Use These Five Important Tips for your Job Search on LinkedIn

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Get the best results when you optimize your LinkedIn profile.

Optimize your LinkedIn profile to ensure you get the best results.


There are a plethora of jobs to be found on LinkedIn. Once you have an optimized LinkedIn profile, you can start using the platform to find employment opportunities; however, how to optimize your LinkedIn profile is a whole different article. Most job seekers just check the Job Board on LinkedIn. After browsing the board, they spam some resumes and call it a day.
This method rarely works. LinkedIn is a social media site created with business networking in mind. There’s no networking in spamming resumes to job postings. Luckily, there are a number of different ways to find work using the platform with the help of your Linkedin profile writing service. Here are a few ideas for finding more great job opportunities on LinkedIn.

1. The Job Board

Of course, you’ll find the vast majority of openings on the LinkedIn main Job Board. You can create a profile based on exactly what kind of job you’re looking for through a number of factors. You can also use advanced search features to narrow down to a certain set of strict parameters, for example: within 10 miles of your home address.
Pro-Tip: Don’t search for titles. Similar roles will have varying names throughout different companies.

2. Group Jobs Tab

Joining Groups on LinkedIn is an excellent networking tool. You can connect with others in the industry and post useful information to show your expertise. The Jobs menu within each group allows discussion of jobs in the industry and posting of open positions relating to the group.
Use this to your advantage. These job postings get significantly less traffic than posts on the main board. The openings in each group will also be targeted to a focused pool of candidates. Join up to 50 groups on the platform and start your search in the shadows.

3. Company Pages

Before searching through company pages on LinkedIn – it’s important to note the pages are used for branding purposes. Every company uses this space to put their best foot forward and make their organization seem like the best place in the world to work. That doesn’t mean you won’t find great jobs posted on a company’s page. It means you should take what a company writes about their corporate environment with a grain of salt. You’ll find job postings on these pages or a link to the business’s job portal.

4. Update Feed

The LinkedIn homepage features an update area. Here you’ll find postings of anything the Pulse feature thinks you’d find interesting. While you’ll see updates from your connections and other miscellaneous items in this feed, you’ll also see job postings from recruiters and hiring managers. These jobs will be fresh off the wire and often, urgent.

5. Don’t Apply Just Yet!

Have you thought about how to optimize your LinkedIn profile? You only get one shot to make a first impression. Also, make sure you’ve searched to see what kind of connections you have with a company you’re considering. Remember, LinkedIn is for networking.
 

How to Make Your LinkedIn Profile Stand Out

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Stand out from everyone else with the help of a LinkedIn profile service.

A LinkedIn profile service can help you stand out.


LinkedIn profile development is an often overlooked aspect of the job search or career change. The most popular business social network is vastly underused and unappreciated. Most individuals in business don’t understand how to make it work for their benefit.
You may not need a LinkedIn profile writer to find value throughout the social network. Here’s how to stand out on LinkedIn.

Get Grouped

With more than two million LinkedIn Groups in existence, there’s bound to be one (or hundreds) within your industry. You can use Groups to meet others in your industry and develop your reputation as an expert in the field. The more value you add to a group, the more likely new opportunities come your way.

Reach Out

LinkedIn is not a place for the faint of heart. Business networking is no time to be shy. Put your profile out there and get in the game. While adding an acquaintance on Facebook can be construed as odd in certain circumstances, you shouldn’t carry over personal social media protocol to LinkedIn. The more people you connect to on LinkedIn, the better off you’ll be.
Pro Tip: Changes in anything work related make the perfect time to reach out (for you or them).

Don’t Go Connection Crazy

While you should reach out to just about every person you know on LinkedIn, you shouldn’t be cold-calling strangers. There is no prize for having the most connections on this social media platform. The number of people in your LinkedIn network isn’t relevant. The importance of your network lies in the quality of people you’re connected to and how you’ve proven your value to them.
Focus on finding a common ground with individuals you want to connect with. If you’ve known someone in the past, there’s your commonality. If you’ve never met someone you wish to connect with, work to build a connection through a common interest or background, especially when cold connecting.

Open Viewing Season

If someone views your profile on LinkedIn, this is a warm lead to opportunities. Whether these opportunities come to fruition or fade away is up to you. A profile view can lead to hires, career advancement and more. It’s also a way to begin connecting with someone in your industry.
Pro Tip: Make sure you keep your visibility settings open too so people can see when you view them and potentially reach out.

Develop Your Voice and Expertise

One of the easiest way to establish your credibility and expertise in an industry is by publishing a post on LinkedIn. The platform gives users an opportunity to comment on upcoming changes in the industry, changes in the market and more. Developing your voice can lead to enormous opportunities on the business social media site. A professional LinkedIn profile service can help you create a profile that speaks to your background and expertise.

Adding Testimonials to Your Resume

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Writing an executive bio should include testimonials.


Your resume is the one surefire way to market who you are and what you can do. Top resume writing services understand this. The companies considering employing you know this too. As such, your resume will be scrutinized in every way possible during the hiring process. While there are many improvements you can make to your resume, one of the easier ways is to add testimonials.

Testimonials Lend Credibility

Talking about who you are is tough, but it’s also easy to spin your abilities in a positive light. Whether you’re just writing an executive bio or developing personal branding for senior level management, you need every advantage. Even if references aren’t required until down the road in the hiring process, you need an edge. If the selection is between you and another candidate, you will need extra support tipping the scales in your favor. Including testimonials would be that tiebreaker.

Testimonial How To

You know resume writing is an art form. Adding testimonials to your resume is too. It’s likely you have quantifiable results and qualified expertise for the job you’re applying to. You can clearly articulate your abilities and how well you do your job. The problem is hearing these great things from you is nice but much more powerful when said by someone else.
So here’s how to enter testimonials into a resume for your benefit:
  • Combined with work experience. One powerful way to add testimonials to your resume is by combining them with relevant work experiences. For example, let’s say you list being the top sales person in your company with a sales staff of 300 people in your resume. Below that, you could add a testimonial from your manager saying, ” …the best sales person I’ve worked with in the last 10 years,” to ensure your bio stands above the rest.
  • Whole testimonial section. If you have two to four testimonials you’d like to include in your resume, add a whole section for them. Place this section in your resume just like you would an “Education” or “Work Experiences” portion. It’s important to note each quote you include should be from solid contacts that can verify your abilities.
  • Testimonials make great filler. One of the best ways to add a testimonial to your resume is through inclusion in another section or as a filler. For example, if you’re an in-demand copywriter, you could add a testimonial as filler under your “Skills” section. If you claim to write copy that converts up to 10 percent of organic web traffic, a past clients testament to your abilities with a website link will add significant value to your resume.
While adding a testimonial to your resume is a good way to improve the document, some people need a little more help. A professional resume writing service can critique your resume and help you make the best of your testimonials.

Do You Have an Elevator Pitch for Your Resume?

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executive resume writing

Make sure your elevator pitch is always ready to go.


You never know when you’ll need to spout your elevator pitch. Opportunity never comes calling at the right time. You need to have an elevator pitch for your resume, and you need to be ready to tell someone what you do in an instant.

What Is an Elevator Pitch?

Your executive bio, executive resume biography or your elevator pitch is a brief 30-second bit about what you do, how you do it and who you are. You’re telling any potential employer or contact why you’re the perfect candidate. An elevator pitch concisely explains why you’re the man or woman for the job.

The Hard Part

Talking about our individual abilities and accomplishments for 30-seconds shouldn’t be too tough. Still, most people find condensing years of experience and hard work into 30-seconds of chatter difficult. You’ve done so much, but you have so little time to articulate it.
If you’re back on the job market, you’ll want to create the perfect elevator pitch immediately. You never know when a great contact or opportunity will come up so you must be prepared.
With this in mind, here’s how to develop a perfected pitch:

Decide What You Want

Before you write out any pitch, you must focus on what your desires are. Clarify what you want in a job. Choose what kind of employment you’re interested in. Each industry and profession will require a different type of elevator speech.

Write It Down

Once you’ve clarified what you’re looking for – you can begin to write down your pitch. Grab a piece of paper and start scribbling. Begin by jotting down bullet point ideas about what you’ve accomplished, your abilities, personality and more.
Once you have a long list, you can start going through it, crossing off items of lesser importance. Once you have narrowed it down to the most important bullet points, you can begin to craft these tidbits of information into a concise, 30-second speech.

Cover the Bases

Next, you’ll want to read over your first draft and see if you’ve covered the bases. You must answer the fundamental questions someone looking to hire you is considering:

  • What do you do?
  • Who are you?
  • What do you desire?

If you believe your elevator pitch has covered these basic questions, move on to the next tip.

Tailor Your Words 

Once your first draft is complete and the basics are covered, you’ll want to continue combing and improving. Start by tailoring your words to relate to the individual(s) you’re going to speak to. Add in benefit-focused wording to ensure your audience understands how you can help them.

Use the Mirror

Grab your piece of paper and head to the closest mirror, preferably with a little privacy. Stare yourself in the eyes and start giving your pitch. Let confidence flow through your veins and honestly believe what you’re saying. Monitor what areas of your quick speech sound great and which ones need tweaking.

Tweak It to Perfection

Not everything sounds as good on paper as it does when spoken. Most individuals find they need to reword and tweak things after hearing it out loud. It’s important to keep sentence short, speak in clear vocabulary free of industry jargon and keep things conversational.
Once you’ve tweaked your speech to perfection, you’ll want to continue practicing. Polish your words until you can spring into action and lay down your verbal biography in front of anyone at any time. Practice always makes perfect.

Understand Your Audience

Lastly, you shouldn’t be afraid to create a couple of variations. Most people would slightly change their speech when speaking with an old colleague than in front of an interviewer. The more you practice the pitch, the more comfortable you’ll feel when a slight tweak or change is needed.

It’s Not Easy, But You Can Do It

Anything relating to your executive bio is not going to be easy. You’re going to have to work to create the perfect resume and elevator pitch. If you’re struggling to do so, professional help may be needed.

Is Your Resume Easy to Read?

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Make sure your executive resume is easy to read!


You’ve probably heard that statistically, employers spend an average of eight seconds scanning a resume. Obviously, that’s not a lot of time to make a lasting impression. If your resume is cluttered, unorganized and the text and font are clunky, it just might get passed over. Here are some tips for writing an effective resume that will ensure your resume gets the attention it needs.

Clear Sections

Your resume should have clearly demarcated sections. Top rated resume writing services might suggest using italics or a bold fold to differentiate between those sections, such as Education and Work Experience. There should be a break in the reader’s mind between different types of information.

Alignment

Align your text to the left. Since the eye naturally returns to the left, this is the most natural and readable format. However, align dates and locations to the right, which helps to separate that information and makes it easy to scan. Speaking of formatting, keep it consistent. Don’t start using “creative” formatting techniques in order to squeeze everything into one page. It’s more important your resume be clean and readable than be limited to one page.

Use Numbers and Symbols

Whenever possible, use numbers and symbols instead of text. They will grab the eye and be easy for the employer to quickly refer back to. Keep bold text and all caps to a minimum. You want to use these sparingly in order to truly highlight important information.

Fonts

Choose one, or two at the most, and make them clean and simple. Keep in mind your resume will likely be going through an applicant tracking system, which will not pick up special fonts or graphics. So not only are these cluttered and hard on the eyes, but it might prevent your resume from getting into anyone’s hands to read. Top rated resume writing services suggest sticking with plain, classic fonts.

Bullets

Do use bullets. It breaks complex pieces of information into readable chunks and makes it simple to reference back to these points. It also draws attention to your accomplishments, information you really want to highlight.

Use White Space

Using plenty of white space is much easier on the eyes than large, dense chunks of text. It creates a clean, well-designed look that’s appealing to the reader.
Writing a clear, effective resume can be a daunting task. If you want to be sure you get the attention of your desired employer, you might consider using a professional resume writing service. Allowing an expert to help you craft a successful resume will dramatically increase your chances of landing your dream job.

How Long Should Your Resume Be?

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Is your executive resume too long?


Traditional thinking holds your resume should be no longer than one page, but have times changed? An executive resume service will typically urge you to keep it to no more than two pages. However, some will say three pages is appropriate in certain instances. The bottom line is there are exceptions to every rule, and although your resume should be well edited, the focus should be on content, not length.

Applicant Tracking Systems

One important factor to consider is the use of Applicant Tracking Systems to vet candidates. This system allows employers to read and scan resumes by search terms. The difference between a live person reading your resume and the Applicant Tracking System analyzing it is a human typically looks for accomplishments, while the tracking systems search for keywords. So what does this mean for you the applicant? Since it is a bit tricky to try to please the Applicant Tracking Systems, as well as the employer, the best approach is to focus on quality content.

Applying to a Specialized Field

Let’s say you are in a specialized field, such as medical or legal. You should consider using a professional curriculum vitae writer. They are pros at including all the details your field needs to cover, yet staying concise. They will work with you to highlight not just your education and past jobs, but achievements such as research and teaching experience, publications and grants and fellowships. They are experts at taking an overwhelming task and making it simple and effective.

Shifting Careers 

Another instance in which a two or three page resume would be appropriate is if you are changing careers altogether. The applicant will have to cover their qualifications and skills that would pertain to both their current job and the one they hope to transition to. In this case, it’s absolutely fine to have a length of two to three pages. Again, the focus here is on quality and pertinent content, instead of length.

Trimming the Fat

If you find you still would like to trim off a little more length, consider digging into your oldest employment information. If you have to cut something, this is most likely the least relevant and important to employers. Some things to avoid: shrinking your font to a size too small to read easily, using a photo and not checking for typos. These may seem obvious, but it can be easy to forget the basics when you’re in the throes of writing.
Writing resumes and cover letters is a daunting undertaking. An executive resume service can be an invaluable resource in creating your best resume. Take some of the stress off of yourself and let a professional help you get that call back.

The 6-Second Resume Challenge

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You only have six seconds to impress with your executive profile.

Your executive profile needs to pass the test.


According to a famous study, employers spend an average of six seconds scanning a resume before deciding whether the candidate is worth calling for an interview. To put it mildly, that’s not a lot of time. With that in mind, the clear takeaway is you need to get the employer’s attention and fast. The question is, how? Here are a few tips in executive resume writing that will get you that call.

First Things First

Your cover letter is your chance to showcase your particular talents and set yourself apart. Rest assured, they do get read! Using an executive resume cover letter is the best way to get noticed right out of the gate.

Be Professional

While your friends may call you ‘Buttercup,’ your resume should not. Likewise, your email address should not be goofy or too casual. Avoid using photos as well. This professionalism will set the tone for the rest of your resume. Location matters as well: your employer wants to be sure you’re in the same area as the job. If you need help, take a look at a few executive profiles for direction.

Keep It Tidy

Be sure the structure of your executive resume cover letter is clean and neat. The columns should be aligned, and any bullet points should line up as well. A sloppy resume will indicate you are not taking this job search seriously, and likewise, the employer will not give you the consideration you deserve.

Dates Matter

The hiring manager of a company you apply to is going to make sure your past employment dates line up. In other words, they want to make sure you don’t have large gaps between jobs. That’s a huge red flag to any employer, indicating you might not be reliable.

Be Thorough

While it’s understandable you want to keep your executive profile to the point, you need to give enough details. Thoroughly explain your past positions and what responsibilities you held while in those jobs. Also, be sure to include your past achievements.

Are You Applying for the Right Job?

It’s understandable you may be applying for a position you’re overqualified for. You may be desperate for any job at all or find pickings are slim all around. However, a hiring manager knows you won’t stick around long, and thus, your resume goes to the bottom of the pile.

Attention to Detail

While it may seem obvious, many people forget to proofread. Make sure you don’t have any grammar or spelling mistakes. Even though everyone makes these type of mistakes now and again, this is another immediate disqualifier in the six-second test.
Follow these tips and you’ll have executive resume writing down in no time, ensuring your executive profile and resume pass the six-second test.

How to Use Your Resume to Change Careers

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Change careers successfully with the best executive resume format.

The best executive resume format can help you change careers.


Writing a resume can be a daunting and tedious task. Between trying to figure out where to start an knowing what to include, creating a resume for a career change is even more difficult. Since a cover letter is crucial to your chances of getting noticed, opting to use a cover letter writing service is a great option. If that part of the process can be handled by a pro, writing the resume itself won’t seem quite so intimidating.

Are You Using a Functional Resume? Don’t!

First, let’s get familiar with the term functional resume. A functional resume is one that highlights certain skills, instead of the traditional chronological format. Those looking to change careers should use this technique to draw attention away from their former job titles and play up skills that may be relevant in their new desired field. This sounds like a great idea, except there’s only one problem: recruiters and hiring managers are all too aware of this method. They know you’re trying to hide something. They’ve seen it a million times, and it’s sure to get your resume in the trashcan.

A Better Approach

So what can you do instead? After you’ve used the best executive resume format, try to see things from the employer’s point of view. Don’t treat every potential employer the same; they all have different needs and desires. Some may put more emphasis on past experience, while others have requirements about personality, ethics, work style or drive. Second, do your research. You should know everything there is to know about the company you are after. Figure out what skills they value the most, and use that knowledge to your advantage. This will get you noticed by HR.
Third, don’t forget about any freelance or unpaid work you’ve done. This can be valuable when trying to change careers. Everyone has an executive bio, but this is one chance to stand out from the crowd. If it’s relevant work, it doesn’t matter if you were paid or not! If you don’t have any of this type of experience, now’s the time to consider it. If you’re truly passionate about a career change, you have to use every possible angle to your advantage.

Convince Employers You’re Committed

Now for the most important part. Since you can’t rely solely on your executive bio, you must communicate your passion for this position through your resume as well. Since you may be lacking the typical work history, this is where you can make up for that. It’s vital to emphasize you have thought this change through and are committed to it. The employer needs to feel confident you won’t quickly grow tired of the work and leave after they took a chance on you.
Now you know the basics: start with the best executive resume format, don’t use a functional resume and play up your passion. By using these tips, you will get in the door of your dream job in to time!  If you need more guidance during the process, consider enlisting the help of a cover letter writing service. There you will find all the tools necessary to create the best resume possible.