Want to increase your chances of landing a great job online? LinkedIn can help you find -- and attract -- the best opportunities. Here are some tips:
1. Make time
It’s easy to let job hunting fall to the bottom of your to-do list, but you can’t afford to let that happen. Schedule at least 15 minutes a day in your calendar to work on your resume, update and check online networking profiles and search job listings. Opportunities come and go quickly, so you need to be in the game on a daily basis.
2. Get noticed
What better way to impress a recruiter than to have a professional networking profile appear as the first search result for your name? Completing your LinkedIn profile to 100% with your education, experience, recommendations and group memberships will increase your search ranking and give employers a strong impression before you ever meet in person.
3. Be keyword savvy
Make sure your profile is chock-full of keywords that will attract a recruiter’s attention. Look through job postings and LinkedIn profiles that appeal to you and incorporate some of the same words or phrases. In addition to job- and industry-specific words, recruiters also love leadership terms (captain, president) and action words (managed, designed).
4. Reach out
Connect on LinkedIn with everyone you know -- friends, family, neighbors, professors, family friends, internship colleagues and others. Once you’re connected, send each person a friendly message on LinkedIn, asking if they would keep an eye out for the particular kind of job or jobs you’re seeking or if they can introduce you to other helpful contacts.
5. Spread the word
To build your credibility and stay on people’s radar screens during your job hunt, regularly update your status on LinkedInand other social networks. You might share links to articles you think would be relevant to people in your field (to show you are up on the news), announcements about events you’re attending (to show that you are actively networking) and good career news (to show that you’re headed for success). Just remember to keep your updates clean and appropriate.
6. Get into groups
Beyond connecting to individuals, join LinkedIn groups related to your alma mater, professional associations, volunteer organizations and industries you want to join. Every discussion in which you comment is an opportunity to market yourself to people who might be hiring, and every group contains a “Jobs” tab where members post opportunities to one another.
7. Search high and low
What makes LinkedIn’s job postings different from others is that they don’t just tell you who is hiring, they tell you how you are personally connected to that company through your network. Even when you see a job listed on another site, LinkedIn can help you research people at that company and tell you how you are personally connected through your network. No matter where you look for jobs, cast a wider net by altering your search terms and location criteria from time to time.
8. Follow companies
When you see a job you like on another job board, use LinkedIn as a company research tool. Check out the LinkedIn Company Page of any organization where you’d like to work and click “Follow company.” Activities of that organization on LinkedIn (job postings, hires, announcements) will appear on your homepage and alert you to potential opportunities.
9. Persist (without pestering)
While you don’t want to be a pest, persistence is a very important component of the job search process. Sending followup messages through LinkedIn can help you stand out from other candidates. Every time you send someone a message through LinkedIn, the recruiter or hiring manager can easily click over to your profile and check out your credentials
10. Consider Job Seeker Premium
Once you have a strong LinkedIn profile, you want to make sure it gets to the top of recruiters’ inboxes when you apply for jobs. LinkedIn offers an upgrade feature called Job Seeker Premium that, among other benefits, places your profile at the top of the list of applicants to the jobs you apply for on LinkedIn. Premium subscribers are twice as likely to be contacted by recruiters and 80% more likely to be found in search.
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