Don’t be this guy
When you sit back and think about the short lifespan of the Internet and how much it has grown it’s mind blowing. Remember when social media had just come into its own with Myspace and sites like it? Those sites created the “stranger danger” line of thinking. In those days, you had to keep anything that could compromise your identity away from the Internet because everyone else was a crazed, psychopathic killer.
It’s no secret that things have changed nowadays. With the advent of Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, anyone who’s anything has a social media presence representing their true selves. In this day and age, recruiters are turning to LinkedIn to source top-talent more than ever before. Its superior search-ability is second-to-none, allowing recruiters to sift through the innumerable profiles on the site to find just the right people they want.
By now everyone has pretty much heard of LinkedIn. Leveraging your LinkedIn profile is key to anyone’s success. Whether you are self-employed or an employee, a strong LinkedIn profile can only provide benefits. In the professional world, LinkedIn is the numero uno site on the Internet. Do not miss the opportunity to leverage your profile in today’s market. Highlight your background, don’t be bashful, and make sure you have a professional profile picture of yourself! If you have a profile on LinkedIn without a picture you will get overlooked immediately!
“How does leveraging apply to you?”
Here I am!
Leveraging applies good or bad to you whether you like it or not. In this day and age, it’s impossible to differentiate online an offline life; in other words, everybody is online all the time. If your name comes up in a conversation, you can be sure that someone will be looking you up online, not just recruiters but your peers and hiring managers as well. Knowing that recruiters are actively searching LinkedIn, the best thing for you to do is to customize your profile in order to be found.
Keywords
search is what recruiters use to find the type of job candidates they are looking for. Recruiters create a keyword search using multiple different words and Boolean operators to form strings of text to find top-talent in the specific industry they’re searching. In English? Recruiters search for profiles that contain specific words. Knowing this, you can make sure to include those specific words in your profile as often as possible, where relevant. For example, if you wanted to be found for industrial engineering positions, include the phrase “industrial engineer” in your description and in any work history sections that apply. If your degree is in industrial engineering, even better!
A LinkedIn profile absolutely needs to match up to your resume! Having any discrepancies between the two can only reflect negatively back onto you. Keep in mind that when you are looking for a new opportunity, hiring managers are looking to see how you do not qualify. In other words, rather than looking for why you would be a great fit, they look to see the negatives in your resume. It’s a perusal to see why you are not a match. That is why if you are a solid candidate, using a recruiter makes more sense. They know how to promote someone’s background and hit all the key points that their client is looking for. Sometimes those points are hard to find on a resume and that is why such sites as LinkedIn will NEVER replace a good recruiter!