Facebook is one of the best ways to connect with your friends online.
Finding a job online can be tough, but you might actually want to consider a website that brings the social media experience to your job hunt.
On LinkedIn, users can post their resumes, interests, skills and connect with personal and professional contacts. The hardest part about job hunting is, well, all of the stuff that happens between the moment when you send over your resume to a business and when you actually get a call back.
The easiest way to get past this tough time, of course, is to actually know someone at the company to which you're applying. While you might not think that you're that connected, you'd be surprised with what sites like LinkedIn can help you find.
In this tip, I'll teach you how to use LinkedIn and give you some need-to-know information about getting the most out of your LinkedIn account.
Who benefits from LinkedIn?
Both job seekers and recruiting companies often find LinkedIn to be a very valuable tool. It's most valuable to people with specialized skill sets, or one set in a specific industry. It's usually harder to find specialized jobs across the Internet, and that makes LinkedIn even more valuable.Instead of just sending a resume to a company's job listing, LinkedIn helps you to identify both a job and someone who you know that might be related to that job
Instead of sitting back and hoping that employees will recommend someone that they know for a job, LinkedIn actively connects job-seekers with the jobs that fit their skill set. Not only that, they can even connect with a company through someone who already works with it.
Does LinkedIn cost money?
LinkedIn has a free option for job seekers, but it's limited in many ways. Free accounts can only see the last five people who viewed his or her profile. Free users are also limited to first-come-first-serve for resume placement. Here's what changes when you throw down some money:Job Seeker Premium
Price: $29.99/month
Benefits:
- Become a "featured applicant" when recruiters see the people who applied for a job through LinkedIn.
- Get more insights about who is viewing your profile and how recently the person viewed your profile.
- InMail lets you contact anyone on LinkedIn, when free members are only allowed to contact people in their network.
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How should I make a profile?
Making a LinkedIn profile can usually be a little more complex than the one you'd build for something like Facebook. Your LinkedIn works sort of like an online resume, and the site is very good about walking you through the steps necessary to building a worthwhile LinkedIn profile.LinkedIn's account wizard should help you move through the preliminary steps of setting up your account. It's also valuable to figure out what you do or don't want potential employers to see. The account wizard will walk you through every part of your professional life that you may or may not want to share with potential employers.
Even if you don't end up finding a job through LinkedIn, the website's free account wizard is actually a great way to think back on your credentials. You can enter and sort through information like education, past employment, awards, past projects that you've worked on and a massive list of other cool stuff.
How should I write my 'about me' section?
One of the things that I see a lot on LinkedIn is confusion over how professional to make your profile look. While I've seen some great profiles that are written in the third person, I think that the best LinkedIn profiles acknowledge that they were created by a human being.When you write your LinkedIn profile, I'd suggest using first person. Don't worry, you're free to post a PDF of your resume and potential employers can just look at that if they want. When someone stumbles across your LinkedIn page, they want to hire someone who looks and sounds human.
What do I do after making my account?
It's important to keep the differences between LinkedIn and Facebook in mind. While you can post statuses, interesting content and other stuff on LinkedIn, it's definitely not the place for pictures of your cat.That's not to say that you can't socialize on LinkedIn, just be sure to keep it professional and try to spin the content that you post toward whatever career you're trying to find. You could also consider using one of these three under-the-radar job hunting sites to identify a company that you want to work for, then "follow" them for updates on the company's hiring cycles.
Unless you're actively job hunting or recruiting through LinkedIn, there definitely won't be as much stuff to do or read as you'll find on Facebook. What you can do, though, is keep an eye out on how often someone searches and visits your profile.
Like I said, recruiters actively search for new hires on LinkedIn and one of the best things that you can do is find new ways to direct them toward your profile.
You might even want to learn about basic Search Engine Optimization principles.
If you don't know what SEO is all about or want to brush up on your skill set, check out my tip on exactly that. It'll point you in the right direction.
