LinkedIn quickguide for job hunting and personal branding

LinkedIn quickguide for
Job hunting and
Personal branding
Tom Laine, LinkedIn heavy user since 2004
tom.laine@somehow.fi
Copyright 2014 Tom Laine, tom.laine@somehow.fi, Mob. +358 400 296 196

LinkedIn is once again going through
a change that is being rolled out to
users at different stages.
Some still have the older features,
some have already the new ones.
In this document version you can
see many of the new features.
Updated 29.9.2014

• Picture builds credibility, most fake profiles don’t have a picture or the picture clearly doesn’t match the person described in the content (e.g.
age, gender) or is a clear screenshot from an advertisement or a picture of a celebrity. No sunglasses, helmet, other people, pets, small
figures at the top of a mountain, alcohol, cigarettes, etc. in the picture! Just a recognizable you!
• Profile header tells your current situation and core skills
• Choose 3-5 keywords or phrases for your core skills and your next dream job
• Use clear keywords repeatedly in the profile, starting from the header, which is the first place where the LinkedIn search algorithm looks for
keywords
• Industry is not significant in job searching, in many cases you would have several reasonably good options for industry
• Edit your public profile URL to something short and descriptive, easy to remember
• Network actively, your ”reachability” is max. 3 network levels + groups
• Most people don’t need the paid LinkedIn job searcher badges or other paid account
• LinkedIn guides you in building a better, fuller profile
1/10 Personal profile – picture and header

Update your status frequently, but remember, this is not Facebook!
Fill out the Summary-field with clear, short explanation of your situation;
- what, when, where, why, and how
Add your contact details already here!
Repeat your chosen keywords creatively
Simply put in french lines ”Specialities-/Keywords-/Skills-list” or other phrasing for
a longer list of keywords
English as primary language, but if your working language is something else, use
both languages. LI has added 23 language UIs, searches still often conducted in
English at first.
You can add pictures and presentations to Summary
Link your other specialist profiles, blogs or webpage to Summary
Fill out the profile like it was your resume, or even better and more widely
Webshop
Training materials from Slideshare
Pinterest board
Trainer profile from Slideshare
2/10 Personal profile - Summary

If you’re active in the job market, say it!
Use also groups to announce your availability
If you’ve been available for some time already, update the Summary with a date,
announcing that you’re still looking. Tell why you’re good and qualified, and what
you’re looking for.
Especially when in career transition to new skills and industry, state clearly what
you’re looking for and what not, and why you should be considered, what you’d
be willing to do to get a new start.
Searching for a new job may be a full time job, so if it lasts 6+ months, add it to
your profile as a new current job. It’s better to tell about how actively you’re
looking than to leave gaps in your resume - gaps are suspicious!
Network with HR, recruiters and hiring managers, tell them what you’re looking
for and where.
Network actively, be proactive, outspoken, and tell them what you want, they’re
not mindreaders!
2/10 Personal profile - Summary

Titles must show what you *really* did in each position, worst titles are
”Project/Account/KAM Manager” which are too common to be used in searching
for potential new employees! They don’t reflect your skills!
Use names and numbers to describe each position.
Numbers; direct and indirect HR responsibilities, budget size, savings that you
enabled, (over)achieved targets, comparison to others in your position,
won/managed accounts (sizes). Numbers reflect seniority and enable
comparison!
Names; technologies, SW/HW, programming languages, OS, frameworks,
tools, end terminals, machines, methods/processes, certifications, clients,
subcontractors, partners, etc.
You can add also pictures, logos, news, etc.
You could also add references letter, certification, etc.
Both title and description are part of the search algorithm, so repeat keywords
as much as you can (within reason).
3/10 Personal profile - Experience

At minimum latest and highest full degree
The more relevant to current skillset, the more you
need to tell details, and vice versa
Majors, minors, thesis, bigger course entities, honors,
level, certifications, corporate projects, alumni/student
council work, …
Link info from the school, news, pictures,
documentation
Instead of chronological order, you can also number
them to certain order (not best practice!)
When adding a school, choose the one that LinkedIn
proposes you as closest match when you start typing,
even when including typos, as the suggested one is
the most commonly used name for this school.
4/10 Personal profile - Education

Add your chosen keywords to Interests-field.
Business interests are a must, personal interests
are a plus.
No need to fill out personal details
Add to ”Advice for…” your contact details if not
anywhere else in the profile! Preferably already at
Summary, but here at least.
You can tell a lot about yourself through your
network. Concerning your network one can wonder
why someone should or should not be able to see
who’s in it!
If you work in sales, marcomms or PR, a large
personal network of skilled individuals (or potential
clients) may be that one thing that lands you the
job!
5/10 Personal profile – Additional info

LinkedIn-netiquette:
If you’re recommended,
consider writing one back if
relevant!
Be proactive, write 1 first to receive
1 back!
It shouldn’t be embarassing to ask
for a reference!
If your ex-boss won’t / can’t write
you one, 3 colleagues are just as
good
Best recommendation comes from
a client, next best from business
partner/subcontractor, only then
from people in your own
organisation!
You can choose which
recommendations are public and
which private
6/10 Personal profile - recommendations

LinkedIn’s big update in 2012 removed the old Applications and Sections as such.
Some of the Sections are now ”just” additional parts for your profile, you can see them in
your profile sidebar. New ones have since then been added.
Skills (previously Skills and Expertise) section is now the most active part of all LinkedIn
profiles around the world.
Other additional parts incl. Projects, Languages, Test Scores, Courses, Patents,
Certifications, Publications, Volunteer Experience and Causes, Honors and Awards, and
Organisations.
Projects: add a couple of your best projects highlighting your skills. Projects allows adding
team members to the project.
Languages: (In Finland) Finnish-Swedish-English –combination is considered normal, add
only languages outside of these with proficient business level, unless applying for jobs in
Swedish speaking parts of Finland or abroad.
Test Scores: Language tests, GMAT, etc. Not very commonly used
Courses: Courses with well-known organisations/trainers, are part of e.g. eMBA, are for
widely used technologies, methods, part of certification, or SW key/super user courses, etc.
Not used for tailored internal solution trainings, etc.
Patents, Certifications, Publications: highly recommended to add. Publications are similarly
to Projects a section where one can add other people.
Honors and Awards, Volunteer Causes, Organisations: good in adding understanding of your
skills and interests Volunteer Causes and Organisations are allegedly part of the new
feature now tested in the U.S. for targeted job advertising for 3rd sector organisations.
7/10 Personal profile – add-ons

Add widely your skills to this section. Add the maximum 50 skills,
tools and technologies! If you don’t add all 50, LinkedIn uses your
friends to find new ones to add to the list!
Your network will judge your skills, endorsing them for you, even
suggesting/adding new ones.
Endorsements are comparable to Facebook Likes, they’re not
really recommendations, but something less. Recruiters don’t take
these seriously, only pointing to a direction!
LinkedIn suggests your network 5 skills to endorse, often 1-2 being
a mismatch – a good guess at what you might be skilled with.
Max. 50 skills are shown, and max. 99 endorsers in numbers, but
skill can be clicked open to see who and how many have endorsed
you.
7/10 Personal profile – add-ons

In the new LinkedIn profile you may notice the lesser
importance of groups, better ability to add external
material like links, logos and pictures, and that the
profile is even more modular than before! You can
even change order of current jobs or schools.
Modularity means that you can drag and drop parts
to change the order of content within your profile with
the arrows highlighted here right
You can choose to highlight your experience over
education or skills and expertise over experience,
choose wisely what are your strongest points!
The higher the part is in your profile, the more
importance it should have to your current skills and
situation! Don’t trust the reader will scroll your profile
to the very end.
8/10 Personal profile - modularity

Plenty of groups available, usually several around the same topic and
focus area or target group.
Special job searching/advertising groups (in Finland), e.g. Talent Pool
Finland, ejobs.fi, Uratärpit
Each group has a special Jobs-page
At the group Jobs-page you can see targeted job advertising for this
particular group, same jobs can be found in the topbar Jobs-section
Job Discussions –section is for free job ads, only available for group
members to post and read!
These jobs may not have that much competition due to limited
access to them
Ask smart, answer smart, get positive attention, see who’s talking,
then get in touch directly
Talent Pool Finland is the biggest job searching/advertising group for
Finns, already c. 35.000 Finns enrolled!
9/10
Groups

Following-section tells people that you are up-to-date
with the current trends, news and
visionaries, that you are as well in touch with
your industry as anyone!
10/10 Following

9500+ organisations from Finland already at LinkedIn, globally over 4
million organisations represented, but many still not with full / own profiles
Company profiles
- Some active, most still passive
Follow companies, the changes happening in them, who might you know
in these companies that you’re interested in or applying with?!
Who left, who’s new, which role they’re changing to, how does that effect
your chances to apply? Anyone you could use as internal reference?
Did someone just slip out news about a new product, project, BU, plant, or
something else interesting, something effecting your application
possibilities or other reasons to get in touch with them asap?
Follow trends between companies, who’s hiring, who’s loosing key people
- Sense the changes in companies and markets, follow LinkedIn’s
analysis about the companies and its competitors

Lots of search criteria
Change search criteria on the go
Narrow your search to only certain companies, industries,
location
Much cheaper to advertise jobs at LinkedIn than in Monster
and other traditional digital media channels. Still, it’s not free in
this section either!
Remember to check the Job Discussions in your groups,
where the advertising is free of charge!
Save the search results and get them in your Inbox!
Save a maximum of 10 saved searches that are sent daily,
weekly or monthly to your inbox.
Jobs-section

c. 500 jobs open in Finland these days per day
Try also changing the Location-category to ”anywhere”, see how
many jobs for Finns there are abroad, you’ll be amazed! You can
also choose to find International opportunities just matching your
skills. For all jobs open in Finland and for Finns abroad use search
string ”Finland OR Finnish OR Suomi”. Same rule applies with all
nationalities.
Use your network to find contact persons and references, who can
refer you, ask him/her what is it like to work there, what’s
happening with competition, how to apply better, who to apply with.
Jobs-section

”Apply on company website” forwards you to the actual (company)
system or ATS where the application process takes place.
”Apply now” allows you to apply with your LinkedIn profile with just
2 clicks of a button.
Applying a job in LinkedIn

After clicking the Apply
now – button a pop-up
window opens, from where
you can update your
profile, change contact
details, add cover letter or
a shorter (more tailored)
version of your resume.
The application is
registered to LinkedIn to
your Jobs-page.
Clicking the Submit-button
sends your LinkedIn profile
in PDF format to the
recipients directly.
Applying a job in LinkedIn

Use the ”Apply with LinkedIn” –button to apply jobs without additional
documents or resume, just your LinkedIn profile. You can find the button
often at Monster, blogs, company webpages, Facebook, etc.
Some companies accept LinkedIn profile applications even without the
button, just asking you to send a link to your profile!
Add your LinkedIn profile link to your resume, give the recruiter a
chance to check your references, network and additional experience!
Apply With LinkedIn

 Your visibility and ”foundability” is about as large as your network!
 Remember, when you hide parts of your LinkedIn profile (public profile settings), you start seeing less in
other’s profiles, and you narrow down the possibilities of being found!
 Most recruiters don’t have paid LinkedIn accounts, add your contact details to your profile to be better and
more easily reached
 If you spend all your invitations, ask LinkedIn for more, and if you’ve behaved well, you’ll be granted more.
Originally you have 3000 invitations you can send out.
 Network especially with potential recruiters, HR, hiring managers!
 Network with people you currently deal with, later it may be too late
 Network now, not when you have to or need to for some reason!
 After some time, people don’t recognize you, don’t care about you anymore, or you can’t reach them
anymore – network now!
 Through Groups you can identify people with similar interests
 You may let LinkedIn check your address book, efficient way to find old contacts (not recommended!)
 Add your LinkedIn profile URL to your email signature
 Are you an open networker? Why would you decline an invitation?
 Adding OpenLink-status to your profile increases the number of incoming invitations.
Networking

The new LinkedIn blog platform
Changes in the new LinkedIn interface

The new LinkedIn blog platform follower statistics (equals almost 100% to your network statistics).

 New topbar, less options, re-arranging the order
 New logic, no significant changes effecting job search

 Changes to search options

 New Alumni- and
reference- searches

 Re-thinking the networking!

 New LinkedIn Today Channels

 New LinkedIn Today Influencers

 New LinkedIn Today. Period.

UI coming in chosen languages, likely to
be removing language versions in profiles!
Polls-feature removed 30.6.2013
Profile Organizer changed to be part of
your connections-feature.

 CEO, Innopinion Ltd, crowdsourcing and co-creation service for employee and customer engagement
 Social media consultancy HC Services Oy, Founder (http://www.somehow.fi/somehow/)
 Serial entrepreneur, social media startups since 1999. The most networked Finn at LinkedIn.
 Recruitment background, specialized in leveraging social media in recruitment and branding
 Templeton & Partners UK, IT Recruiter
 Huntress Search UK, Senior Consultant
 Executive Net UK/FIN, Principal Consultant
 ElanIT Resource/Manpower Group, Nordic Resource Mngmt
 BI-IT Solutions/VMP Group Finland, CEO (Founder, sold to VMP Group)
Social media publications, e.g. Social media recruitment guide Suhteellinen rekrytointiteoria (MIF 2012), and social media job
hunting guide Työnhakuopas (Talentum 2014)
Clients incl. Microsoft, Nokia, NSN, Agco Sisu Power, UPM, Digia, Elektrobit, Nice Business Solutions, Newsec, Universities,
public offices, cities, SMEs, NGOs, unemployment offices, etc.
Speaking in Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Estonia, Lithuania, Russia, U.K., Ireland, etc. Over 200 organisations consulted in 3
years + employees of over 200 other organisations have attended open trainings.
In Russia: Ikea, Mercedes Benz, MetLife Alico, Louie Vuitton, Bell Equipment, PPG Industries, Servier, SEB, Laydings, Antal,
Marketvisio/Gartner, Rödl & Partner, Start CBS, Rulo Havi Global Logistics, Gowlings, Cluttons
Look who’s talking - Tom Laine in short!

Tom Laine
Mob. +358 400 296 196
Skype: tomlaine
Email: tom.laine@somehow.fi
LinkedIn http://www.linkedin.com/in/tomlaine
Twitter @lainetom
Facebook http://www.facebook.com/lainetom
More materials available at:
Slideshare.net/tomlaine
Pinterest.com/tomlaine
Ask for more!
Over 330 million professionals are using LinkedIn.
Are you?

Here’s a brief look into using LinkedIn for job hunting and personal branding, the profile
optimization secrets are not shared in written.
LinkedIn is changing constantly, thus this quickguide is also being updated accordingly!
We train various corporates, schools and other organisations to using social media
effectively for a number of purposes, personally I’m focusing on recruitment / job
searching, branding, LinkedIn specialism & crowdsourcing.
Ask for more info at
Tom Laine
http://www.linkedin.com/in/tomlaine
Mob. +358 400 296 196
tom.laine@somehow.fi
http://www.somehow.fi/somehow/
Over 230 million professionals at LinkedIn. Are you?

LinkedIn quickguide for job hunting and personal branding

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