Having Success With LinkedIn
Of all the great social networks on the web today, LinkedIn has been successful to establish itself as a social network for business.
LinkedIn has over 150 million subscribers, each looking to build their network online through the social media website. Users of the site are able to connect with other individuals and opportunities which are available in their area, and users also enjoy the feature which allow them to connect with other people than their contacts are in touch with.
If you are a job seeker – LinkedIn can be an amazing resource for yourself. But just becoming a user isn’t going to get you a job, you are going to have to work at it.
Executives at all of the major companies are on LinkedIn. This creates a unique opportunity for yourself, but you can’t simply sign up on LinkedIn and contact as many executives as you’d like.
The first thing you must do is fill out your profile. Make sure to write a very professional profile which highlights the success and experience you have gotten. Also be sure to add a catchy Headline which will be a short, descriptive, and catchy overview of yourself professionally. It is basically your personal slogan – so you want it to stand out.
Then there is the summary, which should do a good job to promote the skills and experience you have, while demonstrating your passion for the unique job sector or industry that you are interested in. After that, you will add the experience and education that you have. Take a lot of time to nurture your profile, improve it often, have others read it and give you tips – because this truly is the starting point for everything you do on LinkedIn.
The next thing you’ll want to do is add as many connections as you can. LinkedIn will help you to discover which of your existing contacts are already on LinkedIn. In addition to that, you’ll want to do whatever you can to sign on as many connections as possible. If you are on Facebook or Twitter, let your followers know about your LinkedIn page. Put your LinkedIn page at the bottom of your signature. Email any contact you have ever emailed – do whatever you can to get as many connections at the get go.
Once you have that – you’ll be ready to try and find a job through LinkedIn.
You want to make sure that you have a strong recommendation on your page. Either a former boss, client, or co-worker – someone who has a quality LinkedIn profile that can vouch for you in a serious way. Then, you can go out and start networking. Once you identify the company you want to work for or a job you want to apply for, try and discover which of your connections has a connection with someone at that company. If you can’t find this, you can drill down deeper and find out where people worked before their current job. For instance, people who worked at a company a year ago may be able to make an introduction for you to someone currently working at the company.
Remember, you want to find people that you are either directly connected to – or people connected to someone you are connected to. Any connection beyond that will be too distant and thus too difficult for you to make a legitimate connection with.
Once you make a connection with someone at a company you want to work at – you must try and get to the hiring manager. Hopefully your contact will know this hiring manager and will be willing to make the introduction for you. That is the secret sauce, as it is the hiring manager who is most likely to get you the interview with the company.
On LinkedIn – it is all about your network. You need to work hard to build up quality direct connections, and then each of those connection will lead to a secondary connection which you can benefit from. Your direct connections must be real connections, it is about quality on LinkedIn – the person with 1,000 direct connections isn’t necessarily more networked then someone with 200 connections, as those 200 direct connections can be great ones.
At the end of the day – once you find a job at a company that you want to apply to – you can work hard and network via LinkedIn so that you don’t have to apply for a job blindly without having a contact at the given company.
please Contact Us and tell us where so we can make corrections.
