Improve your chances of being hired. Get Linkedin.

// April 8th, 2010 // Blog

Looking for a job? Then listen up: stop obsessing over your resume and cover letter. And start obsessing over your LinkedIn profile. Why? Because my recruiter friends tell me it’s their #1 resource for finding candidates. And here’s another eye opener: If you have more than twenty Linkedin connections, you’re thirty-four times more likely to be approached with a job opportunity than someone who has less than five. Those are damn good odds.

So, if you don’t already have a Linkedin profile, open a new browser window right now and go to http://www.linkedin.com. I’ll wait here while you join.

Now that you’ve joined LinkedIn, here’s what you need to do:

Complete your profile.

Start by entering your career history. List more than just a job title and company name for each position.

Next, write a summary. And add a photo.

Send requests to a few colleagues for recommendations. If they’re not sure what to write, point them to recommendations on someone else’s profile (who is in the same industry).

Add a few interests and any relevant websites, honors and awards.

Search for former colleagues and send them invitations to connect.

By this time, your profile should be pretty close to complete. Not sure how far you have to go? Linkedin displays a profile completion percentage score.

Last but not least, make sure your profile is publicly available.

Then, start sending out more connection requests. And start accepting them.

Set yourself apart by being uber Linkedin.

Add a Twitter handle if you have one.

Edit your profile to claim a vanity URL. This should be set to your name (or the closest possible match) within the URL. For example. www.linkedin.com/in/rebeccarivera

Find and join a few industry groups and use Linkedin Answers. This will help you build your reputation within your industry and to increase the number of internal links pointing to your profile from within Linkedin.

If you get stuck anywhere along the way, check out these Linkedin for Dummies links.
LinkedIn for dummies cheat sheet
How to create a Linkedin Profile even  your boss will be impressed by

Please let me know how your job search goes and how LinkedIn did or didn’t help and I’ll share it here so that others can learn whether their odds of finding employment are getting any better. Or any worse.

One Response to “Improve your chances of being hired. Get Linkedin.”

  1. Lee Candiotti says:
    April 9, 2010 at 12:24 PM

    Rebecca, Great article. Long before LinkedIn came along, all I did as recruiter was network with as many people in my specialty area. It led me to new candidates, new assignments and new industry contacts. Years ago, just before I entered the sales profession I read this book by Joe Girard (a highly successful car salesman) called How To Sell Anything to Anybody, who said, among other things, that every new contact/prospect you make, whether you sell them something or not, represents another possible 250 prospects that you could possibly sell. The premise is that all of us come into contact with a sphere of roughly 250 different people in both our personal and or professional lives on either a daily, weekly, monthly or annual basis. Accordingly, you should hold everyone you meet or talk to as representing that kind of potential while at the same time taking great care to maintain and nurture those personal and business relationships. If you operate on that premise you’d be amazed as to how the information, particularly those relating to jobs/candidates/new business, etc., come your way. And the good news is that LinkedIn makes that easier to do than ever before. We all know how much more powerful a personal or business referral to a job is versus sending your resume in the black hole of the great Monster. Just tell folks to keep building and massaging there personal and business networks, they won’t be unemployed long. Keep telling this story. Lee

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