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A basic guide to using LinkedIn Social media sites can be powerful tools, but they can also be something of a liability for job searchers. myfuturerole.com has previously covered the need to manage your online reputation, but here we take a closer look at the wider issues surrounding the use of LinkedIn, the social media platform that is most obviously geared towards benefiting jobseekers.
LinkedIn already has 200 million users (as of January 2013. 11 million of these are based in the UK), and it’s never too late to join them, or indeed to return if you have created an account and don’t feel you’ve been getting all you can out of the service.
On LinkedIn, professional individuals create a personal account with a profile focused on providing CV information and professional connections, bringing the networking that is so important for securing employment into a digital space.
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Why do I need a LinkedIn profile? By making your skillset and previous experience available on LinkedIn, you may be approached by recruitment agencies or businesses directly. While this kind of passive job search is no substitute for a thorough look through myfuturerole.com’s own job listings, it’s easy to see how maintaining a LinkedIn profile could be beneficial to your career. We believe however, the most important aspect of LinkedIn engagement is that potential employers you approach outside of the service will go looking for your profile. LinkedIn should therefore be viewed as an all or nothing proposition. By this, we mean that it’s better to have no LinkedIn profile than an incomplete or poorly constructed one. Obviously, if you do not have a LinkedIn account, you may risk appearing as if you aren’t serious about your career, or that you aren’t serious about technology: potential employers may question why a digital marketing professional doesn’t have a LinkedIn profile for instance. However, if an employer comes across a poorly constructed, out of date LinkedIn page that doesn’t present all that a candidate has to offer, it will only negatively affect that candidate’s chances.
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Creating a LinkedIn account The first step is obviously to create a LinkedIn account. If you have completed this already, you may skip this section. However, it may be useful to review the points below to consider whether you have followed best practice for account creation.
Signing Up Create your profile by clicking ‘Join Today’ on the Linkedin.com homepage. You will need to provide your real first and last names, along with a password. Click ‘Join LinkedIn’ to proceed. You can also sign up using your Facebook login. We do not recommend doing so because of the privacy and identity management issues that may arise. It should go without saying, but you should always create a LinkedIn account using a personal email address. Your current work email won’t be of much use if you suddenly get a new job!
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The basics
Linkedin will then ask you to clarify where you live, your current employment status, and your job title and current employer (if applicable). Entering all of this information is necessary to create your account.
2 Your email
You will be prompted to enter an email address again, this time to help determine a list of LinkedIn users who you may already have some degree of business contact with.
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Initial connections
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Social sharing
LinkedIn will then take the information you have already provided – email address, company and postcode especially – and use this to automatically generate a list of potential colleagues and acquaintances. Add as many or as few people as you need.
LinkedIn will create your professional profile at this point, and prompt you to share the news through your Facebook and Twitter accounts. This step is not essential, and simply pasting the URL of your profile into other services will mean you avoid linking them too explicitly..
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Basic versus Premium
6 Your work history
This step prompts you to name the role you took at any previous employers. Click ‘no more positions’ when you are finished.
LinkedIn offer a paid, premium service largely targeted at professionals in the recruitment sector. It is unlikely you will need these features, so click ‘choose basic’ to proceed.
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Your education
You will also be prompted to provide details of any schools, colleges and universities you have attended.
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Add a photo
Add a profile image to your account. Obviously, a photo that has been taken professionally (or at the very least, depicts you looking professional) is preferable. No drunken snaps or cartoon avatars are appropriate here.
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Show off your skills
Finally, add skills and any software package or industry qualifications you have. The words in this field will auto-complete to give you the best fit with terms already used on LinkedIn.
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Fleshing out your profile further Once you have created and logged into your account, LinkedIn does a good job of guiding you through the steps necessary to optimise it. In a side-box, you are prompted to ‘import your résumé’, to seek professional connections as well as to add to sections focused on your current and past positions, skills and expertise, education and connections. •
Transfer information from an existing, up to date CV. If you haven’t updated yours recently, this is a good excuse
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As with any content that is used in a job search, only provide information that is 100% factually accurate
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When you add a current or previous position, you must enter the company name, title, location and the period of your employment. You’re also able to enter additional information on responsibilities and achievements
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Older roles help flesh out your profile, but only include extra detail if the role was relevant to your current or intended career path
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The education section prompts you to add institutions, fields of study, dates, grades and extra-curricular activity
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Other fields include: websites, interests, groups and associations and honours and awards. Adding extra detail here isn’t essential, but will be helpful and will provide anyone who sees your profile with a more complete picture of your personality
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You can volunteer further contact and personal details that add legitimacy to your profile and further paths for contacting you. If you do opt to include any of these details (including addresses, phone numbers and marital status) be vigilant about who you establish connections with
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Other social media accounts can also be linked with your LinkedIn profile. You will generally network more efficiently if you do this, but you may consider some accounts inappropriate for this
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Note also the field for a summary: this is especially important and should concisely state your career goals and specialisms, while also dropping in search terms you want to be visible for
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Connections: why are they important? Filling out your employment and education history isn’t just about attracting the attention of recruiters and ensuring background checks on you result in complete and high quality information. This information is also the primary avenue through which you will make connections to other users. You can connect with past and present colleagues, old school mates and anyone else with which you could feasibly have come into contact within a professional or academic context. Aside from the fact that the platform is primarily an online space for networking, it’s important to realise LinkedIn is built upon trust with a ‘gated access approach’. In order to contact anyone on the service, you need to have an existing relationship with that person, or to have an existing relationship with a third party who can recommend you to that person. If you don’t establish connections, you won’t be able to expand your sphere of influence and use LinkedIn to its full potential. Users to whom you are connected can also help you build your profile via the creation of ‘recommendations’. Recommendations are essentially publicly available referral letters, citing your good character and skillset, and are an invaluable addition to your profile. Obviously, senior, professionally significant referees are more effective. You can request a recommendation from a connection by clicking the ‘Ask for recommendations’ link in your profile.
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Engaging via LinkedIn Though LinkedIn’s major strength is the richness of its user profiles and the power of its networking offering, it remains a social network like any other. Though less active, and perhaps less broadly appealing than other social networks, LinkedIn is a great place to share content with colleagues and people in your industry.
Venues A LinkedIn user has several places available where they can easily share content with others. Current venues include status updates, groups and company pages. •
Status updates on LinkedIn are much like their counterparts on Facebook and most other social networks. You can share updates on your work, articles you find interesting and other content, and your connections can view that content and interact with you regarding it
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LinkedIn Groups are free to join, though you may require membership approval from the manager of a group. These spaces are a fantastic way to make new connections with other professionals in your field, or with people with the same interests. As well as listing potential contacts, groups contain spaces for discussion and news feeds full of relevant articles.
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Company pages are a place for employees and other interested parties to congregate and interact. If you’re applying for a role at a company, it makes sense to see if you can get on their radar ahead of your interview, so check to see whether they have an active LinkedIn company page
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Visibility beats shameless self-promotion No social media channel is a good place for telling everyone about how great you are, even one where you construct a profile intended to do exactly that. Don’t talk about yourself in a group or on a company page: these are spaces to bring up interesting topics of discussion, to promote debate. Give occasional updates on your dealings via status updates, but don’t turn your profile into a work diary. If you become a constant presence in people’s activity feeds for the right reasons, you will build yourself a positive reputation.
Consider also the value of engaging with companies and people in positions of power that you’d like to work with. Likes and comments put you on the radar and will inform the research you take to a subsequent interview. Remember though, LinkedIn is not just about serving professional self-interest: social interactions should be something you actually enjoy doing!
Other people’s content is more important than your own One rule to live by is that for everything you post in a group, you should share and engage with at least 10 things other people have posted. This allows you to avoid appearing self-important, and any company that stumbles across your participation in LinkedIn will be impressed with how engaged you are in your industry and interests.
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Dos and don’ts If you have been following this guide you will have a LinkedIn presence that will help your efforts to find the perfect role. In this final section, we offer a few final pieces of advice to ensure your time on LinkedIn is well spent.
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DON’T add skills that don’t appear in LinkedIn’s skills drop down. Be sure to look for how your skill is already being described (and therefore, where the search volume is for that skill)
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DO spellcheck your profile as thoroughly as you would your CV. Either use the built in spellcheck on your browser, or if this is unreliable, copy and paste everything into your word processor
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DO leave your account set to ‘looking for job opportunities’. While you may see more spam as a result, this is preferable to having your employer realise that you’re suddenly searching for jobs
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DON’T send un-personalised LinkedIn connection requests to anyone but your closest friends and colleagues. People need to know why they should log in to their account and add you to their network
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DON’T lie about your skills, education or your previous employment. LinkedIn will place you within a circle of people who can verify any fraudulent claims.
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DO create a unique LinkedIn URL (settings > ‘edit your public profile’). You’ll be easier to find, and the URL will look professional should you choose to use it on a business card or email signature
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DON’T add anyone with which you have no real connection to: tightly control who has access to information about you and avoid the few spammers abusing the service
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DO get another person to take a look at and critique your profile – just as you’d do with your CV
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