MASTERING LINKEDIN "LEARN HOW TO OPTIMISE YOUR PROFILE, DEVELOP A CONNECTION STRATEGY AND FIND RELEVANT JOBS"

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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.


Navigate to the LinkedIn website:  www.linkedin.com


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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