Have you wanted to sign up with LinkedIn but thought it sounded too complicated to begin? Just another profile to maintain? Oh, no. I’m here to tell ya–LinkedIn is a wonderful job search tool and (hopefully) here to stay.
You need to get around your hesitations in order to get your resume to the right people. One way to do that is to register with LinkedIn and develop a well crafted online business profile. If you’re not registered on LinkedIn yet, you are missing an excellent opportunity to get your name out. After you’ve registered, invite all of your friends and colleagues. The more connections you have there, your chances of forming an extended business network of your closest friends and associates rises – including their first and secondary connections.
Once you have your LinkedIn account set up and established some connections, use the search feature to try and learn as much about the different HR managers or corporate recruiters information. You can use the drop down menu to search for people and then type in the company name. Go through the results in order to find the people located in HR or people in leadership roles that you can befriend.
Start contacting these people through the following methods:
- If you see someone that’s a secondary connection (one of your friends is friends with them through a first degree LinkedIn connection), click “Get introduced through a connection” and add this person as a connection. This allows your personal friend to send a message to that person. Also, you can send your resume to your friend and have them forward it on to their first degree connections. Make sure you ask them to put in a good word for you.
- One option is to upgrade your LinkedIn subscription in order to send HR managers or recruiters a LinkedIn “Inmessage”. The cost is relative compared to the insider level it provides.
- See if you can find the HR manager’s email address through Google by searching their name and the company name through Google’s robust search features. If their contact information comes up in the search findings, you can contact them that way. Their information may be listed in a directory so it may take some time.
- If you can not find a valid email address, and the job requires that you apply by emailing a certain name, such as John Smith at jsmith@bigbiz.com, then you all ready know what the email address will look like. So if you’re trying to email Kate Clayton at the same company, then the email address is likely kclayton@bigbiz.com. Use this and send them a personal email with your resume attached.
Another option is to call the company and ask to speak with the HR manager by getting their name and information from LinkedIn. If the information is not available on LinkedIn, then the switchboard operator at the company may provide the email address and phone number.