In between jobs? Stay away from “Looking for a new opportunity” and similar phrases on your LinkedIn profile (unless you are a fresh grad)! One common misconception is that those who are between jobs should say so on their LinkedIN profiles but this can actually work against you! Noting you're unemployed is unnecessary because recruiters will contact you anyway. If you fit the requirements, they will message you regardless. Stating that you’re out of job can actually harm your chances of being recruited because of the negative bias around unemployment. Leave your most recent position up on your profile! It’s not likely that your previous employer will reach out to you and ask you to remove it. If they do, be sure to comply, otherwise just leave the position up as current while you hunt for a new job!
LinkedIN recommendations
92% of recruiters trust peer recommendations over self-promotion! Recommend your connections on LinkedIN, people will reciprocate! One underutilized but effective resource for boosting your chances of getting a job is the recommendations feature on LinkedIN. Having valid recommendations from people that have worked with you will be appreciated by recruiters,it's the easiest way for them to collect information about your work ethic. So reach out to your previous colleagues or bosses! If you need them quick, you can do this: Write a recommendation about yourself - be reasonable! - send it to a colleague or ex-colleague and ask them to post it on your profile if they find it to be accurate. The answer will probably be yes, and you save time for them and yourself as well! Never forget to offer to do the same for them! It's a win-win! Same goes for Skills and Endorsements. We’ll cover this in coming videos!
500+ connections (L.I.O.N.) - Part 1
When it comes to your LinkedIn connections, numbers matter. You need 500+ connections on LinkedIN to look good! Many people perceive those with 500+ connections to be more credible, since it implies that these individuals have been proactive in maximizing their reach and visibility on LinkedIn. One way to quickly gain more connections is to join a LION group and connect with a bunch of LinkedIN Open Networkers. Being a LinkedIn Open Networker means they connect with lots of people, including people they don’t know. Having a high number of connections comes with some great benefits. You can see more people’s profiles, more people can see your profile, and best of all, your profile will show up in LinkedIN searches more often. Once you join a LION group, you can read about their policies and how it works but we will share more about this in the next video, so stay tuned!
LinkedIN (L.I.O.N.) - Part 2
Build your connections on LinkedIN with the help of Open Networking! There are plenty of LION groups on LinkedIN that you can join to start growing your network with valuable people. Once you join a LION group you can spark up a conversation in the comments section to find like-minded people you can add to your connections! Here’s what you’ll do: Join at least three LION groups. Once you’re admitted into these groups, you can start by finding the post with the most comments on it, left by people who are all there to do the same as you: grow their number of connections. Check for fresh comments, maximum a few days old and add yours, using any variation of the following: Happy to connect! Email: example@example.com (your email address connected with your LinkedIN account). Once that’s done, you can go through the comments and start adding people with the same request. Spend only an hour every day doing this and your connections will skyrocket!
