Guerrilla Marking for Job Hunters 2.0 - Jay Conrad Levinson [94]
LinkedIn also lets people who have linked with you leave testimonials on how you were to work with. As a headhunter, I can view the testimonials, click to see if the testimonial writer is someone I should believe, and then decide if I want to contact the person. Not having testimonials doesn’t mean someone is a dud, but having 10 or more that are consistently good will make me want to connect with that person.
From a headhunter’s standpoint, LinkedIn has it all. From a job hunter’s standpoint, LinkedIn represents an opportunity of a lifetime to establish a powerful network of influential colleagues and friends.
Here’s a dirty little secret: recruiters can and will use your LinkedIn profile as a screening tool. In fact, recruiters use LinkedIn every day to find candidates for positions. A recruiter may be looking at your profile even as you read this. This is not how LinkedIn was intended to function when it was built, by the way, but this is how the site has developed. Many consider it your first interview. They’ll read your profile and assess your previous employers and your accomplishments. They’ll look to see if the resume you sent is consistent. If you said you accomplished “x” at your last employer, it would be in your best interest to have a quote saying so from your previous boss as part of your profile.
LinkedIn gives you all the tools you need to create and maintain your online identity. It is not a toy. Unlike many other social networking sites, LinkedIn is for serious career-minded professionals. Like ZoomInfo.com, LinkedIn is currently used by 252,285 third-party recruiters. Often it’s the first site they visit in the morning—even before opening their e-mails. It’s that powerful. There are several great books on LinkedIn, so what I’m about to tell you will help you get up on LinkedIn quickly and “supersize” your exposure quickly.
➤ Super-Sizing Your Online Career Portfolio—FREE with LinkedIn
Guerrillas are not slaves to technology. They leverage it for their advantage. Here’s what you should do right after you have created your LinkedIn profile:
1. Send a request to link to me. You’ll get access to my second-level network of more than 700,000. They will become your third-level contacts instantly (www.linkedin.com/in/davidperry/).
2. Get a personalized e-mail signature (like mine just above). It’s free and you’ll have it for life, so no matter where you are 5 years from now your clients, friends, and favorite headhunters will be able to find you. Follow the instructions.
3. Download and install all of LinkedIn’s productivity tools. LinkedIn has made it so easy to search, build your network, and manage your contacts, all from the applications you use everyday like Outlook, Internet Explorer, and Firefox.
4. Download the Jobs Insider applet. This applet displays the personal connections you already have in your LinkedIn account that are tied to the hiring managers and companies for any job listed online at Monster, CareerBuilder, HotJobs, Craigslist, Dice, Vault, and many more. It’s a Trojan Horse (the good kind, i.e., clever Odysseus’s wooden horse in the battle for Troy).
5. If you have a blog, web site, Facebook, or MySpace account that will add value to your job search, then link to it through the “web sites” section of your profile. Go to the widgets section and download—at a minimum—the Company Insider and Share On LinkedIn applications.
6. Go to www.toplinked.com and follow the instructions to Link to the largest “connectors” in LinkedIn. These people, known as LinkedIn LIONS are “open networkers” who will accept your invitation to connect with them without question. This will instantly grow your contact base overnight. You can always uninvite people later . . . but why you would want to is beyond me.
7. Become a groupie. Go to the Companies Tab at the top of your page. Select company search. Scroll to the bottom