Thanks to Covid-19, job insecurity is on the rise with redundancies increasing as businesses retrench or even fail. Willing or otherwise, will you become a jobseeker? We have put together a few tips on optimising your presence on LinkedIn to be “recruiter ready” should the desire or need arise.
Informed career decisions
According to LinkedIn, over 75% of people who recently changed jobs used LinkedIn to make a more informed career decision. Likewise, social professional networks like LinkedIn, is the number 1 source of quality hires*. It is no wonder LinkedIn is so heavily leveraged by top recruiters. However, as someone who is looking for ways to leverage the power of LinkedIn for your own career growth opportunities, you will want to familiarise yourself with some of the top ways to use LinkedIn to find a job.
Using LinkedIn to find a job:
1. Maintain an up-to-date profile
If you want to get the most out of LinkedIn, you need to create an informative profile and keep it up-to-date. Having a fully completed profile is one way to ensure a potential recruiter looks at your profile and views you as a serious candidate. Not only does it improve the perception about your profile and yourself as a candidate, but it can boost your ranking potential to make your profile much more visible.
2. Change the way you view LinkedIn
It's important to keep in mind how recruiters are actively using LinkedIn themselves to locate and find talent, but also how you can leverage the very same tools to identify job opportunities that might be available. By thinking of LinkedIn as a search engine, you will be able to take advantage of the platform in a way that very few people are. By creating a profile with optimised keywords throughout, you will have a much greater chance of showing up when a recruiter searches for potential candidates. Likewise, if you use keywords yourself to identify potential opportunities, you should be able to find a variety that you would have never come across without this tactic.
3. Follow companies you have a desire to work for
You want to look for and follow the companies that you have on your shortlist for companies to work for. A lot of the companies that you will find using LinkedIn will have their own job postings pages that get routinely updated. By following these companies, you will get regular updates when they make changes to these pages which can give you a leg-up on applying for position openings.
4. Make yourself available and accessible
One of the biggest mistakes a lot of business professionals end up making when they are looking to find a job is not making it entirely clear they are available for hire. Likewise, you need to ensure that you are making yourself accessible by having the right and up-to-date contact information listed.
5. Request introductions
You shouldn't simply wait for recruiters to contact you. Instead, you want to take the first step to initiate contact with the company in question. Ask for introductions from someone that is connected to the company which can land you the opportunity to speak with decision-makers.
Job opportunities on LinkedIn
LinkedIn is a very powerful social media network that you can use as a professional to make connections and to land career growth opportunities. By following the tips above, you should be able to find all kinds of job opportunities by using the LinkedIn platform.
If at the moment, you are rather busy and would like a helping hand with “future proofing” your career prospects, then please have a look at our LinkedIn page and its associated LinkedIn Marketing Packages. Then pick up the phone for a chat about the package that interests you the most.