LinkedIn Profile – Vital for a Job Search

Is your LinkedIn Profile at 100%?

Screen Shot 2013-03-02 at 11.27.09 AM

LinkedIn has just celebrated reaching 200 million users on their business professional platform within the last few weeks (remember when Facebook got excited about reaching their half a billion users?). In researching this social media platform after LinkedIn recently dumped the events, applications, and answer forum, I discovered an interested tidbit. The majority of the services are career and recruiting related.

Of the 21 services LinkedIn offers to users, 12 are specifically targeted towards job seekers, career changers, and those who hunt them down – recruiters. The services are: (a) Jobs For You Ads, (b) Career Pages, (c) Job Seeker Premium, (d) Jobs, (e) Recruiter Corporate, (f) Recruiter Professional Services, (g) Recruitment Ads, (h) Resume Builder, (i) Talent Connect, (j) Talent Direct, (k) Talent Finder, and (l) Work With Us Recruitment Ads. Not mentioned in the main services list, but included in the LinkedIn recruiter services are: (m) Events, (n) Videos, (o) Recorded Webcasts, (p) Case Studies, (q) Datasheets, (r) White Papers, (s) Blogs for Recruiters, and (t) Branding Analytics. These are serious tools for savvy, entrenched corporate recruiters and the high-dollar headhunters…and they are using these tools!

Jobs For You Ads allows recruiters to post recruiting advertisements directly to LinkedIn’s platform. These paid ads get banner or side-bar attention for Pay-Per-Click (PPC) as they are directed at a target audience of profile owners. LinkedIn Recruiter status allows powerful search refinement filters to target candidates precisely based on company, location, industry, skill set, keywords, and full user profiles. Recruiter Corporate allows recruiters more ‘in-mails’ and to obtain more results from search engine queries, including introductions via their first connections.

Recruiter Professional Services allows corporate teams to synchronize activities with shared folders, searches, profiles, and candidate notes on passive or active candidates (similar to automated tracking systems [ATS] that are cloud-based for resume databases). Recruitment Ads assist companies in developing and maintaining branding, deliver highly relevant messages, and attract more passive candidates to a company’s recruiting page within LinkedIn.

Talent Direct allows recruiters to set parameters for candidates for which they are looking and LinkedIn’s automated search engine starts sorting through the passive candidates within the database and returns potential applicants for suggested contact. The systematic search proactively reaches hundreds of passive candidates, targeting LinkedIn members precisely matching search criteria, which raises response rates for open positions, as well as creates awareness for upcoming events.

Talent Pipeline tracks profile owners as they move through a career progression by helping recruiters build meaningful relationships by connecting leads to these LinkedIn profiles, keeping information current, and staying in touch via In-Mail and email. This enables recruiters to analyze and track from which most leads for candidates are coming to more precisely target applicants for open jobs. This is a user-licensed ATS, designed to manage recruiter’s workflow for job applicants, as well as grow and track prospective passive candidates who haven’t yet applied for a job.

What does this mean to LinkedIn profile owners? Recruiters are finding LinkedIn is providing more and better job candidates than the ‘competition’ (Monster and CareerBuilder), and are spending less money with a richer ROI. The competitions’ contracts may run $12K annually for one user license (with restricted filtering capabilities), while LinkedIn provides a much cheaper access to the same or more resumes (profiles). Recruiters can still find valuable candidates within LinkedIn using the free or first level (Business) paid license. Free resumes are not available via Monster or CareerBuilder. This helps the low-budget, small companies save thousands of dollars in overhead recruiting costs.

Recruiters search and match resumes submitted for jobs against a LinkedIn profile to see if the job seeker has paid attention to details what is noted in the resume matches the profile online. There are stories about companies loosing contracts simply because the LinkedIn profile doesn’t match resumes submitted for requests for quotes or bids!

To make LinkedIn work as a career search tool, it is vital to have a rich, impactful profile. This allows a job seeker to take advantage of opportunities this ‘pseudo job board’ has to offer for finding the right match between skills sets and recruiters. You must be cognizant of what key words the ‘competition’ (for those jobs) will have in their resume. The more key words your online resume has so your profile shows above theirs in query results, the more likely you will get ‘the call.’

Many LinkedIn profile owners write their profiles out like a amateur resume – listing tasks for which they were responsible for while working for past employers. The type of profile recruiters are seeking are achievement based, bulleted listings of goals and strategic objectives met for their employer, coupled with metrics (how many, how often, within what time period). This type of online resume ‘shows, not tells’ what capabilities the passive (or active) job candidate can perform for a future employer. If job seekers are not getting responses from recruiters via LinkedIn, it’s time to get that professional resume rewritten. The professional resume will provide a brilliant and compelling baseline for the LinkedIn profile. If the job seeker doesn’t know how to get their LinkedIn profile enriched with search engine optimized key words – hire the professional now!

 

Dawn Boyer is the owner of D. Boyer Consulting – a career services coach, social media management, human resources and business development consultant. She can be reached at Dawn.Boyer@DBoyerConsulting.com or https://dboyerconsulting.com for resume writing services, LinkedIn training, or career social media management.

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LinkedIn Profile – Vital for a Job Search

Is your LinkedIn Profile at 100%?

Screen Shot 2013-03-02 at 11.27.09 AM

LinkedIn has just celebrated reaching 200 million users on their business professional platform within the last few weeks (remember when Facebook got excited about reaching their half a billion users?). In researching this social media platform after LinkedIn recently dumped the events, applications, and answer forum, I discovered an interested tidbit. The majority of the services are career and recruiting related.

Of the 21 services LinkedIn offers to users, 12 are specifically targeted towards job seekers, career changers, and those who hunt them down – recruiters. The services are: (a) Jobs For You Ads, (b) Career Pages, (c) Job Seeker Premium, (d) Jobs, (e) Recruiter Corporate, (f) Recruiter Professional Services, (g) Recruitment Ads, (h) Resume Builder, (i) Talent Connect, (j) Talent Direct, (k) Talent Finder, and (l) Work With Us Recruitment Ads. Not mentioned in the main services list, but included in the LinkedIn recruiter services are: (m) Events, (n) Videos, (o) Recorded Webcasts, (p) Case Studies, (q) Datasheets, (r) White Papers, (s) Blogs for Recruiters, and (t) Branding Analytics. These are serious tools for savvy, entrenched corporate recruiters and the high-dollar headhunters…and they are using these tools!

Jobs For You Ads allows recruiters to post recruiting advertisements directly to LinkedIn’s platform. These paid ads get banner or side-bar attention for Pay-Per-Click (PPC) as they are directed at a target audience of profile owners. LinkedIn Recruiter status allows powerful search refinement filters to target candidates precisely based on company, location, industry, skill set, keywords, and full user profiles. Recruiter Corporate allows recruiters more ‘in-mails’ and to obtain more results from search engine queries, including introductions via their first connections.

Recruiter Professional Services allows corporate teams to synchronize activities with shared folders, searches, profiles, and candidate notes on passive or active candidates (similar to automated tracking systems [ATS] that are cloud-based for resume databases). Recruitment Ads assist companies in developing and maintaining branding, deliver highly relevant messages, and attract more passive candidates to a company’s recruiting page within LinkedIn.

Talent Direct allows recruiters to set parameters for candidates for which they are looking and LinkedIn’s automated search engine starts sorting through the passive candidates within the database and returns potential applicants for suggested contact. The systematic search proactively reaches hundreds of passive candidates, targeting LinkedIn members precisely matching search criteria, which raises response rates for open positions, as well as creates awareness for upcoming events.

Talent Pipeline tracks profile owners as they move through a career progression by helping recruiters build meaningful relationships by connecting leads to these LinkedIn profiles, keeping information current, and staying in touch via In-Mail and email. This enables recruiters to analyze and track from which most leads for candidates are coming to more precisely target applicants for open jobs. This is a user-licensed ATS, designed to manage recruiter’s workflow for job applicants, as well as grow and track prospective passive candidates who haven’t yet applied for a job.

What does this mean to LinkedIn profile owners? Recruiters are finding LinkedIn is providing more and better job candidates than the ‘competition’ (Monster and CareerBuilder), and are spending less money with a richer ROI. The competitions’ contracts may run $12K annually for one user license (with restricted filtering capabilities), while LinkedIn provides a much cheaper access to the same or more resumes (profiles). Recruiters can still find valuable candidates within LinkedIn using the free or first level (Business) paid license. Free resumes are not available via Monster or CareerBuilder. This helps the low-budget, small companies save thousands of dollars in overhead recruiting costs.

Recruiters search and match resumes submitted for jobs against a LinkedIn profile to see if the job seeker has paid attention to details what is noted in the resume matches the profile online. There are stories about companies loosing contracts simply because the LinkedIn profile doesn’t match resumes submitted for requests for quotes or bids!

To make LinkedIn work as a career search tool, it is vital to have a rich, impactful profile. This allows a job seeker to take advantage of opportunities this ‘pseudo job board’ has to offer for finding the right match between skills sets and recruiters. You must be cognizant of what key words the ‘competition’ (for those jobs) will have in their resume. The more key words your online resume has so your profile shows above theirs in query results, the more likely you will get ‘the call.’

Many LinkedIn profile owners write their profiles out like a amateur resume – listing tasks for which they were responsible for while working for past employers. The type of profile recruiters are seeking are achievement based, bulleted listings of goals and strategic objectives met for their employer, coupled with metrics (how many, how often, within what time period). This type of online resume ‘shows, not tells’ what capabilities the passive (or active) job candidate can perform for a future employer. If job seekers are not getting responses from recruiters via LinkedIn, it’s time to get that professional resume rewritten. The professional resume will provide a brilliant and compelling baseline for the LinkedIn profile. If the job seeker doesn’t know how to get their LinkedIn profile enriched with search engine optimized key words – hire the professional now!

 

Dawn Boyer is the owner of D. Boyer Consulting – a career services coach, social media management, human resources and business development consultant. She can be reached at Dawn.Boyer@DBoyerConsulting.com or https://dboyerconsulting.com for resume writing services, LinkedIn training, or career social media management.



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