As we know, LinkedIn is one of the best ways to find jobs, apart from using it to search for positions, there are also many strategies you can utilize, and here are some proven strategies we have used to help job seekers.
Strategy 1: Quality of Connection
LinkedIn is all about connection. One issue we found is that job seekers tend to group together with other job seekers, so you actually end up connecting with others like yourself but not the actual recruiters or business owners. Spend a few hours and look at your connections:
A) Check out their titles, are they potential recruiters or business owners, or you are just connecting with a bunch of other irrelevant people?
B) Location – There is no need to connect with professionals in Africa or South America if you are looking for positions in New York City
I may sound blunt, but “quality of connection” is one of the most critical factors to consider for you to find leads, either business leads or career opportunities.
Strategy 2: Join Relevant Groups
Most job seekers simply join Jobs or Careers Groups without doing anything much else. The LinkedIn Groups are diversified, I counted close to 100,000 groups last time, and it will probably be much more than that now.
Here are some useful tips:
A) Join local business of chamber groups – join those location specific groups that you are interested in.
B) Join Business Owner Groups – These groups are mostly business owners or business consultants, many are looking for candidates or consultants
C) Join Recruiters / HR Groups – These groups are used by recruiters and HR managers instead of job seekers.
The strategy is to connect and link with recruiters / business owners and identify opportunities that are not advertised.
Strategy 3: Industry Groups
Join industry groups as they will have many opportunities that are not found in other groups. These groups may have less members, but they will be more targeted at industry professionals. You can see positions available on industry groups very often under jobs or discussions.
For example, if you are interested in working in the telecommunications industry, join those directly and indirectly related to the industry – such as telecommunications, wireless, mobile applications, wireless infrastructure and others. By extending the groups using different keywords, you can identify many hidden opportunities.
Strategy 4: Connect with Owners and Decision Makers
One effective strategy is connect with owners and decision makers on the companies or industries you are interested to work in. This involves in more detailed research on the companies within your search parameters.
Connecting directly with owners is the fastest way to find job opportunities. I used this tactic and found 2 of my last 3 positions in telecommunications, IT and finance industries.
This strategy works especially well with small to medium sized enterprises where CEOs or CFOs are usually the decision makers for the recruiting process as well.
Strategy 5: Use your blog to promote yourself
Blogging is very effective strategy whether you are an experienced professional or just out of college. Set up a blog, which is usually free these days, then publish articles about your thoughts that are related to the jobs or industry.
If you are considering 2 different industries, have separate blogs and publish the industry specific articles respectively.
Blogs can connect you with the potential recruiters. I had 2 blogs with my articles about the companies I am interested in investing and another blog about multilingual marketing (as I did some projects in that when I was in university). I was approached by a hedge fund on a research analyst position as it found my blog interesting and relevant.
Integrate your blog on LinkedIn, and you can find you could start to attract interests from recruiters you have never thought of.
Strategy 6: Offer a Free Report or Presentation
Everyone has something to offer; that is what I have been telling many first time job seekers. One way to connect with potential employers (or business opportunities) is to launch a Free Report or a presentation.
One of my friends launched several free marketing reports providing social media strategies for financial services companies; and market them around finance and marketing groups. Subsequently, he received inquiry from several financial companies and invited him over for interview – it was a good strategy for him to demonstrate his knowledge in social media marketing even though he only had little work experience at the time.
These are the 6 strategies we would like to share in this article, hopefully they can provide you with some ideas.
Some Useful Resources For You
USA Environmental Engineering Companies Guide
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Free Guide: 30 Minutes to Maximizing LinkedIn
Many job seekers are on LinkedIn, but very few are utilizing and maximizing the benefits of LinkedIn. Most just have a simple profile and never update them. This free guide shows you various tricks you can use to utilize LinkedIn which you can adopt to improve your job finding process.
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Free Report: Learn LinkedIn – Build Your Living Resume
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