Saturday, January 12, 2013

The 10 Red Hot LinkedIn Tips for Job Seekers


As a job seeker you have a new best friend and their name is LinkedIn. This new friend of yours not only knows a lot of people that you might want to meet but also has the ability to make sure that you are seen by that same bunch of well over 135 million business professionals who might just want to hire you. This friend is more than willing to help you find that next great job opportunity but like most of your friends, that turned out to be great friends; the relationship needs an investment of time and effort to make it work well.
Here are the places to spend your time and efforts on LinkedIn to help you land that next great opportunity.
1. Get Connected to over 250 1st level people
Connections are the gasoline in the tank that makes the engine work on LinkedIn for so many reasons. If you are messing around as a job seeker at 20-50 connections you are doing just that messing around. Get serious, you know 250 people that are on LinkedIn that you know and trust go out and get them connected to you.
2. Join 50 LinkedIn Groups
If connections are the gasoline in the tank then Groups are the oil that lubricates the engine. This is the place where you can find new connections, follow people, send messages, engage in conversations, be found and get exposed to people of similar industries, interests, backgrounds or geographic region.
3. Post a daily Status Update
A status update from you to your extensive network of connections (over 250 of course) about something of interest to you and to some of them will get you the kind of daily exposure one needs when in a job search. If your smiling face and name (along with the information you are sharing) appear in their status update feed you will become “top of mind”, at least for the moment, reminding them that you are still out there and still looking for that next great opportunity which they may have just heard about.
4. Participate in 3 Group discussions a week
The whole group may be listening and this could be quite a large audience (many groups are having over 100,000 members). This is why you want to not only make yourself known but show them just how smart you are, for the some of the same reasons discussed above in status updates. In addition to your gained exposure to a group of people (maybe even in your industry or specialty depending on your purpose for being in that group) that you are not connected to at the 1st degree, at least not yet. Be strategic about the groups you participate in since you don’t have the time to be involved in all 50.
5. Search and Save Job Searches
The LinkedIn Jobs tab at the top of your toolbar has lots of specific job postings that are directly posted on LinkedIn but it also accesses other outside job boards when you do a search. Your advanced job search can be filtered by not only title, keywords, geographic region, and other criteria. You have the ability to save up to 10 specific job searches, on the free account, and LinkedIn will send you an email notifying you of the job that meet your criteria, either daily, weekly, or monthly. This is like having your own virtual assistant who 24/7 looks for the jobs you have detailed would be right in your wheelhouse.
http://www.careerinsider.org/the-10-red-hot-linkedin-tips-for-job-seekers/?goback=%2Egde_25436_member_189005969

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