Get the job you want

By Abhyank Srinet

LinkedIn is a great platform for personal branding and a powerful tool for recruiters. Over 450 million professionals use it for job search, networking, lead generation and more. This can also be a great channel to grab that job you have been dreaming about. Being aware of some tips and tricks will help your job search.

1. ACCEPT REQUESTS FROM STRANGERS TOO

LinkedIn after all is a professional social network. The more connections, the higher the chances you have of developing stronger relationships with people from your industry. With every acceptance, there is a ripple effect and you could be just one or two degree of connections away from your life career changing job. By not adding a stranger on LinkedIn, you are stopping the possibility of its happening. In the digital world, accepting requests from strangers will not only help you break geographical barriers, but also open up new opportunities. Vast network comes with varied skills and expertise. This is could be a great way to share, expand and develop your skillset.

Of course, there are a few things one should always check. For example, their network connections should be decent, profile photo, and genuine recommendations. As long as the request fills those key requirements, you should be safe to accept the invitation.

2. KNOW YOUR WORTH USING LinkedIn SALARY

To help professionals worldwide, LinkedIn has a feature to view salary information which would help make better career decisions and optimize your earning potential. This feature is available to all site users, but the ones who are premium members have an option not to share their salary details.

Knowing how much your fellow colleagues from the same industry are being paid will paint a clearer picture of whether your salary needs to be negotiated further. The filter function will help you sort the information based on location, years of experience, education qualifications and so on. With this you can get answers to questions such as which city pays the highest, or which company has a better remuneration for your qualifications.

3. PERSONALIZE YOUR PROFILE URL

A personalized URL gives a sense of familiarity. It makes it easier to remember whose profile you have viewed. It also enhances your personal brand and makes it easier to share the link in email signatures and your resume.

In this ever-competitive job market, one needs to have an eye for detail. So, it’s time to remove the gibberish towards the end and personalize your url for a professional outlook.

4. SHOWCASE YOUR ATTRIBUTES

LinkedIn goes beyond being a prospecting and recruiting tool. It can also be an incredible inbound marketing tool. Just by adding skills, one can get 13x more views. Listing your skills will help recruiters understand why you could be the best fit for a certain job. You can use the Skills section to showcase your skill set.

Endorsement is another great feature LinkedIn has to offer where your recruiters can see how your connections see your attributes and can vouch for you. As recruiters have no way of knowing how good you are, multiple endorsements will help you gain their trust.

5. RECOMMENDATIONS ARE A GREAT TOOL

“When you say something about yourself it’s bragging; when someone else say something about you, it’s proof!”

Recommendations is a feature that could influence a recruiter’s decision-making process. Most recruiters want to know see if your peers and bosses agree with what you’ve said about your work. They are interested in knowing who you are. They want to get a sense of what it would be like to work with you. This can also positively affect your search rankings in LinkedIn and chances of grabbing that job.

6. WRITE A STUNNING SUMMARY

A great LinkedIn summary is essential. It provides your professional essence to readers, and if it intrigues them, they will keep reading. It sums up your professional history, and qualifications, tells the reader what you looking for in your career. Mention what skills you possess that will add value to others. Also mention what kind of work you are involved in, be it projects, professional achievements, or soft skills. This will help people a get multi-dimensional view of you.

Add appropriate words that recruiters from your industry can relate to. This, if written well, will give you an extra edge over others. Also remember only the first 220 characters are visible at once. So, the more robust your summary, the more you will get noticed.

7. A PROFESSIONAL PHOTO FOR A PROFESSIONAL NETWORK

Your profile picture is one of the most important elements of your profile. It is likely to get your profile viewed 14 times more by others and help recruiters recognize you when they meet you in person. As for a job seeking candidate, this could be a great chance for you to make a good impression. Key to this is a professional photograph. It could go a long way in creating a good impression.

Here are some important pointers to keep in mind, before uploading a photo.

• Your photo should resemble the way you look.
• Around 60% of the picture should contain only the face. Your neck and a little of your shoulders should be seen.
• A formal dress code is essential for a corporate role.
• Be picky with the background. A bright colour for the background of the profile picture like red or orange works well.

Overall it should be professional. Also, make sure it’s only you in the photo, and does not include any ancillaries such as your pets, your parents and so on.

You have only 100 milliseconds to form an impression through it. So be sure that your picture invokes a feeling of trust and credibility.

8. PERSONALIZE YOUR REQUESTS

“I’d like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn.”

Another blunder people make is not personalizing request messages on LinkedIn. This can severely affect the number of LinkedIn connections you’ll be able to make. Those 300 characters can have a huge impact in your career and it’s not worth taking this chance.

Use this opportunity to say something relevant and build a strong relationship. If you are connecting with someone who you don’t know well, use this opportunity to remind them how you met or know them. Introducing yourself or just adding the context of your relationship leads to a stronger connection and better work relationships. This can go a long way in creating a stronger network and a great rapport with your connections.

9. CHECK WHO’S VIEWED YOUR PROFILE

This feature shows in the last 90 days, who has viewed your profile. LinkedIn allows only up to 100 views a day, so use it wisely. When someone has viewed your profile, you will be added to that person’s ‘Who’s viewed your profile?’ list. This is a great a way to show someone that you’re interested to connect with them. This is one of the best ways to grab attention of recruiters during the job search process.

This way the recruiter has a higher chance of becoming familiar with your name and while shortlisting profiles, this can buy you extra attention for your application.

10. POWER OF STATUS UPDATES

Status gives you the power to be remembered by your connections and to stand out from others and get noticed by recruiters looking for people like you. Using the status update, you can really accelerate your job search. Due to its positioning on a profile, a recruiter may read the status even before reading the summary.

A good status update will demonstrate your personality and show a recruiter how motivated and engaged you are towards your career. Considering, a single status update can occupy up to 80% of the feed screen this could be highly influential. The secret sauce of a good status is in sharing updates that appeal to your network and potential employers.

 

Following the above tips will definitely help you boost your LinkedIn profile a few notches higher. If you need some more hacks to polish your LinkedIn profile further, visit ‘Top 33 Linkedin Profile Tips for Job Seekers In 2017’ to check out an in depth checklist, following which your LinkedIn profile would be ready to shine!

 

Good Luck!

 

Abhyank Srinet is the founder of MIM-Essay. He is a passionate Digital Marketer, Business Developer and Entrepreneur and lives in Paris, France.

 

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Some interesting facts, figures and tips on CVs and Resumes that the folks at Ayers put together on this Infographic.

Interesting and completely avoidable are the many reasons why employers reject a candidate based on their resume – typos and grammatical errors, clip art, cringe worthy quotes and snazzy borders to name a few. Stay away from the clip art people!

They have put together some good tips on proof reading, visuals and content.

We get sent a lot of content that people want us to share with you. I think this one is well worth a read.

Karen

by Erica Francis

If your plans include a career change  you’ll need to know some tips and tricks for conducting a successful job search. To help, here are three ways to conduct a successful job search:

Make Yourself an Obvious Fit for the Job

Chances are, you’ll be applying online for a job. There’s also a very good chance that your application and resumé first will be screened by an automated computer system.

This means that you need to scour the job posting and description, as well as any other information you may have about the position, for keywords and phrases when crafting your application and resumé. Mirror those words and phrases in your application materials and closely match your skills and qualifications to the role to make yourself look like an obvious fit.

These tricks also show the lower-level HR staff, who review your materials before hiring managers and supervisors see them, that you are a good fit for the position. It is your job to show these non-human and human screeners that you are what the company is looking for, so that you can make the cut to the first round of interviews.

Make Your Resumé (and Yourself) as Marketable as Possible

No, you probably don’t want to spend one more second on your resumé than absolutely necessary. So, make sure you do it right the first time.

Resumés have changed quite a bit in the past few years, as screening processes are automated and hiring staff is more pressed for time. This means that you want to forget about the summary paragraph at the top. Your document needs to be able to be scanned in about 6-10 seconds, and a summary paragraph is not worth the space on the paper.

It’s also important that you don’t make it seem as though you are hiding anything from potential employers. Include the months of your employment, to show exactly how long you worked in previous positions. These minor details are important, because they demonstrate that you are following a full disclosure policy with your information. You are more credible when you are honest from the very beginning, and it’s better to explain why you had a short stint somewhere else than to explain why you left out key information.

Use bullet points, quick explanations, and facts. If you achieved something in a previous position, include it under the corresponding job and title. Don’t bury important details or make people go on a scavenger hunt when they read your resumé. And, include your true working title on your resumé. Attempting to trump up your status will come back to bite you in the end, during your face-to-face interview.

Explore All of Your Options

One of the best things you can do before your job search is to take stock of your skills and qualifications, as well as your educational qualifications. You may not realize it, but you more than likely have skills that make you qualified for a position outside of your current or former field. For example, you may have technology skills that you did not have when you graduated. Or, you may have project management experience from your former position. By evaluating your entire skillset, you may find that you are qualified for positions that you would not have considered a few years ago.

It’s also important to consider all of the options available to you in your job search. Have you thought about working from home? Telecommuting is on the rise, and companies and employees benefit from the practice. Working from home boosts productivity and job satisfaction and saves companies money. When you apply and interview, state that you are open to working from home. Or, consider jobs that allow you to be your own boss while working from home. For example, you might become a pet sitter or offer your services as a virtual assistant.

Getting a new job you love could make 2016 one of your best years yet. Follow these tips to help you on your way.

Erica Francis loves working with ReadyJob.org to teach young people how to get started in the job market. In her spare time, she enjoys horseback riding, crocheting, and acting at her town’s community theater.

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by Penny Gardner

After working for the same company for five years, you feel like it’s time to move on. The job no longer excites you and every time you leave work, you feel exhausted and worn out. Perhaps you are looking for a new challenge in a different sector? You need something that sparks your enthusiasm and gives you the right motivation to get out of bed in the morning? If this is you, then you might already be thinking that a career change is what you need.

Obviously nobody said that changing a career was going to be easy. However, it’s something that many people do in an attempt to find out what they really enjoy doing and develop professionally.

So, how can you ensure that your next job will give you everything that you need?

The answer to this question is that you simply can’t, and while that sounds scary on its own, it’s also the most interesting part of a career change. Unless you try it out, you will never know what it’s like to pursue the things that interest you the most and can make you happy.

While there is a lot of uncertainty when dealing with career change, there are many things you can do that will make your transition a lot easier. Let’s go over a few tips that are vital to career change success:

#1 Think about What You Enjoy Doing

Throughout your career, you will have a wide range of experiences. But in order to make sure that you have fun, you need to be certain about what you like and what you don’t like. There’s no point in changing career if you are taking yet another job that doesn’t make you happy. Take some time to think about what you like doing in your free time. Think about any hobbies you have that can relate to a particular job. Then ask yourself if you can turn this into a profession and start getting involved in the things that you have a strong interest in and see where it takes you.

#2 Equip Yourself with Important Skills

If you are willing to start from the bottom and develop the skills necessary for the career you’ve chosen, then you are already half-way to your destination. All that it takes is persistence and hard work to reach it. Since changing careers requires that you start from zero, you need to equip yourself with the relevant skills, experience and qualifications that will ultimately help you get hired. It is also important to identify your limitations and work on them until you feel ready to enter the new field.

#3 Do Your Research and Preparation

Whatever career you’ve chosen, you need to familiarize yourself with current industry trends to make sure that your transition into this unknown world is as smooth as possible. Customize your resume for a career change, and focus on getting all of the information you need on how to succeed in this particular profession. Ask other professionals in the field for some advice if you have to and network yourself to the top.

#4 Demonstrate Your Passion

Once you are searching for a new job you need to show how much you want it. Just like every person who has gone through a career change, this is a crucial part of the transition since it is more difficult for them in contrast to other jobseekers. Employers will ask questions such as ‘why you left your previous job’ and ‘why you chose to work in this profession’ and you need to be prepared to back up your answers.   As such, you need to show off your personality and those qualities that make you the hard-working individual they expect to see in every candidate. Focus on that and demonstrate your interest in the job providing some real-life examples and your next job is around the corner.

In terms of managing your career, you need to search for a job that fills you with joy and excitement, no matter what industry you choose. The secret to reaching your true potential is having the motivation to go after your professional goals and to never remaining stagnant.

As previously said, a career change can be difficult. But having a defined goal will help you pursue your passion and carve out your own career journey. Just like Socrates once said, “the secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new.”