Job Search Guidance
Job Search Guidance
“First, have a definite, clear practical ideal; a goal, an objective. Second, have the necessary means to achieve your ends; wisdom, money, materials, and methods. Third, adjust all your means to that end.” –Aristotle
There are entire books written on this topic and tons of suggestions posted on Linked In itself. This is an important part of the Job Transition work, but it is only one piece.
So my goal here is to acknowledge this tool and share a few ideas for maximizing your impact with it. I encourage you to double check other resources and experiment on your own too.
Back in the dark ages, people used to get the morning paper and scan the ‘Jobs’ section for an advertisement about an open position at a firm. At this same time, your network and your ability to contact people in your network was directly tied to a paper rolodex of business cards. Wanted to talk to someone…then start sifting through business cards or spin the rolodex and find their phone number and/or address…and hope they were still at that same job. For some of you this will sound like people were likely taking notes on stone tablets at about that same time period. Information availability driven through the internet continues to alter how work gets done (huge revelation here I know), and the work of finding a different job is no different.
Linked In (www.linkedin.com) had some humble beginnings and certainly a number of skeptics. They have proven that creating a platform and ecosystem for business people to connect with each other is very valuable. There are other social media platforms that give you some of this capability, but none seem to have the singular focus and reach of Linked In. This is especially true in North America.
If you don’t have a profile yet on Linked In…what are you thinking? I’m going to assume that you have one. What does it look like? When people see your profile what are they going to think?
Somethings are simple and others more involved:
Your Photo:
Your photo needs to be professional without being too stuffy. Pick a professional business attire, but not something you would never wear (e.g. tuxedo, wedding dress, something worn to a dance club, etc). Make sure the photo is tasteful.
Smile and the focus of the photo needs to be you. Zoom in on the face so that it takes up most of the space. Uncomfortable with the ‘close-up’…well get over it. The goal is for people to be able to recognize you and not have to squint to see you.
Photo Background:
What image is being displayed as a background behind your photo? It is just a background, but it does say something about you in a glance. You don’t have to create something. Linked In has a bunch of options for you to choose from. Just click on the ‘pencil’ icon in the upper right corner and explore options. Pick something that relates to what you have done and/or what you want to do. Bankers, salespeople, researchers, teachers will all be quite different from each other.
Key Bullets (under photo):
Pick key words and short phrases that highlight your skills, experiences and targets for your next role. Make it easy to read and relatively brief. Bite sized chunks of information. 2-3 lines of text.
Public profile & URL
Edit your Linked In URL to cut out the extra numbers on the back of it, if possible, to make it simpler for people that might type it in.
Add this URL to your resume and your e-mail signature block…encourage and facilitate people checking out your profile on Linked In.
The ‘About’ section:
Here is your opportunity to be more expansive in your text. This space can include paragraphs.
Describe your title and the functional area you like to work in at a company.
Then go on to describe your expertise and the functional work that you are capable of. What is your professional sweet spot.
Outline your leadership traits and successes.
Then work to outline what you want your next role to be.
Top Skills: I believe these skills are used in the searches that recruiters do. Choose judiciously a nice list of 10 or so skills to highlight here. Be selective. It will help people look at you for the right types of roles.
Featured:
This was an area that I had skipped over previously. If you have posted things (more on that later). This is an area that you can ‘feature’ a post that you liked. You can also select other people’s posts to highlight. Good way to connect with people reading your profile, give them an idea about what is important to you and network.
Activity:
This area will self-populate with anything you have posted.
Experience:
This is the ‘meat and potatos’ of your profile on Linked In. Take the content of your resume and place it here. You can cut and paste if you like, or you can choose to expand on some items here that perhaps didn’t make it onto the resume. Not suggesting your write a book, but you can make it more conversational in the text if you want.
Education, Licenses, Volunteering, etc:
Take some time and see what you can populate in each area. These are opportunities to call out key areas of training or possibly connect with an interviewer.
Getting Linked In to work for you:
Connect:
This is networking at the pace of speed dating. It is simple and easy, but you will need to try and make it impactful. You don’t need to connect with everyone, but I believe they give you 10,000 connections as possibilities…why not use as much as you can. Start connecting with people you knew and people that you would like to know. I used it to connect to hiring managers even before an initial interview.
Messaging:
During my search I perhaps had more activity in the messaging area of Linked In than I did in e-mail traffic. Or it was very close. Easy to Message with people you are ‘connected’ with…so get CONNECTING. You can also message with folks you are not Connected to yet, but you will need to upgrade to a paid level of Linked In. Probably not a bad investment.
Be Active:
This means that you should start to treat Linked In a bit like Facebook. Comment on a post or Like a post once a day. Think of it as your daily vitamin. The things that you like will pop up in your Connections feed…and now you are increasing your visibility. There also seems to be some sort of ‘activity algorithm’ that is working behind the scenes and the more engaged you are that will help you be ranked a bit higher in some searches.
Posting:
Here is the area that freaks everyone out. I don’t have anything to post and I am uncomfortable posting something. Or I will post something once I have it perfect, but my photos are never quite right and I don’t like the way that I look. I had the same feeling until I heard Brian Fanzo speak at a conference I was attending (pre-job search). Here was the advice he laid on the attendees:
“Press the damn button was really a launching off of stop overthinking and just talking about doing it and start actually doing it. I have two rules: 1) Perfection is a fairytale, 2) Control is an illusion.”
Brian Fanzo, Futurist Speaker
So, I took a selfie photo at the end of his speech and published my first post on Linked In. I did it fairly quickly so that I wouldn’t chicken out and I edited things a little bit, but mostly went for it. I got positive feedback and then I was posting something monthly. I have been amazed at the people I have met who comment to me that they have enjoyed following some of my travels, work activities and suggestions.
Linked In is not Facebook…so don’t mis-understand my suggestion. Post things that are business related or you think other like-minded working people might benefit from. Don’t post daily, but Post. This makes you visible to the people in your network, and visibility is important in the job search.
At the beginning of this section I mentioned that you could fill a book on this topic, but I have worked to highlight some key areas for you. There are experts waiting to help you in this area if you are so inclined. Even if you aren’t in a job transition, spending time here is worthwhile. You never know when you might find yourself looking for the next opportunity and laying some groundwork ahead of time will really benefit you.
Related Posts
