LinkedIn, a No Brainer for Job Search

As I work with career coaching clients looking to transition, I am thankfully seeing less and less resistance to LinkedIn, however, there are still some people who are yet to appreciate LinkedIn’s capability for job search or the role it plays in many a successful job search campaign.

Last week I received a message from one of my career coaching clients who has landed a great new job in her professional field. She got the role by connecting with the principal of the company she’s now working with and then sending her resume to them. The principal contacted her to meet up for a chat which then turned into a job offer. This is far from an isolated event. Another client told me just today that he had been approached by two recruiters in the last week after updating his LinkedIn profile. The roles are both of interest and align well to his skills and experience, which of course were reflected in his new profile.

Past clients have told stories of being headhunted via their LinkedIn profile whilst others have been contacted by connections about roles after adding “Currently looking for opportunities” to their profile headline.

LinkedIn is a key element of your professional branding. If you have a profile you do need to ensure it does justice to your brand. LinkedIn ranks very highly on google so will generally be the first item that comes up in a search for your name. And yes, they really do search, as one of my clients unfortunately discovered before she’d updated her profile.

Here’s my top 5 tips for using LinkedIn for job search:

Use the LinkedIn job search tool, accessible from the main menu, to search for job titles and locations, similar to online job boards. You can set up a job alert to be notified of future vacancies. You can even ask LinkedIn to suggest jobs aligned to your career interests (which you enter and update), with an option to show recruiters that you are open to opportunities.

Create a future-focused profile, ie. one written for your next role. Include a well-written summary with common keywords related to your target role and a catchy headline.

Follow companies you are interested in working for as they will frequently advertise roles on their company page to the base of followers who are interested in the organisation. Some may not even advertise elsewhere.

Build your connections by reaching out to your network. Cast a wide net – the more people you are connected with, the greater the opportunities. If you have a network of say 100, and each of those people has a similar sized network, you might have access to as many 10 000 people, any of whom could know of an opportunity to suit you.

Build your recommendations and endorsements as these can confirm your value to a potential employer. Consider writing recommendations for others which may encourage them to do the same for you but you can also ask people directly.

Want more detail on LinkedIn for job search, check out the LinkedIn Guide in the Career Vitality website Toolkit? If working with a career coach sounds like it’s for you, call Donna for a no obligation conversation on 0419 120 601 or donna@careervitality.com.au.