Find a job with LinkedIn

Did you sign up for LinkedIn? Great! You have done the first important step to find a job. As you already know, LinkedIn is an excellent professional network. Created to connect colleagues, former colleagues and professional contacts, LinkedIn has over 575 million users in 17 years. So how to find a job on LinkedIn? Here are some tips to optimize your profile and interact effectively with companies and users.

How to use LinkedIn to find a job

You must be aware that having a LinkedIn profile is not enough to fina a job: you should create contacts with professionals and contacts in the HR field, follow companies and their job offers, participate in groups and discussions related to your professional field or in line with your ambitions.

LinkedIn can create numerous opportunities to get in touch with people who can offer job opportunities and make it possible to be identified by recruiters looking for professional profiles for a position in the company.

Many companies also publish job offers on LinkedIn that you can easily apply for by using your profile as a CV.

How to create a successful LinkedIn profile

• Update your CV and LinkedIn profile, and change the photo from time to time. Make sure to always choose professional images where you wear the clothes you would wear at work. Selfies? Better not;
• Translate your profile into at least one other language. You don’t need to do it all over again. There's a LinkedIn tool that can help you;
• Do not overlook the descriptive title and summary, the publication of articles on various topics and a phrase to show your potential. The summary of the LinkedIn profile has a strategic role and should not be a simple copy-paste of the job qualification: Obviously, it’s not easy to fill these 120 characters. Try to be attractive to recruiters and be clear for the search algorithm.
• Create an effective and unique summary. To simplify we could distinguish two main types of summary: Standard with details and Creative.

The first type, the standard summary with details, is a summary including not only the qualification, but also some details, keywords or phrases, making it more specific and easier to understand.

The second is the creative one. Instead of bringing up qualification, it’s more like an advertising slogan.

But make sure not to write something unclear, difficult to understand, not trackable by the search engine. In any case, you should not miss terms or keywords that can make it comprehensible to the search engine and readers.

• Use keywords in all fields of the profile, from the summary to the skills, because the search is done through them. But do not exaggerate and avoid "narrating" yourself through the so-called buzzwords or generic words such as responsible, expert, creative, motivated, strategic, innovative...;
• Make yourself noticeable visually. To make you outstand among millions of LinkedIn users, some graphic tips will be helpful. For example, a beautiful background image and more videos, slides, infographics... about your work and the projects you've been working on. Don't forget the Work Samples!
• Put what you've always wanted in your CV. Fill in the description for each job and the general summary. Do not limit yourself to the tasks. And make a list of the results obtained, publish links, PDFs and documents. Besides, if it’s necessary, put also certificates of courses, certifications, patents and volunteering;
• Use status updates: they are a good opportunity to highlight some of your latest work. Share an article or a book, promote your presence at an event ... It’s better to update during working hours, as LinkedIn is a professional Social Network. How often? 1 to 4 updates per day, but only if you have relevant things to share;
• Ask for recommendations from the people you've worked with, and thank them in the same way: it works a bit like the Amazon reviews, which help make the difference between one product (in this case a candidate) and another. Career experts on LinkedIn even suggest making a strategic plan for requesting recommendations. Remember that they need to highlight your job skills. How many? Experts also think that you should try to get at least one recommendation per month;
• There are 3 types of people you'll need to include in your circle on LinkedIn: people you know on a personal level, users who have a lot of connections and experts in your field. You need at least 50 people. How to connect with them? Try to customize your connection request by replacing the sentence "I would like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn" with a personalized sentence. Remember that according to LinkedIn, 80% of jobs come by online word-of-mouth.

Find a job on LinkedIn by focusing on keywords

LinkedIn is above all a search engine that stores profiles and returns certain results corresponding to specific searches through keywords. It can therefore be useful for those who want to be found to use the adapted keywords in the appropriate fields. Specifically:

• Qualification
• Summary
• Work experience
• Recommendations
• Skills
• Training and education
• LinkedIn Pulse

It doesn't mean that you need to focus the work on keywords in order to appear high on LinkedIn's internal results. Use keywords but write naturally and describe what you do without forcing, without repeating excessively the keywords. About the choice of keywords on LinkedIn, you can base yourself on different aspects related to your work. In particular:

• Education (are you a graduate or do you have a master's degree in...?)
• More relevant skills (especially technical skills that directly show what you are able to do). The more confirmation of skills you receive from your contacts, the easier they will be seen;
• Social skills (e.g. management ability in teams);
• Training and qualifications;
• Volunteering experiences

Why use LinkedIn Pulse to get more visibility?

Participation in groups and discussions is very important. If you want to find a job with LinkedIn, the best way is to make connections. Work more on your internal blog: Pulse. This platform can publish articles that will be shown on your home page and in the internal community.

With LinkedIn Pulse you create useful content for people following you, at the same time you show your skills and share your opinions on topics you know. This can help you increase useful contacts and help you find a job on LinkedIn that matches your aspirations and skills. One important point: LinkedIn Pulse is a resource that should not be used to simply republish content already displayed elsewhere. Use it as a notepad, to express a part of your thoughts, but not to duplicate content.

LinkedIn is not a market. It is not a place to shout and expose your skills to everyone. You don't have to spam, you don't have to go into contacts and send unwanted emails with requests for attention. There are many ways to catch the public attention, but attention should not be demanded: you have to win it with the quality of the content and information.