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.
What Not to Do With Your Executive LinkedIn Profile
LinkedIn profile development is essential to your success.
Setting up a LinkedIn profile can be just as tough as putting together the right resume, especially if you aren’t particularly savvy with the Internet. You have to figure out just the right way to frame yourself, all in a format that’s slightly different from the average resume. Whether you already have a LinkedIn account or are just now setting up an account, we have some advice regarding common mistakes that keep individuals from maintaining an optimized LinkedIn profile.
Don’t Ignore the Privacy Settings
Having other employees (or your supervisor) find out you’re in the middle of a job search isn’t the best situation. In fact, it’s often more trouble than it’s worth.
Don’t Confuse LinkedIn with Facebook
LinkedIn is a wholly separate entity from Facebook and should be treated as such. Keep the information you include on your profile both accurate and current. Any photos you upload should represent you in a completely professional light. Furthermore, don’t clutter your profile with negativity and personal gripes. This will only give off a bad impression to recruiters and hurt your ability to get hired.
Don’t Be Self-Effacing
Never let yourself feel too intimidated to reach out to others, especially if they’re a hiring manager or someone else in the position to help you land a job. Doing this is actually the first step to impressing them. It also puts a more personal spin on the introductory process resumes and cover letters give.
Don’t Ask Just Anyone to Vouch for You Professionally
Only ask people to write endorsements that cater to the skills you truly possess. It does you no favors for people to write puff pieces about you. In fact, it will harm you later on when employers expect you to fulfill a need you have no real experience with. Recommendations are just as important. Ask only the people you work for or with and have a good rapport with to talk about why you should be hired.
Don’t Shut Yourself Off from Other LinkedIn Users
Consider joining groups that are relevant to your interests. By becoming part of a group that caters to your chosen industry, you can stay in touch with news and job openings much more easily, as well as make some great connections with others.
Don’t Neglect Your Profile
An idle profile is less likely to get hired than one that consistently updates and develops relationships to other LinkedIn members. Maintaining an active presence on LinkedIn is more likely to get you noticed by recruiters.
Don’t Skimp on Your Description
A well-written description is part of the ticket to ideal LinkedIn profile development. The best descriptions zero in on your skills as an employee and what you have to offer to a company if you’re hired. Try to write something brief, but attention-grabbing.
An optimized LinkedIn profile now ranks on the same level of importance as a good resume and can be vital in making sure employers know you’re available and ready to come aboard. If need be, don’t hesitate to look into hiring a LinkedIn profile service to help you get set up!
How to Makeover Your Resume for Social Media Marketing
An executive resume bio requires you to narrow down your experiences.
In the past decade, the job market has been adapting to the growing technological age we live in today. Naturally, this means the old ways of job hunting are on their way out, and those who are searching for a new career have to adapt their application methods in a way that helps them market themselves to today’s hiring managers. This is vitally important for those interested in getting into social media professionally because the entire industry thrives on snappy marketing and wit by nature. Here is some advice to help aspiring social media marketers spice up their resumes and LinkedIn profiles and land better job opportunities.
Focus on Your Skills
Practically every job in this day and age requires some sort of skill, meaning your skills are the most vital part of catching an employer’s eye and landing a job. You must market yourself in a way that presents what you can offer to a company in terms of job experience and professional skills in a way that is concise, direct and appealing.
Cut Out Any Fluff
You should only include skills that are relevant to the job you’re applying for. In other words, make sure your executive resume bio stays simple. Resumes are supposed to be brief and eye-catching. While you’ve probably gained many remarkable accomplishments, it’s not worth informing employers about every single one of them. Pick only the ones that matter to the field you’re hoping to enter. Some relevant skills relating to social media marketing are video production, especially for YouTube and other streaming sites, blog writing, researching for marketing purposes, the ability to advertise well on social media and a good grasp of Twitter, as well as other social media networks.
Include Any Relevant Career Experiences
Just like your skills, you should really only talk about career experiences that pertain to your aspiring field. This will give recruiters an idea of what you’ve done before and can thus bring to their company. Get to the meat of your social media skills. Cut out everything that has nothing to do with social media work and your skills in relation to the field. If you do these things, you’re guaranteed to be much closer to the type of resume employers are looking for.
When you first craft a resume or begin delving into LinkedIn profile development, it may seem all too tempting to put as much of your professional background onto your resume as possible to appeal to employers. However, this isn’t the best way to land jobs. Recruiters often have to sort through several hundred resumes at once, leaving only a few seconds for them to glance at yours. Make those seconds count. Your resume should be to-the-point and catered to your desired industry. A LinkedIn profile service can often help you achieve these goals.
Make LinkedIn and Other Social Media Profiles Your Second Resume
Your LinkedIn profile should tell potential employers why you’re a good candidate.
If you’re seeking an executive-level position and you’re not on social media, you need to be. A growing number of employers peruse top candidates’ social media accounts as part of the hiring process. The key to making social media sites work in your favor is to use them strategically.
How Do Employers Use Social Media?
According to one survey of more than 2,300 HR professionals, nearly 40 percent log on to social media to screen applicants. What are they looking for? Employers use social media to learn about the personality and character of potential employees. By the time they log on to do their research, they already know much about your qualifications, education and professional experience, thanks to your resume and cover letter. They check out sites like LinkedIn, Facebook and even Twitter to learn more about who you are as a person.
Will you fit into the corporate culture? Are you as qualified as your resume states you are? Hiring professionals also use social media to look for red flags indicating you would not be a good fit for their company. It goes without saying, if you’re interested in an executive position, make sure your social media accounts don’t include inappropriate photos or comments. Err on the side of caution; review your social media accounts and remove anything that could be construed as unprofessional or unseemly. If you use Facebook to keep in touch with your college buddies, make sure your profile is set to “private.”
How You Can Make Social Media Work in Your Favor
Once you’ve removed questionable content and updated your privacy settings, it’s time to consider how to use social media to your advantage. When you use social media to market yourself, you’ll want to update your online presence frequently. As such, it’s best to choose one platform to focus on. By far, the best platform to use for personal branding for senior level managers is the professional networking site, LinkedIn. Here are some tips to consider when creating or updating your LinkedIn profile.
Complete your LinkedIn profile 100 percent.
Summarize your qualifications, but let your personality shine through. Have you accomplished some non-work-related feat (for example, completed seven marathons or climbed Mount Kilimanjaro?) Your LinkedIn profile is an ideal opportunity to show employers you’re well-rounded. Humanize your profile to draw in readers and encourage them to want to learn more about you.
Incorporate keywords that are frequently found in the job descriptions you’re interested in.
Expand your network as much as possible by connecting with relatives, friends and former co-workers. The more connections the better.
Cement your status as an industry expert byparticipating in discussions or posting to blogs.
Help Is Available
Marketing yourself through social media can begin to seem like a job in itself. If you find yourself feeling overwhelmed, a LinkedIn profile service can help you develop a strong, keyword-dense, value-added LinkedIn profile. If your LinkedIn profile is incomplete, outdated or simply uninspired, contact us. We’re the missing link to make LinkedIn work for you.
