LinkedIn is hands down the most effective business networking tool on the web. It can find you your first job, help power your career transition, or monetize your hard-earned network beyond your imagination.
A survey from Jobvite found that 94 percent of job recruiters tap into LinkedIn to find qualified candidates.
For me other options don’t even exist. Here’s why:
It is hard to lie on LinkedIn given all your friends, colleagues and ex-bosses are watching
The recommendations are from real people and I can see their profiles to know how much weight to give to a recommendation.
The number of people in your network tells me about your networking ability and the quality of your connections tell me a bit about who you hang out with.
Common connections always grab more attention to your profile.
What you volunteer for and what honours you received tell me what you are passionate about. This facet of your personality is super important for any serious recruiter.
Given there are 400 million users on LinkedIn competing for attention, it is crucial to have an edge on your profile content and understand a bit about how LinkedIn search works.
Here are 5 quick tips that will guarantee increased visibility from the targeted people that you want your profile to be viewed by:
1) Linkedin Search Optimization
Carefully choose a couple of key phrases that describe your core competency. Think from your job recruiter’s perspective. Is s/he likely to search these key words/phrases on LinkedIn? An example could be “Technical Product Manager”.
To get your profile indexed, make sure your summary has more than 40 words and that it contains your key phrases a couple of times. Also, use the key phrase in your headline, job title and skills.
This is the way to get indexed by Linkedin search engine for those key phrases/words.
2) Profile Picture
Invest a little time on getting a friend to do a “photoshoot” for you. A good enough smart phone will suffice. Understand this – your picture needs to grab attention as a tiny thumbnail in the search result for “Technical Product Manager”. So a few considerations are important:
Get a close up. If I can see your eyes, you have my attention.
Practice your smile, find the best smile and then smile for the shoot.
Find your best angle for the shot.
The background should not distract from your face. So either have a flat/solid background or blur the background.
Use Picasa to crop, add light/shadow, enhance color or change to b/w.
Proper hairdo and a tad bit of makeup can do wonders for the shoot.
Dress up. LinkedIn is a network for professionals.
3) Share, Like, Comment and Congratulate
This is how you show up on the news feed. The more you show up the more memorable you become to your network. Its basic marketing. Your brain needs 8 impressions to remember a brand (commercials, product placements, radio ads, etc.). Same applies to your personal brand. The more your network sees you the more familiar a face you become. Good kind of familiarity breeds a level of trust, but the bad kind can breed contempt.
Be very selective what content you share. It should be something useful to your network so that that it makes you look good. Always share positive content. Avoid anything negative.
You can be generous with your likes, but be careful not to like controversial or negative things.
Choose your words carefully when commenting. Everyone is watching. So keep it positive, short and add a bit of your personality to your words.
Congratulating on people’s Linkedin updates is very important. It gives you an excuse to not lose touch with your network. But please make sure to customize your message giving it a flavor of your relationship with the person.
4) View other people’s profiles
LinkedIn power users are always monitoring how popular their profile is, which directly correlates to who is viewing their profile. It is an ego boost. So what happens when you fuel their ego by viewing their profile? You get special spot on the temporary memory space.
5) Give Recommendations
Before asking for recommendation, why not recommend first? This way you earn gratitude points and chances of reciprocation are higher. It is also great for your personal brand in the eyes of your network. For example when I wrote a recommendation for my lawyer, I received a message from a contact saying, “…I just saw you recommended a lawyer. You must be doing really well”. You see?
Spending a few hours on face-lifting your LinkedIn profile can be extremely rewarding, whether you are looking for your next job or investment for your startup.
Just be visible,
Be in touch
Share positive content
Be yourself, but be your best self
You will attract the attention you are seeking from the right people who can transform your career. All the best!