Chapter 9
Using LinkedIn to Put Your Best Profile Forward
In This Chapter
Discovering what makes LinkedIn the highest-leverage job-seeking engine on the planet
Taking a look at the essential components of a good profile
Moving your profile to the head of the pack with applications, recommendations, and more
Figuring out how to grow your LinkedIn network
Investigating additional LinkedIn features to help you get hired
In today’s connected job market, your first impression with a potential employer is likely to be an online impression. And LinkedIn — a social network for professionals — is one of the primary locations for an employer to find new talent online. Fortune 500 companies (including many of their executives), small businesses, startups, freelancers, and businesses from hundreds of sectors are on LinkedIn. At the end of 2012, LinkedIn had more than 200 million users, and more than half of them were located outside the United States. This number is even greater today because every second a new person joins LinkedIn. In fact, corporate headhunters now consider LinkedIn their primary resource for filling open jobs.
Recent studies indicate that tens of millions of people have used social media to find work. Yet recruiters spend just eight seconds on average looking profiles. Nowadays, simply having a profile on LinkedIn isn’t good enough — it has to be amazing!
You need to seriously ask yourself this question: Is my LinkedIn profile strong enough, compelling enough, or just simply good enough to make the kind of impression on a hiring manager that can get me an interview?
After reading this chapter and applying my advice to your profile, the answer will be yes. That’s because in this chapter, I introduce you to the rise of LinkedIn in the human-resources world and explain just how this development affects your job search. I also reveal the most important elements of creating a LinkedIn profile for job-seeking success, what you need to do to get your profile looking great, and some powerful strategies for growing your network’s leverage.
Even if you're fairly experienced with LinkedIn, I encourage you to read through this chapter. You may find a trick or two that makes a positive difference in your effort to find a job. (And for the latest changes on LinkedIn for social-media-savvy job seekers, head to http://careerenlightenment.com/category/linkedin-tips.)
Understanding Why LinkedIn Is So Important
Put yourself in the shoes of a hiring manager in today’s economy. Your company is going through tough economic times. Your HR department has been drastically downsized, and you’re being asked to find and recruit talent to fill your open positions — a task that you aren’t even compensated for. Do you (A) pay a major job board $600 to $800 to post the job and get lots of spam and unqualified people applying, or (B) jump on LinkedIn for free and, using keywords that relate to the skills you need, find trusted people in your network?
Clearly, hiring managers prefer to leverage their social and professional networks to fill positions, and the highest-leverage social professional network is LinkedIn.
As with any social network, the power is not only having a compelling profile but also who you know, who those people know, and who those people know. Experienced networkers know that the best professional opportunities come from second- or even third-degree connections.
Several years ago, I checked my network statistics. I had more than 880 first-degree connections, and from those connections I had access to more than 11 million people. This means that I’m more likely to have connections at companies I may want to work for and be able to ask for referrals into those companies. Building your LinkedIn network to this capacity is a very reasonable goal for any job seeker.
Another compelling reason why LinkedIn is so important for your job search is that if you have a strong profile, you’re likely to rank on Google’s first results page when someone searches for your name. This fact makes a powerful LinkedIn profile the first step to building a strong online reputation.
Surveying the Elements of a Winning Profile
An employer looks at three key areas of your LinkedIn profile during the first few seconds of viewing (I show you where these elements can be found in Figure 9-1):
Your profile photo
Your professional headline
Your profile summary
I call these elements the Big Three. They’re so important to your LinkedIn profile that I devote an entire section to each one.
Figure 9-1: A LinkedIn profile featuring the three winning elements.
Taking a good profile photo
Humans are visual creatures. In a matter of milliseconds, we draw conclusions, make assumptions, and form opinions about people based on how they look. The way we look, of course, shouldn’t have anything to do with our eligibility for a position, but it often does.
Hiring managers want to know who you are. They want to see whether you have leadership qualities and whether you’re friendly and professional. They want to imagine what working with you may be like. All these attributes can be communicated to your advantage with a good profile photo.
Generally speaking, not having a profile photo on LinkedIn can cause you more damage than having a bad one. Many recruiters I talk to say that a blank profile photo lands many qualified candidates into the maybe pile. A faceless candidate communicates an incomplete profile, which is perceived as low motivation and a lackluster enthusiasm for finding work. After all, if you went to a dating site and read the profile of the mate of your dreams, but instead of a tall blond, you saw a blank, would you believe what that person says?
A strong LinkedIn profile picture includes the following key elements:
A pleasant smile: A good photo is warm and welcoming. Show those pearly whites.
Professional attire: Not every job requires that you wear a suit and tie, but you should dress appropriately. Think about the job you’re going for and dress for your first day.
A pleasing background: Each color and background texture alters the emotional quality of the image. Some people choose green or blue backgrounds, which convey trust and stability. One friend, a financial advisor, stood next to the Merrill Lynch bull to communicate an association with the financial industry.
An interesting angle: Your profile picture isn’t a mug shot, so don’t look head on at the camera. Instead, try tilting your head slightly or look at the camera over a shoulder. You want to avoid symmetry around your head.
A sign of your personality: A marketing friend of mine used an image of herself playing a Rock Band guitar with helped her land a job in the creative marketing world. Although you don’t need a gimmick or prop in your photo, think about what you can do to show who you are and how that image relates to your chosen industry.
Clear lighting with a close crop: Because your picture will appear on someone’s computer in a very small crop, your face needs to be clearly visible. Be sure you use lighting that highlights your face, and crop so that your face takes up most of the 150-x-150 thumbnail.
Don’t crop your face out of your vacation photos. Take your profile picture seriously and find an hour or two to do it right. If you don’t have a good camera, see whether your local department store has a family studio where you can get some good, professional shots.
If you’re concerned that adding a picture of yourself to your LinkedIn profile may put you at a disadvantage due to ageism, racism, or sexism, consider this: If a hiring manager makes a negative determination about your employability based on a half-inch sized profile photo, then his company isn’t the place for you. Clearly that organization has a culture of oppression, and I’m sure you aren’t anxious to jump into a shark tank. This type of organization can make it twice as hard for you to succeed, so let it go. If you don’t have a picture, you’re not playing ball. Recruiting professionals are used to seeing profiles with pictures, so the one without the picture becomes the oddity. And to hammer down this point, I’ve noticed that LinkedIn’s search algorithm puts priority on displaying profiles with images on search results pages. Without a picture, your profile probably won’t get the full consideration or visibility it deserves.
Writing a professional headline
Your professional headline appears just below your name as well as on every communication you send in LinkedIn. It’s the first thing someone reads when your profile shows up on a search results page. It defines who you are and what you can do for an organization. That’s why LinkedIn doesn’t simply call this section job title, yet many people make the mistake of stating their role, such as sales executive or VP of Finance.
When you first sign up to LinkedIn or add a new position, it automatically puts your job title in the headline area. You need to edit this along with the rest of your profile based on the advice in this section.
In your LinkedIn professional headline, you have 120 characters to really communicate your identity — what you do, who you are, and what your level of motivation is. This spot is also your chance to show a hiring manager that you understand the needs of her business. What can you do to help her company?
Because LinkedIn’s search algorithm indexes the headline first, be sure to include your most powerful keywords and keyphrases. (For more about how to find keywords and keyphrases and how to compose a winning headline, see Chapter 5.)
If you currently have a job, mention it by name in your headline. Employed people sometimes have an easier time finding other jobs. So take advantage of this trend by explicitly calling out your current employer and what you’re doing there.
Think of your headline as a short sales pitch. Not only does it need to clearly explain what you do, but it also has to convince recruiters to read more about you. This means stepping into their point of view for a moment and crafting compelling language. Doing so in 120 characters is deceptively hard. Take your time and get this part right. To learn some winning formulas, read Chapter 5.
Summarizing what makes you different
The summary section of your profile appears just below your activity at the top of your profile (refer to Figure 9-1). If hiring managers make it as far as your summary, they’re essentially asking you to tell them more about you. So here’s your chance to make an impression. Whatever you do, don’t bore them. Only after reading your summary do hiring managers look at your experience and education.
A good profile summary has these three characteristics:
It’s short. Keep your summary between five and ten lines on the screen, or three to five sentences. When read out loud, your summary shouldn’t take more than 30 seconds to read. (And, yes, that means you need to read it out loud with a timer.)
It’s concise. Your summary isn’t the place for bulleted lists of your accomplishments, but it should quickly tell viewers more about you.
It’s unique. Avoid jargon, buzzwords, or clichés.
It’s a narrative. You’re welcome to use first person pronouns in your summary. Rather than referring to yourself in the third person, like you would in a résumé, tell your story with I and my.
In the United Kingdom and Europe, these rules are a bit topsy-turvy (so to speak). Profile summaries here are longer and more often told in the third person, like a résumé. Try out several versions and use the one that gets you the best results.
Avoid overused LinkedIn buzzwords
Each year, LinkedIn announces the top ten buzzwords overused in profiles from around the world. If you want to separate yourself from the crowd, avoid these words at all costs. For example, the list announced in December 2012 included the following words:
Analytical
Creative
Effective
Extensive experience
Innovative
Motivated
Organizational
Problem solving
Responsible
Track record
Your profile summary is the first place you get to elaborate on your personal brand. And your brand should focus on the value you offer the reader. So feel free to use a clear and well-crafted value statement in this area of your profile. I go into great detail on writing value statements in Chapter 5. Go through one of the three methods for writing a value statement and then update your LinkedIn profile summary with the results.
With LinkedIn’s new profiles, you can now upload multimedia files to make your profile more visual and interactive. These objects appear as thumbnails just below your summary and work experience. You can either add media files directly to your summary or upload them to your Experience section. Whatever multimedia element you load into an experience rolls up to the Summary section automatically.
Consider adding one of these types of media elements to your summary to help you tell your story:
Images
Video
Audio
Presentations
Documents
Portfolio
Getting Your Profile in Tiptop Shape
Nowadays, first impressions between employers and potential employees are taking place on LinkedIn more and more frequently, which means you need to put the same effort into the way you look online as you do into your physical appearance when you’re heading to an interview or meeting. But what I find when I speak publicly to various audiences about LinkedIn is that even though most professionals have a LinkedIn profile, the vast majority of them have done precious little with it. In many cases, 90 percent of the professionals I encounter haven’t even bothered completing their profiles.
I don’t want you to be among this group. I want you to have not only a complete profile — one that shows your photo, has at least three recommendations, and includes all the details about your work experience and education — but also an impressive profile that makes you stand out. In the next sections, I share with you the tools, such as Endorsements and Recommendations, that can help differentiate your profile from others.
If you don’t yet have a LinkedIn profile and want basic details about how to set up an account, see Joel Elad’s LinkedIn For Dummies (John Wiley & Sons, Inc.). Make sure your profile is complete before moving on to the next sections.
Getting the skills to pay the bills
The Skills & Expertise area in LinkedIn is a place for you to highlight what you are really good at and what areas you’re currently working on. When you add a Skill to this section, you’re quickly helping your reader understand what you can do, not just by adding more descriptive keywords but also by adding another dimension to your profile. Each skill can receive an Endorsement from each person in your network. So skills with more Endorsements quickly reveal what your network thinks you’re very good at.
You can have up to 50 skills in your profile, and 10 will show up prominently in their own list based on the number of Endorsements you receive for that skill. (I talk more about Endorsements in the next section.)
Because LinkedIn has built some uniformity around each skill, you’ll see who the top influencers are for the skill, how it’s changed over time, related skills, locations where that skill is in higher demand, and much more. This information can help you make better informed decisions about who to connect with, which locations you should focus on, and even what other words people use to describe what you do. Follow these steps to find all this information:
1. Head to http://linkedin.com/skills.
2. Type in something you’re skilled in, like management, ballet, or WordPress.
As you type, LinkedIn will make some suggestions based on its own list of skills.
3. When you see your skill pop up, click on it.
4. Check out the page for that skill that comes up. Each page has lots of information to comb through, but pay close attention to Related Skills, Relative Growth, and Relative Size.
Use the Relative Size graph found in the upper-right corner to identify smaller niched skills to explore.
5. Click on See Suggested Skills to learn what LinkedIn suggests for you based on your profile.
Just like with keywords, there are two strategies to take when choosing skills. You can use skills that have a small, niched use, often called longtail, or you can grab more popular skills. Longtail skills make you visible to recruiters who are looking for highly specialized candidates, like for certain programming languages, sales techniques, or other subcategories. When choosing skills, start at the highest level of describing what you do, then narrow down to more specific, longtail keywords.
For example, let’s say you’re in sales. You might add the popular skill Sales, which is the fifth-most popular skill in all of LinkedIn. Then, in order to stand out from the crowd, you add the more niched skill Sandler, which is a specialized sales method. Sandler only has 2,000 people using it on their profiles.
As another example, you might be a web developer. JavaScript would be a popular keyword to include on your profile, with about 1 million people also listing that skill. But you are also talented in jQuery, with only 500,000 other people. And even further, you are pretty good with jQuery Mobile, with only 24,000. Keep narrowing down each of your skills so that you get both the broader popular skill plus the various subcategories within it. This technique can be used for any qualification you have until you max out at 50 skills.
If you had to choose between two skills, choose the one with the higher Relative Growth number. On the top right of the page, look for the graph called Relative Growth. This chart tells you which skills are growing, year over year, relative to other related skills. You may find skills with a negative growth rate, which you should avoid.
Endorse this!
Members of your network can vouch for any of your skills by endorsing them. Each skill in your profile can have endorsements, which look like a teeny-tiny icon of the Endorser’s face next to your skill on your profile.
In contrast to recommendations (see the next section), endorsements don’t require thoughtful responses, complete sentences, or specific details. It’s just a quick-click kudos from people who think you’re indeed good at that skill.
You’re probably thinking, “So what’s the point?” On a small level, it may seem fruitless, but when you start to get large numbers of endorsements next to skills, the perception can be that you are really good at that, relative to other skills you might have. From a grander perspective, who endorsed you may have an impact as well. If someone with expertise in jazz guitar says you’re also good at jazz guitar, chances are you’re pretty good at jazz guitar. Some people speculate that this type of weighted skill endorsement feeds LinkedIn’s search algorithm for recruiters.
Over time, you may notice that some skills receive more attention than others. I’ve been able to validate my personal brand by watching this trend over time. I’m positioned as a speaker on social media topics, and guess what skills are in my top five: speaking and social media. You know your branding is working when the right skills are getting endorsed.
Anytime you receive endorsements, or when you give them, you have an opportunity to re-engage your network. If someone you haven’t been in touch with for a while endorses you, use it as an opportunity to reconnect.
As soon as you enter your skills (see the previous section), you’ll start getting endorsed. LinkedIn will pop-up an “Endorse your network” type of box for folks in your network. Then with one click, they can endorse you. However, if you don’t want to wait for that to happen, you can take a more proactive approach. Here are some ways you can supercharge your endorsements.
Endorse first: When you endorse someone, that person receives an e-mail. Often people will reciprocate. Only endorse people for skills you know they have and you can vouch for.
Ask directly: If certain people in your network can vouch for some of your skills, feel free to ask them, just like you would ask for a recommendation.
Join an Endorsement Group: Although this practice goes against the intention of endorsements, you can join a group and get endorsed by total strangers, just to get your numbers up.
Requesting really good recommendations
Recommendations in LinkedIn allow you to send or receive professional references and display them on your profile in a trustworthy way. You need at least three recommendations to have a complete LinkedIn profile.
The recommendations section is the one part of your profile that you don’t have full control over because you have to rely on other people to write these recommendations for you (which makes them more reliable). I’ve noticed that LinkedIn’s search algorithm ranks profiles with more recommendations higher than others. If you want to be found, I highly encourage you to take your recommendations seriously.
As a general rule, you want to have recommendations equal to about 5 to 10 percent of your network size. So if my network has 280 people in it, I may strive for 28 recommendations, but 14 is good enough. Of course, only about half the people you ask for a recommendation will respond. So if you need three recommendations, send out six requests. If you want 10, send out 20. For details about how to improve your response rate and how to request recommendations professionally, see Chapter 8.
The trick with requesting recommendations on LinkedIn is to always personalize your request message. LinkedIn drops some standard language into the request form, but you need to tailor this note for each person you’re asking. By suggesting a few bullet points for them to cover in their recommendation, you make it easier for them to think of something to say, or remind them of a specific event where you leaped over buildings in a single bound.
Some people refuse to write original recommendations. They prefer that you write your own text, and then they just put their signature on it. In my opinion, this is an archaic and quite outdated approach that’s incompatible with social media. The theme with social media is authenticity, and writing your own recommendation and then putting someone else’s name on it isn’t very authentic. And such practices can backfire on you: If you’re the author of all your own recommendations and you have ten of them, they may look too similar and people may notice.
Try to explain this to the people who refuse to write a recommendation. Try using some for the recommendation requesting tips I provide in Chapter 8. If they still refuse to adapt to modern times and help you out, be prepared to let them go. What they may actually be communicating is that they don’t have time to help you.
I break down the anatomy of a good recommendation on LinkedIn in an article on my website. Send this link to your recommender to help them with their writing: http://careerenlightenment.com/how-to-double-your-linkedin-recommendations-with-style.
You’re not obligated to return a recommendation. LinkedIn delivers a “Return the Favor” screen after you receive a recommendation, but you can ignore this. Give recommendations to only the people you feel compelled to give them to and who you’re comfortable vouching for.
Updating your status
LinkedIn’s status update feature allows you to post a short message to share with your network (first- and second-degree contacts only — in other words, the people you’re directly connected to and the people they’re directly connected to). The functionality of status updates on LinkedIn is very similar to that of Facebook and Twitter. In fact, when you link your Twitter account to your LinkedIn profile, your LinkedIn updates can be sent to your Twitter feed as well.
Think of the status update as a quick way of telling people in your network what you’re up to. You can find status updates just below your professional headline at the very top of your profile (see Figure 9-2). Other people see your update on their home page and may even have it included in a weekly e-mail from LinkedIn.
Figure 9-2: Status updates are a good way to communicate within your network.
One of the most common objections I hear about using status updates in LinkedIn is that people feel doing so has no immediate benefit and is a real waste of time. However, using status updates can really accelerate your job search. Here’s why:
Due to the location of status updates on a profile, a hiring manager may read your update even before reading your summary.
Updating your network with status updates keeps your name (think personal brand here; see Chapter 5 for more on this topic) at the top of people’s minds. Your connections are more likely to think about you as an active member of their community when they see your frequent status updates.
Appropriate status updates can demonstrate your personality and show a hiring manager that you’re motivated and engaged. Status updates add further personalization to your otherwise uniform profile.
Be sure you post status updates the right way. Following are ways to maximize this activity for the biggest impact on your job search without wasting time:
Update your status at least once a week. This frequency should appeal to you if you’re more reluctant to use status updates. Try it for a couple of weeks and see what happens.
Don’t update your status more than three times a day. It just turns into noise at that point. (This advice is for you if you’re a Twitter zealot who loves to share. LinkedIn is not Twitter. Don’t pretend it is. For help turning Twitter into a job-seeking tool, flip to Chapter 12.)
Don’t post casual content. Keep your focus on your industry or professional interests. One way to achieve this is to share a link to an article you’ve read, along with your opinion of it.
Share links, observations, and activities that you feel may draw someone closer to you. Before sharing, ask yourself, “If a hiring manager saw this, would he feel like he knows me better?”
Status updates aren’t one-way messages. You can comment and share your thoughts on someone else’s post and vice versa. Status updates are a good tool for starting discussions and staying relevant to people. Using status updates to communicate with others is also a nice way of deepening a relationship with someone in your network who you may not know very well and may turn out to be a valuable contact in the future. Figure 9-3 shows how someone liked my update inviting engagement.
Figure 9-3: My same status update with someone Liking it.
Looking at other essential profile sections
Your past experience and education can determine whether or not you meet certain essential qualifications. Though many people simply copy and paste their resume into the Experience and Education sections in their profile, the information is not consumed in the same way. Readers spend much less time looking at your profile, and you’re expected to get your points across and tell your story fast.
When filling in your Experience section, keep these tips in mind:
Start by telling your story in first-person narrative (using “I”).
Use ALL CAPS to signal section changes.
Keep it concise. When people read online, they don’t like long blocks of text.
Insert some keywords in each Experience item while keeping it readable.
Here’s an example of these tips in action:
I performed full range of business development, sales, and account-management duties including bottom-line accountability, pricing, proposal writing and presentation, order management, and accounts receivables.
SALES PERFORMANCE
- Sold $1.4M in revenue on a $1.07M quota — 47% above plan.
- Delivered 1.26% of gross margin goal — 7.1% vs. projected 5.6%.
You need at least three entries in your experience section for LinkedIn to consider your profile complete. The more complete your profile, the higher it winds up in search results.
When filling in your Education section, keep these tips in mind:
You can use bullet points under each school.
• Your first bullet can be your degree and any honors.
• Use the next two or three bullets to talk about your extracurricular achievements.
If you even just took a weekend training class at a university, include it
Here’s a quick example:
UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO, Chicago IL
- BA: International Relations (cum laude, 2000)
- International studies: Universidad de Málaga (Spain; 1/1998–6/1999); Central University for Nationalities (Beijing, China; 6/2000)
- Events Coordinator, Alternative Spring Break: Organized activities raising $3,000+ to fund travel expenses for three student service projects in the Bronx
- Varsity Athlete: Lacrosse, swimming, and ping-pong teams
Examining and Expanding Your Network
What good is having a beautiful and complete LinkedIn profile if no one gets to see it? Without an extensive network, your LinkedIn profile is just another online résumé. (Not that there is anything wrong with an online résumé! I tell you all about them in Chapter 11.) If you only obsess about your profile and don’t bother to build a strong, targeted network, then you will face these issues:
If you’re looking to break into a new industry or specialty field, your current network may be very strong in the industry you’re coming from but not so useful for the industry or new field you’re trying to get into.
Your network may be so small that finding and connecting with important people is difficult.
Nowadays, with nearly every single talent-sourcing professional running LinkedIn searches, it’s more important than ever to have a large and high-quality network. The larger your network, the more chances your profile will pop up in search results pages.
The more recruiters you have in your network, the more chances you’ll have of getting discovered. Even if you don’t like to connect with people you don’t know or haven’t met, consider doing what ever it takes to get as many recruiters in your network as possible. Just go to an Advanced People search using the keyword Recruiter and add as many as you can. Typically, recruiters want to connect with as many candidates as possible. But don’t tell them I said that!
Adding the people you already know
Now that your profile is something to be proud of, be certain that everyone you know has received an opportunity to connect with you on LinkedIn. This is the fastest way to grow your network.
Adding people you know from e-mail
Click on the Add Connections icon at the top-right corner of your LinkedIn profile. Here, you can import e-mail addresses from your e-mail clients, such as Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, Hotmail, or AOL, and invite your contacts to connect on LinkedIn. If you use a desktop e-mail client, you can upload a contacts file when you click on Any Email.
The first screen you get will be a list of all your e-mail contacts who already have LinkedIn profiles. Simply check off the names of people you’d like to invite, or select all. The second screen shows you contacts who aren’t on LinkedIn. I suggest skipping this second step unless you really want to have conversations with computer-illiterate people that start with them saying to you, “What the heck is this spam you sent me?”
Adding people you know from work or school
LinkedIn makes predictions of people you may know based on what you filled out in your Experience section and Education section (so be sure these sections are filled out accurately first!). Also, the recommendations are informed by the information your first-degree connections have put in their Experience and Education sections. As your network grows, suggestions on this page will expand proportionally and will get more accurate. So feel free to revisit this page every few months.
From your LinkedIn Home page, click on People You May Know. You’ll see a long list of possible candidates. From there, you can choose a company or a school through which you know these people. Click through these and connect with anyone who looks familiar.
Use LinkedIn's Alumni tool to quickly find others from your graduating year to connect with. Or connect with Alumni in different locations, companies, skills, or job titles. Go to http://linkedin.com/alumni to find these advanced search features. To find people you might know, set the graduating year to match your own. For more instructions on using the Alumni tool, see Chapter 17.
Growing your network en masse
The following statement may sound silly, but here goes: The more connections you have on your LinkedIn profile, the more likely hiring managers are to trust you. They see your large network as a sign that others validate you and that you’re worth getting to know.
When growing your LinkedIn network, you have to decide whether you’re a Cat or a LION. Cats are more conservative networkers who add only people they know, and in some cases, they must have had at least a 15-minute conversation with them. LinkedIn Open Networkers, or LIONs, are more liberal networkers and can have networks as large as 15,000 connections or more. The following sections present some strategies you can use to grow your network in whichever category you find yourself in.
The magic number of LinkedIn connections is 143 — and not just because numbers that end in three are lucky! If you have fewer than 143 connections, chances are you’re not going to have second- or third-degree connections in any of the companies you want to work for. If you have more than 143 connections, your next goal should be to get 500 or more connections. You add a lot of credibility to your profile by having a large number of connections. Recruiters see a lot of connections as a green flag.
The easy way: Become a LION
If you find yourself with fewer than 143 connections (or fewer than your target number like 500+), I suggest you take a more liberal approach to growing your network. Consider becoming a LION for a short time. At the very least, consider finding and inviting a handful of LIONs to join your network. Their large networks serve to increase your second- and third-degree connections substantially. So even if you don’t want to add tons of strangers to your network, at least the few LIONs you do add can give you some substantial benefit.
Following are a few ways to promote yourself as a LION:
Put “LION” next to your last name in your profile.
Enter your e-mail address in your profile summary and say, “Invites welcome.”
Join several open networking groups, such as Lion500, TopLinked, or Open Networker. To find more, just do a group search for “open networking.”
To do a group search, simply click on Groups from the drop-down menu next to the search bar and type in your search keywords.
Go to the Members tab at the top of any open networking group. In the search area, search for members in your area of interest.
Invite these open networkers to join your network. Remember that if they didn’t want to get your invite, they wouldn’t be a member of a LION group.
Whenever your network reaches the size and depth you’re comfortable with, simply stop being an open networker.
One disadvantage to being a LION for too long is that your network is filled with strangers. This means you’re not in a strong position to ask for introductions to target companies. I highly suggest you use your LION status sparingly to just help you over the first few humps of getting to your target number of 143 or 500 connections. Also be sure to stop being a LION when you begin to actively reach out to hiring managers, because they may not agree with the approach.
Although inviting open networkers to connect is fairly safe, you do risk the possibility of your account being flagged or blacklisted if LinkedIn thinks you’re spamming. If you send out more than 50 invites a day, LinkedIn may flag you. If you send out invites and then many people respond with “I don’t know,” you may get blacklisted. If this happens, you need to write an apology e-mail to customer service. Next time, pace yourself. (Trust me, I’m speaking from experience!)
The strategic way: Being a cat
If you have a comfortably large network (any number larger than 143) and don’t require the gung-ho networking of a LION, then you can afford to be a bit more catlike in picking who you connect with. (Cat doesn’t stand for anything but is just a more careful way of growing your LinkedIn network.)
Strictly speaking, LinkedIn prefers that you connect with only people you know. However, unless you’re networking like crazy and meeting hundreds of new people a week in person, this literal interpretation can get in the way. Another way to connect is to find new people online one-by-one rather than in bulk. And find those people in strategic places, such as from a group or alumni network.
Here are some steps you can take to strategically (and tactfully) grow your network:
1. Click on the Advanced link at the top of your LinkedIn profile to access the Advanced People Search page.
2. Type in one of your keywords in the Keywords field or simply use your industry, such as advertising or accounting.
3. Click on the Search button.
4. Deselect 1st degree and group in the relationship settings, leaving behind the 2nd and 3rd degree filter
Your search results list new people in your strategic area who may be open to connecting with you. Take your time and look at each profile. If you’ve joined any of the open networking groups, you may already be members of the same group and can invite them without using an e-mail address.
Generally, if people include their e-mail address in their profile, it means they’re open to networking with you.
Joining groups to expand your brand
A LinkedIn Group is a collection of professionals connected around a common theme (see Figure 9-4). A group’s main function is to facilitate discussions and networking within a trusted environment. The two kinds of LinkedIn Groups are open groups, where membership isn’t mandatory to participate, and closed groups, where you need to join to read discussions and network. Some closed groups may accept your request to join automatically. Others require an administrator to approve your membership based on some criteria. For more on what a LinkedIn Group is and how to find one, check out Joel Elad’s LinkedIn For Dummies (John Wiley & Sons, Inc.). For advice on how you can leverage groups to build your brand and grow your network for your job search, see the following sections.
Figure 9-4: A LinkedIn Group page.
Finding a worthwhile group to join
Because so many worthless groups exist, it pays to be careful about which ones you join. You can find useful groups by following these steps:
1. Do an advanced people search using a keyword or industry term.
2. Find people outside your network (not 1st degree) who are doing what you want to do at a desired company and view their profile.
3. Scroll down to the bottom of their profile and make note of any industry-specific groups they belong to.
4. Join the industry-specific groups you find.
The easiest way to find a good group is to simply do a search. In the search box at the top of your profile, type in a keyword or an industry-specific word, such as “ESL” or “Healthcare.” LinkedIn will suggest related groups the third of the way down even before you press enter. If you see a suggested group you like, great; otherwise press enter and execute the search. From there use the filter on the left to just see results that are groups (see Figure 9-5). Also try geographic terms, such as “Portland Marketing.” Groups with more than 1,000 members tend to be active.
Only about 20 percent of LinkedIn’s thousands of groups are active, so be sure to look at the number of active discussions in a group before joining it. Only open groups allow you to see discussions without being a member. If you’re interested in joining a closed group, you simply have to draw conclusions about its activity level based on the number of users in that group.
Figure 9-5: How to filter your search for just groups.
Most schools have active alumni groups that are eager to serve you. Try joining your school’s alumni group and finding alums who are in your same industry. After you’re approved, choose the Members tab and enter your industry in the search field. The results show fellow alumni in your industry; many alumni are willing to connect with you and even advise you. Invite some of these people to connect and be sure to customize the note in your invitation and lead by mentioning your common school.
Participating in groups the right way
As a job seeker, your primary focus is to stand out of the crowd and be seen. When it comes to LinkedIn Groups, participation is mandatory. Spend five to ten minutes a day cruising your top three groups and interacting with people in one or more of the following ways:
Comment on other people’s posts. On the group’s page, look at the Latest Discussions as well as the Most Popular Discussions. When you find a discussion that interests you, add your two cents.
A good comment always adds to the conversation, whether in a LinkedIn Group or on a blog. Avoid pleasantries like “Good point” or “I like what you’re saying.” Instead, offer further examples or even dispute the points made with counter examples. You can take a person’s point to a logical extreme, deconstruct it, or build it up. An easy commenting strategy is to tell a story from your own experience.
Share links with your group that you think are valuable. If you aren’t quite ready to post your own original discussion, then you may consider adding value to the group by sharing a news article or blog post that others may enjoy as well. Some people even copy and paste the first paragraph of the article with a link to read more at the bottom in order to build up curiosity. Add your opinion of the article and ask for participation.
Ask a question or ask for opinions. Imagine you’re at a networking event filled with industry experts. What would you ask them? Would you ask them how to get started in the field or for advice for someone in your situation? Perhaps you would ask them about an industry-specific issue or a news item that questions the status quo. LinkedIn calls it a discussion board for a reason!
Interrupt conversations. Some discussions can get very heated. I’ve been in the middle of a few controversial ones, and it’s fun. Jump into the fray. Back someone up who’s making a controversial point. Challenge an assumption. Take sides.
Avoid sounding desperate when interacting with people online. A lot of people are out there looking for work. So answer the question of what makes you different and show the value you bring to the table. The LinkedIn Group’s discussion page isn’t your platform for sympathy or for asking for favors.
Using groups to connect with new people
After you’re an active member of several groups, you have some credibility when you eventually ask to connect with other members. Members of the group begin to recognize your name and face and are, thus, more likely to accept your invite. Here’s a great way to make a new friend in an active group:
1. Keep track of the most active members.
You’ll begin to recognize active members over a few weeks of monitoring discussions.
2. Send a private reply to one of these contributors’ posts or comments.
A private reply is a way to e-mail group members directly and privately, even if you’re not yet connected.
3. Tell this member how much you’ve enjoyed interacting with him or her within the group and that you want to connect.
4. Send an invite to connect (if the person agrees) and pat yourself on the back for finding a new friend who you’ve strategically and carefully vetted.
Discovering Secret Ninja Moves for Your LinkedIn Profile
Some profile-optimization tactics don’t fall into any real category but are still excellent, yet subtle, ways of making your profile shine. If you’re ready to take your LinkedIn presence to the next level (and you’ve already followed the advice I present earlier in this chapter for sprucing up your profile and deepening your network), then the tactics I highlight in the next sections are for you.
Understanding the benefits of the job-seeker badge
Although a job-seeker subscription on LinkedIn costs around $30/month, it may be worth the investment during an active job search. More than just getting a nifty little suitcase icon next to your name, this level of subscription boosts your profile in search results and when you use LinkedIn to apply for a job.
You’ll also get more inMails and will be able to see more details of the people who viewed your network. These two features alone may pay for themselves; see the next section on leveraging the knowledge of who’s viewed your profile.
Leveraging who’s viewed your profile
Knowing who’s viewed your profile can be a very powerful tool to advance your career. For example, I recently spoke at a university in Minnesota. Later I noticed that someone from the business school had viewed my profile. I can guess that people have been talking about my visit, and maybe if I reach out to that person, I can build a new business relationship.
You can use this tool to find and communicate with recruiters who’ve viewed your profile but didn’t reach out. Maybe you’re a warm lead on a position they are trying to source. If you see people viewing your profile from companies you’re interested in or in job roles you’re going for, then those are all warm leads for you.
Free subscribers see only a few names in this section, which you can access from the LinkedIn home page. Paying members get to see a much more detailed list. However, you won’t see anyone if you’re using LinkedIn anonymously. LinkedIn won’t tell you who’s viewed your profile unless you tell them you’ve viewed theirs — it’s just reciprocity.
Follow these steps to make sure you’re not anonymous:
1. Visit your Settings section by hovering over your name in the top right of any page in LinkedIn and chose Privacy & Settings.
2. Click on Select what others see when you’ve viewed their profile.
3. Make sure that you have not selected anonymous.
InMailing anyone for free
No matter what level of subscription you have on LinkedIn, you only get a limited number of inMails each month. InMails are e-mails sent via the LinkedIn platform. They typically have a higher open rate than regular cold e-mails and when used appropriately can boost your networking. To learn strategies on who to inMail and what to say, see Chapters 17 and 18.
If you’ve run out of inMails and are trying to connect with someone who’s not a first-degree connection, here’s a way to bypass the restriction LinkedIn makes on you:
1. Visit the profile of the person you wish to connect with and look at the groups displayed.
2. Pick a group to join that seems the most relevant to you and one which you can get accepted into.
3. After you’re accepted, when you go to send that person an inMail, you can choose that you share a group in common so you won’t get dinged.
Visualizing yourself
If you’re a visual person, like me, then you appreciate infographics and other graphical ways to display linear information. There’s some evidence to show that some recruiters like this as well because they can pick out what they want to find very quickly. From the options in this section, select the one that uses a layout you prefer.
Vizify.com (www.vizify.com) surveyed over 300 hiring recruiters to find out exactly what information they want to see about someone in the first few seconds. Using this data, it built a platform that quickly delivers this information on the first page (see Figure 9-6).
When you connect your LinkedIn account to Vizify, it generates an online and visual representation of your LinkedIn profile, highlighting only those elements that recruiters seem to want to see. Their design style is simple, elegant, and useful. You can see my Vizify page here: www.vizify.com/joshuawaldman.
Figure 9-6: The Vizify profile landing page.
Visua.ly (http://create.visual.ly/kelly) converts your entire LinkedIn profile into a stunning and interactive infographic. When you visit these sites, all you have to do is link your LinkedIn account and it generates a visual representation of your work and education history. You can then make design changes to suit your taste.
Following the leaders and the companies
Company pages on LinkedIn are landing pages for any organization that wishes to set one up. They include the organization’s logo, products, descriptions, employees, and job postings. And most recently, they also include status updates. This means the company can send out announcements, news, or just interesting content to anyone who follows it.
A company can see who follows it, so it’s a good idea to follow the organizations you’ve chosen to target in your job search.
These steps let you find and follow a company:
1. Scroll over the Interests navigation and choose Companies.
2. Search for the company you’re interested in and click on its link in the results.
3. Click Follow, which is on the top-right side of the company page.
Making yourself easy to communicate with
If you were to ask an economist whether the economy is driven by large corporations or small midsized businesses (SMBs), most of them would tell you it’s the SMBs. The problem is the SMBs don’t have the same budget for talent acquisition as their larger counterparts. They can’t always afford the LinkedIn Recruiter product, which would allow them to inMail anyone and give them access to way more profiles.
So if an SMB stumbled on your profile and wanted to connect with you, it would have to use up one of its five inMails. Or if it was all out, it couldn’t contact you at all. And because that would be a huge problem for you, you need to make it as easy as possible for companies to make contact.
The easiest way to ensure SMBs can find you is to simply include your e-mail address at the bottom of your profile. However, many people are not comfortable with that. A safer alternative is to link to a separate landing page. If you have an About.me page (see Chapter 11), then people can use it to send you an e-mail without them knowing your e-mail address. Or if you have your own website or blog (see Chapter 6), you can use a contact form. Include this link in the Links section of your profile or at the end of your profile Summary.
SEOing for LinkedIn
Search engine optimization, or SEO, is the art and science of getting found when someone searches a term in a search engine like Google. LinkedIn uses a search algorithm that delivers results partly based on keyword density; that is, what percent of the time that keyword appears among all the other words on the page. If you want recruiters to find you on LinkedIn, just follow this simple checklist:
Know which keywords you want to be associated with. (I offer tips on conducting keyword research in Chapter 5.)
Make sure those keywords appear in the following locations in your profile:
• Professional headline
• Job title in current and three past experiences
• Summary
• Skills
Have at least six recommendations per experience. (The person with more recommendations wins in a tie for matching keywords.)
Have a large network. Search results often show up based on the degree to which you are connected to the searcher. If you are first or second degree, you’ll rise to the top.
Have a completed profile. Profiles that miss essential parts (photo, summary, or several experiences) tend to fall down in search results.
Some people take advantage of the simplicity of LinkedIn’s search algorithm and do something called keyword packing, which is stuffing keywords into a paragraph as many times as they can. Because keyword packing looks horribly ugly, people often stuff keywords into the oldest experiences section in their profile, somewhat out of the way. Yes, their profiles rank, but I don’t think they’re playing fair. LinkedIn may start penalizing people who do this, so don’t take the risk.
Name dropping may sound like an underhanded practice, but for ranking in LinkedIn, the technique works marvelously. If you’ve ever worked with a big-name client, company, or publication, mention it in your profile at least once. Some recruiters run searches based on companies they are trying to steal talent from. When you use those big names, your profile may end up on their results page.
Exploring Other LinkedIn Features
You usually have to keep your résumé to one or two pages, which can limit the information you share. Fortunately, LinkedIn has many features beyond what a résumé typically illustrates that let you expand the story of who you are. For example, it gives you ways to include course titles, publications, certifications, and volunteer work. In the following sections I explain how best to use these additional features.
Adding custom sections to your profile
LinkedIn now offers you greater flexibility with what types of content you can add to your profile. In addition to the standard Experience, Education, and Additional Information sections, you can also add the sections in the following list to reflect achievements and experiences (see Figure 9-7). To add sections, just click on the Recommended for you section on you profile display.
Certifications: Certifications are particularly important to highlight if you’re an engineer.
Language: Options include native or bilingual, professional working, and elementary proficiencies.
Patents: Okay, Mr. Smarty-Pants, so you have some patents under your belt. Go ahead and let everyone know how brilliant you are!
Publications: Have you written any articles that have been published in a major newspaper or magazine? Adding these publications to your profile can really boost your credibility.
Honors & Awards: Often your resume doesn’t have room for all your awards, so here’s a great place to get them listed.
Courses: This section is great for college students and new grads. It lets you discuss your favorite and most important courses during school. Highlighting these can really show your passion for what you do.
Projects: Often your Experience section deals with overviews of your past jobs. This section lets you dig deeper into a particular project you’re proud of. You can also include collaborators to show that you work well in teams.
Causes: Try to avoid the political or religious causes you may believe in. Instead, include social issues you care about, like hunger, AIDS, cancer, or organic basketballs.
Volunteering: If you’ve ever been a volunteer or worked with volunteers, include that information here.
You can reorder every part of your profile. After you add the new section, just drag it to the place where you want it to display.
Figure 9-7: Adding new sections to your LinkedIn profile.
Using advanced add-ons
LinkedIn has opened its code up to developers who want to augment the site. Many of their new innovations have happened internally, and I discuss some of the latest innovations in the following sections.
LinkedIn Today
LinkedIn Today is a social-network-empowered news reporting service. You see a mini version of LinkedIn Today as the very first screen at login as well as in your e-mail inbox (if your settings allow). For a distraction-free expanded version of LinkedIn Today, visit http://linkedin.com/today.
Today reports news items based on your chosen industry as well as their popularity in your own network. It’s a great way to discover trending news topics that are more likely to be relevant to you.
LinkedIn Resume Builder
If you’re like me, then you probably keep your LinkedIn profile more up to date than your résumé. With the Resume Builder, you can export your LinkedIn profile into a classy-looking résumé.
Just visit the Builder here at http://resume.linkedinlabs.com and link your account. Then you can choose which style of résumé you want.
LinkedIn Labs
LinkedIn continues to innovate its platform. When it develops a relatively stable version, it releases it for beta users on LinkedIn Labs: http://engineering.linkedin.com/linkedinlabs.
Currently, my three favorite Lab features are:
InMaps: Creates an interactive color-coded network map of all of your connections, quickly showing you who knows who and what industries they are in.
Swarm: Displays a scrolling word map of current company searches on LinkedIn as they’re happening in real time.
Year in Review: Shows everyone in your network who changed jobs last year.
Bookmarklet
A bookmarklet is a mini-app that performs some function from the bookmarks area of your web browser. When activated, the LinkedIn Bookmarklet launches the LinkedIn Share feature for whatever web page you’re on. So if you’re reading a great article on how to win any ping-pong match and how that relates to project management, you can share it to your network and to your project-management groups.
To install the Bookmarklet, visit http://www.linkedin.com/bookmarklet and drag the icon to your bookmark bar.
Signature Wizard
Want to use a professionally designed e-mail signature to tell each person you e-mail to connect with you on LinkedIn? LinkedIn aims to please with its e-mail-signature creation wizard. After logging into your account, visit http://bit.ly/li-sig and choose the design that most appeals to you. Then follow the on-page instructions for your particular e-mail client.
LinkedIn Mobile
In 2012, the number of mobile devices sold exceeded the world’s population. I’m willing to bet $100 that you have a cellphone if you are reading this book (and have made it this far!). LinkedIn certainly knows the proliferation of mobile devices, which is why it has put so much effort into developing an award winning-mobile app (for smartphone only, of course — no flip phones allowed!).
Card Munch
Ever come back from a networking event with a stack of business cards? Then you have to type them all in, one by one (or hire a teenager for $10 for the typing job). What a drag. Well, Card Much lets you take a picture of a business card with your phone, and in a few moments will parse it out and create a contact record, look the person up on LinkedIn, and give you an option to connect.
LinkedIn Contacts
This mobile app unifies your contacts from all the various parts of your online life, including your phone’s contacts, your computer’s, your LinkedIn network, and Card Munch. By integrating with Gmail, the app can tell you your last three e-mails with that contact. You can set reminders to stay in touch. You can even leave notes about how you met the person and who introduced you.