MASTERING LINKEDIN "LEARN HOW TO OPTIMISE YOUR PROFILE, DEVELOP A CONNECTION STRATEGY AND FIND RELEVANT JOBS"
LinkedIn
is a social
media giant, having
over 225 million users worldwide (as at June 2013). It is used by professionals to:
• Post their Curriculum
Vitae (CV), also known as a résumé, on line.
• Develop a network of connections.
• Demonstrate
their expertise through
status updates
and group discussions.
• Research companies and educational establishments.
• Keep up to date with the latest developments
in their field, through group discussions
and thought leaders.
• Find, and in some cases, apply for jobs.
Like all computer
applications, using LinkedIn is part art and part science. The science bit is being able to navigate
around the application and complete fields of information. The art lies in understanding how it works and leveraging that to your advantage.
SETTING UP YOUR LINKEDIN ACCOUNT
To set up your own LinkedIn
account, you will need an email account
(either work or home) that you have access to. You will also need an image of yourself and your CV, for use in setting up your LinkedIn profile.
There will be an option to either sign in or join. To join, enter your:
• First name.
• Last name.
• Email address.
• A password
LinkedIn
will then take you to the next screen, which will help you start to build your LinkedIn profile by asking about your current employment status i.e. are you employed, a
job
seeker or a student?
Select the relevant option and then
complete
the remaining
fields. These will depend
on your chosen status. Once finished, click on [Create my profile].
The next screens will ask you to logon to your email account
to check to see if any of your contacts
have existing LinkedIn accounts,
and also to confirm/validate
your email address.
Once
you have completed
this process, you will have a basic account
and access to the application. Let’s take a tour of your new account.
OPTIMISING YOUR LINKEDIN PROFILE
So
why do you need
to optimise your LinkedIn profile and what does it
entail? Well,
imagine that you are recruiting for a job and want to use LinkedIn for this purpose. To start with there are, quite literally,
millions of candidates to choose from! So the first thing you will do is use some form of search criteria to find potential
candidates. This means
that as a LinkedIn user you need to ensure that your profile can be found by having the right keywords in your profile. Think about what skills a recruiter will search for, given the type of work that
you want or are looking for, and make sure they are included
in your profile. For example the word “Etsy” appears in my profile twice, but accounts for 1% of the keywords that led to me! (Note: being able to see what keywords led to you is a feature
of
premium accounts).
Next,
when you view the search results, the people connected
to you are shown first, then those profiles that are complete.
So to get found in search results, the LinkedIn user needs to
have a wide variety of connections, joining groups where peers and recruiters hang out. You also need to ensure that your profile is complete.
Once you look at the search results, you’ll then go on to click on and view some of those profiles, and maybe contact
the person to see if they would be interested in some work. This means your profile needs to:
• Be well set up.
• Be in a logical order.
• Prioritise the information that recruiters are looking for first i.e. that you have the skills, experience and knowledge to do the job.
As LinkedIn
gets bigger, it’s getting harder and harder to get found
in search results, so here’s some helpful information
on how LinkedIn search currently works.
LinkedIn prioritises the search results in terms of the person doing the search. It prioritises people in the following way:
• The type of
connection you have to the person i.e. 1st degree connections are shown first, then 2nd degree, then groups, then 3rd degree and everyone else.
• How connected
you are to
the person
searching. This includes what locations,
jobs, skills etc. that you have in common.
The more you have in common
with the person searching, the higher up in the search results you will
appear. So for example, if the search results include 10 1st degree connections fitting the search criteria, then those most in common
with you will be shown first.
• The completeness of your profile. 100% complete
profiles are shown first. If your profile is not 100%
complete,
then you are going to be way down in the search results! (LinkedIn states
that
“users with complete
profiles are 40 times more likely
to receive opportunities through LinkedIn”)
LinkedIn considers a profile 100% complete
if it has:
• A Profile Photo.
• Your country and industry – you entered these when
you set up your LinkedIn profile.
• An up-to-date
Current
Position (with a description).
• Two Past Positions
(also with descriptions).
• Your Education.
• Your Skills (minimum of 3).
• At least 50 Connections.
So that’s our next task…completing your profile, ensuring
that it is the best it can be.
Logon to LinkedIn, then navigate to the [Profile], [Edit profile] screen. To make any changes
to
your profile, click on the pen icon next to the relevant field. If at any time you have
any
questions, remember you can contact
me via my LinkedIn group, Twitter or Facebook.
ADDING AND UPLOADING
SUPPORTING DOCUMENTS
In some sections of your profile, namely your summary, experience
and education, you
have the option of adding a link e.g. to SlideShare to add a presentation, YouTube for a video etc. or uploading a document. This is indicated by a square box with a + next to it.
This
provides you with
the opportunity
to showcase your
abilities
and previous work carried out. It also supports the information
and achievements you have recorded in your profile. Instead of saying what it is you can do, you are showing people and giving them the opportunity
to judge for themselves.
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