but more difficult finding a “Smith.” Second, conduct a company search that will identify past and current employees of a specific organization. Third, browse the connections of your contacts. Finally, LinkedIn also allows you to import your contacts from Outlook and webmail, enabling quick and targeted growth of your network.
• Get recommendations. Recommendations validate and add credibility to your profile, thus strengthening your image. Use recommendations from close contacts because there is a strong likelihood they will be contacted in your job search. Be helpful by assisting people who ask for recommendations or introductions. That is the purpose of LinkedIn, and it will engender good will and reciprocity.
• Monitor your views. Regularly see how many times your profile was viewed or came up in searches. If you are not receiving a lot of “hits,” it may be time to make adjustments to your profile.
• Join groups. LinkedIn has myriad groups and allows users to join up to 50. Strategically choose groups in which people searching for you will look. Try joining the largest groups in their category and some smaller, more specialized groups. Many groups have job postings within the group, so be sure to check that regularly.
• Finally, leverage your connections to network into organizations or to a specific person. Introductions are more powerful than random contacts. Do not feel uncomfortable reaching out. That is why people join the site, and most are happy to help.
LinkedIn has quickly become a foundational business networking tool. In today’s free-agent economy, LinkedIn helps people stay connected with others. Reingold states, “A well-conceived, up-to-date profile makes you more attractive to potential employers. Business networking is critical to your future success, and LinkedIn is the tool to pull this together.”
Mark Schnurman may be reached at markschnurman@yahoo.com or on the web at markschnurman.com.
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