Someone I knew asked me to allow someone I didn’t know to “get introduced” through me on LinkedIn. I was pleased to help, but when I looked at the job hunter’s profile it looked like they had spent no time on it, or maybe did not know the importance of a full profile. If you are asking people you know to help you job hunt with LinkedIn and people they know to help you, make sure to do the following:
- GET a professional business photo. Make the effort! You can only have one image on LinkedIn. Show you care enough to add a good business picture.
- Fill out your profile completely, especially the summary and specialty area.
- Make sure you use key words that describe your skills and use the language of your target audience. Avoid jargon that your customer would not know.
- Include some interests so we know you have some life outside of work, but you don’t have to add much. e.g. golf, walking.
- Add a sentence or two about each past job and each school listing. Were you expert in something or did you do advance studies in something?
- Change your public profile from the default setting to your name.
- Join your college group and maybe another group of value.
- Give quality recommendations to anyone in your past that you would be proud to rave about.
If this is too much effort then you need to pay someone to do it, train you, or stop whatever else you are doing. This is one of the most valuable tools on the web for people to “pre-screen” you for a job. If you are still employed, get the recommendations NOW. About every 3rd person out of work I meet gives me the answer, “I wish I had got the recommendations while I was employed. They just don’t get back to me now.”
Share this to anyone you feel would benefit, employed or unemployed.
Martin Brossman is a Success Coach who has been offering group and individual LinkedIn training since 2006.
