Finding a Job Using Linkedin

If you’re limiting your job search to responding to job postings on Monster or Hotjobs, you’re limiting your chances for success. Every news story giving suggestions on how to improve your job search results recommends networking. And when it comes to the Internet the place to network in the business world is Linkedin.

Certainly there are other social networking web sites for business including Plaxo and Brightfuse (even Facebook and Twitter), but the action is on Linkedin. To start using Linkedin you need to open a (free) Linkedin account and provide a comprehensive view of your work history. You’ll end up with an online resume. You even get a link you can send out to others (even a version for those not on Linkedin).

Once a member, using Linkedin to augment your job search requires three efforts. You need to make connections to others. There are job postings as a tabbed choice of your home page and on each Linkedin specialty group. Lastly connections make “recommendations” for each other. This means you can write a paragraph of recommendation for your connections and they can write one for you. Let’s look at all three. First connections.

Just like your Facebook friends, the most important part of using Linkedin, in general, is to make connections or business contacts. A successful Linkedin effort includes a high quality and, ideally, quantity of connections. It gives you new people to contact in your job pursuit. You can reach out to your connection’s connections as well.

The art of gaining connections is done several ways. Every time I encounter someone in a business setting, I look up his or her profile on Linkedin. This means every time I have a phone call, I look them up and ask if they’ll be my connection as soon as we hang up. When I have a business meeting, whether one on one or in a group, I capture the attendee names. Back at my computer I immediately look them up on Linkedin and request a connection.

If you go on an interview, whether by phone or in person you should follow the same routine. Make the connection.

Immediacy is the key because if they’ve forgotten you, they may not accept your invitation and instead click on “I don’t know this person”. Do enough of those and Linkedin will insist you enter an email address for everyone you invite to connect. They do this to help stop abuse by some who aggregate names for resale.

Your email contact list is a source for Linkedin connections. On the Linkedin website is a link whereby you can import your Yahoo, Google or Hotmail contact list and Linkedin will let you know which of them are already “Linkedin”. Your existing connections have their own list of connections and this is a fine place to mine for your future contacts. Obviously this must be done with care so as not to offend.

A short cut to growing your connections list is to participate in a group like TopLinked. Here Linkedin members agree to make their names available for networking. They agree to accept all invitations to connect. These “open networkers” believe there is strength in numbers and it is not uncommon for some of these to have 15,000 connections or more. I’d hate to have to read their home page list of status updates every day.

As your connections list grows, you’ll get to monitor all these folks’ activity. You’ll find out what new connections they are making. You can read their status lines. You can find out what Linkedin “groups” they are joining. Each of these is an opportunity for you to grow your sphere of influence. And each of these is a chance to call or write someone to ask if they can help in your job search.

Groups, Job Tabs and Recommendations

There are many groups on Linkedin. There will certainly be one or more that focus on an area of interest to you. Or you can just peruse the list of Linkedin groups. There are about 230,000 in English, more in other languages. But you can search by category. You can monitor your home page to see what groups your connections are joining to find some of interest to you.

The groups have a huge range of topics. Categories include Alumni, Corporate, Conference, Networking, Non-Profit, Professional and Other. You can join a group of former employees of certain companies (“Former Sears IT Team”). Your job description probably has a group (“Streaming Media Professionals” or “Equipment Leasing”). Your industry likely offers several groups (“Social Media Marketing”). There’s nothing wrong with joining lots of groups. Each group gives you access to its member list for networking. This is a great way to grow your connections and to enhance your job search networking plan.

There are several things you can do to improve your job hunt once you’re a member of a group. First off you can read the discussions of others, discover which contributors are thought leaders; discover who is working for a company on your target list. Then send them a message and create a dialog. Second you can start your own discussion, which will make more contacts. And most important of all, you can explore the “Jobs” tab for each group.

Under the jobs tab there are entries with job descriptions from people who are hiring. This is also a great place for you to post a situation wanted discussion. Both of these discussion group types are great places to seek out advice about certain companies, job types or even your job search in general.

Linkedin has a “Jobs” tab on the home page. You can search for jobs by geography or key word. Some of the listings are exclusive to Linkedin. Just be aware any response you make will likely lead the hiring party directly to your Linkedin biography so make sure it reads exactly as you’d like.

One of the cool attributes of Linkedin is the “recommendation” feature. Here people you have worked with in the past can write a brief, typically one paragraph, description of your experiences together. “Jim was a fine employee who always worked hard and knew his topic”. This may not take the place of the references you have to provide during the course of a hiring process. It does make your candidacy much more appealing to a hiring party while they review your qualifications from your Linkedin page. Some Linkedin job listings state they require candidates with recommendations, but this is likely just a promotional tool of the Linkedin website more than anything else.

Linkedin will provide you with a list of how often you have shown up in a search and how many people have viewed your profile. Sometimes this list gives you the actual name of the person, but more often it lists the general nature of the viewer. This list could read “Someone in the Marketing and Adverting Industry” or “Someone in an Executive Position at a Printing Company in Chicago” or even “Bill Gates, CEO Microsoft”. You usually can match up this list nicely with the resumes you sent out recently.

Nothing takes the place of face to face networking for a job search. And if the heart and soul of job search this year is networking, then Linkedin provides the perfect social networking vehicle to do research, make lots of contacts and search out job opportunities.

By Ron Shulkin
March 26, 2009
source: examiner.com