How to make LinkedIn deliver what YOU want

By Neil Patrick

Linkedin holds the key to a world of opportunity for all of us, if we can just learn to accept one simple truth...

I discuss LinkedIn a lot with my offline network.

I also chastise many of my professional friends for their failures to take it seriously. The main reason I do this is that they only think about it when it is too late. Like when they lose their job, or are struggling to progress some aspect of their career or business.

LinkedIn cannot and will not deliver benefits for you if you only turn to it when you desperately need help…unless you have invested already for months and years beforehand.

But if you have already made that investment, then you’ll have a network of relevant connections that can you can turn to. People who know something or someone that you need.

And if you have paid it forward, investing in helping others in your network, with absolutely no demand for anything in return, you’ll have their goodwill too.

But it’s not a mechanical process. It has an element of randomness about it for sure.

A few months ago I happened to see a particularly erudite and insightful comment posted on LinkedIn. I wasn't in any way connected to the poster. So I simply clicked ‘like’ and wrote one sentence of praise.

Total time invested? About 60 seconds.

The poster happened to be a very senior investment banker. He invited me to connect which I did. Several emails and phone calls flowed from this over the following weeks. We had an easy rapport. We got to know each other properly. We discovered how we could collaborate and be of value to each other.

We now have a very productive business relationship, where we provide real value to each other.

In the real world, our paths would never have crossed.

Today, I know I can pick up the phone to him at any time and discuss anything where I think he can be of help.

That’s just one example. I have dozens more similar stories I could tell you. Every relationship is different, but they all started in the same way…a more or less random encounter on social media.

And this is why I think people struggle with seeing the value of social media for their careers. If you’re in manufacturing, you think in term of raw materials, processes and the value of goods you can sell. If you are more financially focussed, you want to see the return on every investment you make. If I spend this…what do I get back?

But this misses the point entirely. I accept that 90% of the connections I make on LinkedIn will never create any value directly beyond some friendly exchanges and perhaps a tip off here and there. But by the same token, 10% of them will be priceless. I just don’t know which ones. And I never will.

Pharmaceutical firms view their businesses in a similar way. They invest billions every year in research and development of new drugs. And they know that 90% or more of them will never get to market, let alone earn them any revenues.

But they also know that they only have to have one which does make it through to generate millions or even billions of revenues in the future. And so they continue to invest steadily in potential new treatments, in the full knowledge that most will fail.

It’s exactly the same with LinkedIn. You only need one job, one person, one exchange to transform everything and change your prospects. One change to your profile can transform how others see you. One comment can lead to a world of opportunity.

And the only way that will happen is if you invest steadily every day in a way which makes sense for the outcomes you are seeking.

If you are mindful and focussed, you will achieve the outcomes you seek.

Just don’t expect LinkedIn to deliver unless you have committed to it with a purpose from the start. And paid your dues.

How to grow your LinkedIn network without going to jail

By Neil Patrick

Building your network on social media and especially LinkedIn is a great way to increase your career opportunities as I described here. But if you send out invitations to connect without enough care, you’ll not see much return on the investment. In fact, if you are really careless, you could even end up in LinkedIn jail!

The ever insightful Stacy Donovan Zapar has provided some very helpful pointers here into the various types of LinkedIn jail and how to get out.

But I am sure you’d much rather never go to jail in the first place, so here are my tips on one key aspect.

How can you make new connections without risking the dreaded IDK (I don’t know this person) response?

The current assessment is that gaining just 5 IDK responses to your invitations to connect will result in your LinkedIn account being ‘restricted’, meaning that for all future invitations you send, you’ll have to include the person’s email address.

So here are my thoughts on how to send invitations to connect safely.

I get an increasing number of invitations to connect. That’s great, but there are a few that I pass over. I never hit the IDK button, but not everyone can be trusted to do that.

Like anyone would, when I receive an invitation to connect from someone I don’t already know, I make judgements about them based on what I can see on their LinkedIn profile.

Reading various other posts about how to set up a great LinkedIn profile, in practice I apply some different criteria to who I connect with.

Here’re the things I don’t worry about:

Some profiles are so packed with information that it would take me too long to read it all. But that’s not a reason to decline an invitation in my view. It just means I simply skim read it. And too much info is better than too little. Once we get more engaged, this stuff will all be dealt with as needed.

Some don’t have a personal photograph - just the bubble head or a company logo. Not best practice agreed but neither is it a reason to decline. I have quite a few great contacts who usually through shyness don’t include a personal photo.

Some people are at an early stage in their careers. So they don’t have a lot of accomplishments yet and I understand that. So that’s not a reason to decline them either. In fact, I interpret this as a great opportunity to be of help to that person and build our relationship.

So what are the reasons I do decline invitations to connect?

There’s never a single reason, but almost always, it’s a combination of some or all of the following:

No recommendations

I don’t care if you’ve got 20,000 Linkedin connections. I care what they think about you. And if only one or two people think enough of you to provide a recommendation, I only have what you say about yourself to go on when I make that judgement. And some people are let’s say extremely “creative” with the descriptions they apply to themselves.

More often than not, such connections immediately bombard me with spammy updates which just fill my homepage with junk. No thanks.

In my view, someone who boasts about thousands of connections, but has no recommendations, is just collecting connections at a frantic pace in the belief that this will give them status and kudos on LinkedIn. If they are not engaged with the community, neither are they likely to engage with me.

On the other hand, if a dozen or more people who are clearly professionals say some good things about you, I will take you much more seriously. 

You say you are a LION

In case you’re not yet familiar with this acronym, it stands for LinkedIn Open Networker. This is a tricky one. I consider myself an open networker. In other words, I am happy to connect with MOST people even if I’ve never met them before.

And this includes LIONS.

But even so, I still apply some filtering. If someone's headline shouts, “I’m a LION and I’ve got 50,000 connections”, I am likely to look much more closely at them before deciding whether to accept or move on. Especially if they have very little on their profile to suggest why they deserve and are engaged with so many connections.

 
They don’t include a personal message as to why they wish to connect with me

This doesn’t have to be much. Just including my name in the message and an explanation as to how you found me would suffice. But still at least half the invitations I receive show no such courtesy or interest. How can I be expected to think you are someone who is likely to engage with me or anyone else if you can’t even invest the effort to write a single sentence? 

We have no shared interests at all

I apply very generous criteria to this. I think one of the great things about LinkedIn is how it can broaden our network beyond our normal sphere of influence. So if someone has a different industry background, that’s great. If they are at a different career stage, no problem.

On the other hand, if we appear to have nothing in common and no shared interests, then I wonder why the invitation was sent? Especially if any of points 1,2 or 3 above also apply.


So these are the criteria I apply in accepting or declining invitations to connect on Linkedin with people I’ve never met or engaged with on other social media platforms.

And I am sure that I’m not alone in applying such criteria. If that is the case, then it is really very simple to build a great network with new connections on LinkedIn.

Just avoid the traps above.

So: 

Make sure you've got some recommendations on your profile

These don’t have to be amazing or long. Just someone else’s positive comments about you. And you’ll find most people you already know will be happy to provide you with a recommendation if you help them out by providing a draft of the sort of thing you’d like them to say. This makes it easy and quick for them to just do any editing they’d like and post it. So a big task is reduced to a couple of minutes. 

Don’ t assume that someone will choose to connect with you just because lots of others have

I think if the most interesting thing about you is how many connections you’ve got, then something’s adrift somewhere.

I also have a feeling that as the number of LIONS grows and we all get bit tired of the game, the folk who just build huge numbers of connections and do nothing else will become more and more sidelined. We'll see...

Show everyone you invite to connect the courtesy of telling them why you’d like to connect

It doesn’t have to be anything world changing. Just be open and honest about why you'd like to connect, show that you know a little about them and compliment them a bit. Flattery works wonders with most of us! 

Especially if the person has a different area of professional interests to yourself, then the reason for the invitation really does need some justification. So this point is especially important in such cases. 

Finally avoid overt self promotion on LinkedIn

Networking and marketing are not the same thing and in an understandable drive to control spamming, the Linkedin police are getting more and more sensitive to promotional posts. So save your marketing and promotional efforts for discussions one to one with your contacts not on LinkedIn.

Do you agree with my criteria? Or do you apply different ones? I’d love to hear what criteria you apply and will be happy to post them here. Please share your thoughts below!

7 Tips on how to use LinkedIn to find a job

By Sarah Halzack

Want to use LinkedIn to find a job or boost your career, but not sure where to start?

Brendan Browne, LinkedIn’s director of global acquisition, and Nicole Williams, a career expert for LinkedIn, share some ways to get the most out of the professional networking site:

Don’t settle for a bare-bones profile. “A good profile is a complete profile,” Browne said.

In other words, a simple list of your past employers and job titles likely won’t entice a recruiter. A comprehensive profile includes your educational background and detailed descriptions of all of your work experiences and skills. Depending on your field, you might also provide examples of your work in the form of video, slideshows or other multimedia files.

“Unlike a résumé where you want to be really succinct, you can actually broaden your profile,” Williams said.

Include a profile photo. LinkedIn has found that profiles that contain a photo are seven times more likely to be viewed.

“It’s kind of like shopping for a house online,” Williams said, meaning that you might ignore a real estate listing on the Web if it didn’t include photos of the property.

Share regularly and wisely. Much like Facebook, LinkedIn allows users to post updates. These can be simple messages, such as “I’m off to a global health conference in New York” or “Congratulations to my team for beating its monthly sales goal.” Updates can also include links to articles and other content from around the Web.

Williams said that if you share something just once a week, LinkedIn has found you are 10 times more likely to have your profile viewed by a hiring manager.

“The biggest thing I look for when people share articles is not necessarily someone who’s sort of bragging about their company or saying ‘come work at my company,’ ” Browne said. “But just really sharing and commenting in an insightful way about really interesting topics. Those things stand out in a massive way.”

Be professional, but don’t be staid. In a LinkedIn profile, “I really look for someone’s personality to come screaming through,” Browne said.

Updates, he said, can be a powerful way to show who you are.

Your profile can also be used to highlight unique hobbies or activities that illuminate what kind of worker you are.

Williams offered an example of a friend who works in the publishing industry and was weighing two equally qualified candidates for a job. On LinkedIn, she learned that one of the candidates did volunteer work with an animal rescue nonprofit. The hirer was an animal lover, so that candidate ultimately got the job.

Personalize your invitation to connect. When you invite someone to connect on LinkedIn, your request is accompanied by a brief note. You have the option of selecting a boilerplate message that reads, “I’d like to add you to my professional network.” But Browne advises taking the time to craft something more tailored.

“Find some degree of connection, and a warm connection,” Browne said.

For example, you could point out that you share an alma mater, or you could mention a mutual friend or colleague.

Mine mutual connections. Browne advises paying attention to shared acquaintances as a way to better understand the background of someone you want to meet.

For example, if you are looking for more information on a potential employee or employer, you can check out your mutual connections.

“A couple different things happen from that,” Browne said. “One, you probably will give me some directional [information], which is really helpful when it comes to recruiting talent. And second, you might actually be able to help me...in terms of getting in touch with him.”

Focus on fit, not volume. Browne said it’s a turnoff if job seekers appear to be using LinkedIn indiscriminately, meaning they are deluging recruiters with too many messages or are going after jobs for which they are not qualified.

“I would encourage people to not do that, to be a bit more patient and thoughtful,” Browne said.

This post originally appeared here:

http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-08-04/business/41067476_1_linkedin-linked-in-profile

4 tips to enhance your professional relationships with a LinkedIn “audit”

By Anthony Juliano 

I wrote this for the Greater Fort Wayne Chamber of Commerce Emphasis blog after presenting at this year’s Chamber Social Media Summit. Have you taken a close look at your connections lately?

One of my favorite things about LinkedIn is the degree to which it serves as an inventory of each user’s professional relationships. In one location, at a glance, we can see who we’re connected to and evaluate the strength of that connection. This allows us to do something incredibly simple while also incredibly powerful: we can “audit” our professional relationships to see whether there may be an opportunity to strengthen a connection. This is something I try to do every few months, and it usually reveals opportunities I may have missed otherwise.

What are the keys to making this audit worthwhile? Here are a few tips:

• Put it on your calendar, giving yourself at least an hour. A LinkedIn relationship audit could easily fall into the “when I get around to it” pile if you don’t make it a priority. Putting it on your calendar serves as a commitment of sorts, making it more likely it will happen. It’s also important to allot enough time to the task. An hour may be adequate depending on how many connections you have, but you may need even more time. 

• Focus on the task at hand. Closely study each connection’s profile to understand what opportunities may exist for you to strengthen your relationships. Don’t skip anyone; some of what you discover may surprise you. Has a connection changed jobs? Have they joined any groups that might reveal a shared interest? Have they posted any status updates that open the door to a conversation? Approach this effort like an archeologist would approach a dig site, meticulously looking for artifacts of value. 

• Use “tags” to identify actions to take in the future. LinkedIn allows you to “tag” your connections in a way that makes them sortable beyond the search feature. Use this to categorize contacts based on actions you want to take in the future. For example, let’s say you want to have lunch with some of the connections with whom you’ve lost touch. You’ll only be able to schedule so many lunches immediately, of course, but you can always plan ahead. Apply a “lunch” tag to those contacts you want to meet up with and revisit it every couple weeks and you’ll continue benefitting from your audit long after it’s completed. 

• Keep score. To get the most out of your audit, make sure you measure success. How many of your connections did you reach out to? How many responded? Most importantly, what opportunities did you realize that may not have otherwise emerged? Evaluating the outcome will help you make this effort even more worthwhile in the future. 

Conducting a LinkedIn audit may seem daunting when you consider everything else already on your to-do list. Look at it this way, however: nothing in your professional life is more important than relationships. Why not take the time, then, to make them a little stronger?

Anthony Juliano is an experienced LinkedIn trainer and strategy consultant. He has developed and taught several LinkedIn classes, presented about LinkedIn at national conferences, and provided LinkedIn training for a wide variety of individuals and businesses. Anthony writes a monthly column about social media for Greater Fort Wayne Business Weekly and has written about LinkedIn for a variety of publications and blogs, including Convince and Convert, “the world’s #1 content marketing resource.” Anthony approaches his work with one simple goal: to help others understand today’s changing communication environment.

http://www.linkedin.com/in/anthonyjuliano

Can You Be Found? Why You Must Personally Invest in Social Media

by Ron Thomas 

Can you be found?

“Of all the millions of people on LinkedIn, we found you!”

I had never quite thought of it that way. This quote was a statement from one of our recruiters who was searching to fill my current role. Yes, that is how they found me for it.

This past Saturday with temperatures hovering around 115 degrees here in Saudi Arabia, I was ensconced in the cool of my house reading with the TV on as background noise. I was watching CNBC, which by the way, has the best business documentaries on TV. The first one was a documentary about dating websites and their industry, and immediately following that, there was one on LinkedIn.

A marriage made in social media.

One of the interviewers in the dating website documentary told the story about how he found his true love online. In an attempt to make the show more balanced, others told the story of how the dating sites had failed them. But the recurring theme centered around how to be found, or how to find someone, online. Believe it or not, being found today, even on a dating site, is much more of a challenge than it was in years past.

Following the show on dating sites was one on LinkedIn, with more stories about how to find or be found. I found this to be a fascinating dynamic. My book was put on hold as I intently listened. The philosophy around LinkedIn, for the most, part fit the same strategic profile as the dating websites. So, how can I be found - not for love, but as a working professional?

LinkedIn is a website that I keep live all day. It is one of my splash pages. I was told by someone within LinkedIn that I would be considered a “power user.” Following companies, following content, following my connections and what they are up to, keeps me abreast of what is going on in my industry.

But, it’s my passion as well. If you are serious about your career, how could you not be a fan of LinkedIn? The operative word in the previous sentence was SERIOUS.

A few weeks back, I got a text message from a friend of mine, saying, “Just now notified that I will be laid off. Do you have anything?”

I replied that I would keep my eyes and ears open just in case I did, and we would speak later about it.

Yes it is that SERIOUS.

When I got home, I took a look over at LinkedIn, and lo and behold, there was nothing there from this person. This HR professional, who has been on HR for a long time, did not even have a profile page set up.

That made me recall someone reaching out a while back through LinkedIn for advice on an employee value proposition project. I took a look at their profile and it read like a tombstone — date hired, date quit, and company name. Absolutely nothing else! I sent her a note back and said, “You are in HR, so there is no excuse for not being engaged on social media, especially on this site.

Another person who reached out to me for career advice was in marketing. Her LinkedIn profile showed that she had two (2) connections. Yes, two connections after 10 years in the workforce.

I asked another person I know, why no picture with their profile? Her comical response was that she “didn’t want to scare anyone away.” I told her that when they pull her profile up and see no picture, they are already scared away.

Each time I talked to someone about their lack of focus on social media, I got the same old song-and-dance response that spoke to a lack of focus: they were too busy, it was on their to-do list, they never thought that much about it, they didn’t want to sound like they were bragging, etc. In my book, to not have a professional profile on LinkedIn is career suicide, and to have one that says “private” is double career suicide.

Are you really in the game?

An important stat to remember is that 85 percent of companies use LinkedIn for recruitment, and that number is only going to increase. But people still do not get it.

I told an audience a while back that for any accomplishment or success that you achieve, Step 2 should be crafting a message, bullet point, or narrative around it and posting it online. That is, you do that if you are still hungry to build your career. If you have maxed out and you have reached the top of your profession, you have somewhat of a pass. However, remember what is here today can easily be gone tomorrow.

I frequently think about all the people that love what they do, work for a great company, and think everything is perfect. Well, it probably is until they walk in one day and get the call or the announcement that they are being laid off.

From being on the LinkedIn site daily, I have developed a keen sense of when things are not going well. When I see a name keep popping up with new connections after having been dormant for some time, I know that things are not well in careerland for them.

Let me share a piece of advice: it is a lot easier to write a profile, update it, and tweak what you have online when you are gainfully employed. The worst time to create something is when you are in the throes of trying to find new employment.

Where is your success list?

The reason you keep track of your accomplishments online is that you can then easily recall them at any given time. If you do not have a system for tracking your work highlights, you put your career at a disadvantage. This was always a major flaw of the yearly performance review - “Now think of all the great things you have done for the last 11 months.” If you do not keep track, you will invariably forget some.

Are you lost as to where to start? Search for your title at LinkedIn and see whose profile comes up. Read through a few and you should be able to create the framework for putting yours together.

Another key is to develop your career narrative in MS Word so you don’t feel pressured working it up on the actual LinkedIn site. Once you are pleased with what you have, copy it from Word and post it. You should also create an action plan that allows you to keep a success list of your accomplishments. Once something is documented on your list, post it, too.

Remember, you can’t be found if no one finds you interesting.

Ron Thomas is a Chief Human Resource & Administrative Officer currently based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. He formerly was Director, Talent and Human Resources Solutions at Buck Consultants (a Xerox Company) and is certified by the Human Capital Institute as a Master Human Capital Strategist (MHCS) and Strategic Workforce Planner (SWP). He's also worked in senior HR roles with Martha Stewart Living and IBM. Ron serves on the Harvard Business Review Advisory Council, McKinsey Quarterly Executive Online Panel, and HCI's Expert Advisory Council on Talent Management Strategy. He also serves as a Faculty Partner and Executive Facilitator at the Human Capital Institute. He has received the Outstanding Leadership Award for Global HR Excellence by the World Human Resource Development Congress in Mumbai. Contact him atronaldtthomas@gmail.com, or on Twitter at http://twitter.com/Ronald_thomas.

Looking for a Job? Why You Need to Go Social

by Jane Bryant Quinn, AARP Bulletin

When you apply for a job today, here's what the recruiter is likely to do to get a more rounded view of your accomplishments: Check your profile on LinkedIn. Browse your Facebook page. Look for a blog or a website. And see if you're tweeting, which shows that you at least know what it is.

If you look competent online, you might get a response to the résumé that you emailed to the company. If you have no digital footprint, you're likely to get a pass. The only exceptions might be jobs at very small companies or nonprofits, or lower-level jobs, for which résumés are enough.

All this might come as a shock to job seekers over age 50, who have been happy to leave tweeting to the birds. But employers today need people who are comfortable online, and digital recruiting is the way to find them.

I recently recommended an editor who was over age 60 for a job, and the first question I got from the recruiter was, "Is she good at social?" - meaning social media. A job seeker over age 55 told me that even temp agencies want you to have a website as part of your job portfolio. "Seasoned, mature workers look young online, if they show they can communicate in the digital world," says James John, chief operating officer of Beyond.com, a job search site.

Get Social!

1. Make yourself visible

If you're just browsing company job boards - boomers' favorite sources of job openings - and sending résumés online, you're not doing enough: Employers need proof that you're up-to-date. Even if you network the old-fashioned way, by calling friends and having lunches, the employment decision will probably be funnelled through the hiring office, which will search for you online.

So before you even begin a job search, you should set up a digital profile or improve the profile you have. It's your calling card to the new generation of recruiters.

Begin with LinkedIn. Last year, AARP launched a program on LinkedIn - now called Life Reimagined for Work - that brings together workers, employers and career management experts. On LinkedIn, there's a profile page where you present yourself - showing your employment history, skills, certifications, honors, volunteer work and anything else you'd like a recruiter to know. Don't hesitate to brag - your competition does. Post an appropriate head shot. Recruiters won't look at profiles without one.

Then search for friends and business colleagues on LinkedIn. If they have profiles, send a request to connect with them online, and ask key people to post a written recommendation on your page. See if the companies you'd like to work for have LinkedIn pages. You'll find job postings there, as well as company news.

"Some companies don't even ask for an emailed résumé anymore," one young job seeker told me. "When you're on their job site, they ask you to apply by clicking a LinkedIn button and uploading your profile." Don't even think of faxing. That's so yesterday, and a sign that you're out-of-date. Snail mail just wastes a stamp.

2. 'Friend' someone (lots of someones)

Use Facebook to set up a free profile page. Again, search for friends and business colleagues and send them a "friend" request to link to their pages. You can ask them about the job market or about the companies where they work. This is another place to inform your community about the work you're doing, such as consulting, writing or developing a part-time business. Companies have Facebook pages, too.

To step up your game, consider a personal website under your own name - for example, JaneDoe.com. You want the site to come up if a recruiter searches for you specifically.

A website is the place to demonstrate professional expertise. You can expand on your accomplishments and link to any work that already appears online, such as papers, articles or professional awards. (Enter your name into an online search engine to see what shows up.) Keep up with the news in your field and post commentaries - that section of your site is called a blog. Every couple of days, write something on the subject, under a headline that will attract attention.

(As an example of how this can work, take Mitchell Hirsch of Wilton, Conn. When he was out of work, he blogged regularly on unemployment data and issues. His posts were discovered and he was asked to add commentary to other websites. "At first, I was writing for $25 a post," Hirsch says. "But I told my wife that something would come of this, and it did." Today, he advocates for the unemployed at the National Employment Law Project in Washington.)

3. Learn the joys of tweeting

Then there's Twitter - the place where you summarize the world in no more than 140 characters. Each post is called a tweet, and it's delivered as a text message. You can follow the tweets not only of colleagues who might be on Twitter, but also of recruiters or important people in your field. You also can follow companies that tweet job openings. Twitter doesn't carry the heft of LinkedIn, but it shows employers that you're keeping up with the digital world.

Once you've set up your digital presence, you have to feed the beast with regular posts, comments and links to interesting developments, which is a job in itself. But the modern job hunter can't avoid it.

"The online world is the new talent pool," says Dan Schawbel, founder of Millennial Branding. "If you aren't in that pool, because you don't have profiles on the networks, then you won't be found and aren't as employable."

If all this sounds daunting - and it flummoxed me when I first set up my profiles - you can find plenty of advice online. Search the Web for answers to your practical questions; buy a book about websites; ask your children and grandchildren for help; or, for help with everything from the most basic Web skills to how to use online organizing tools, hire a computer tutor or attend a continuing education class.

4. Start drilling down

Once you've established - or enhanced - your presence online, you're ready to drill down on jobs. Big companies and many smaller ones have "Careers" pages online. Job boards such as Monster.com, Craigslist.com and CareerBuilder.com list thousands of jobs.

Beyond.com will build a profile from your résumé that can go to any employer who checks you out. There are job boards for particular professions, such as JournalismJobs.com and newspaper want ads.

As in the old days, you still need a cover letter, tailored for the job you're seeking. Tip: Use the same keywords that the company put in its job posting. It will help the computer find you.

Once you get in the door for an interview, you can sell your experience, contacts and successes. The interviewer will have read your profiles, so he or she already thinks you might be a fit.

"Employers are always going to question the energy and relevancy of older workers," says Wayne Breitbarth, a social media trainer and author of The Power Formula for LinkedIn Success. "An online ID shows that you've already changed with the times."



Jane Bryant Quinn is a personal finance expert and author of Making the Most of Your Money NOW. She writes regularly for the Bulletin.

Teenage Kicks - 5 career secrets our kids don’t want us to know

By Anna Pitts

As a mature person, there's a lot you can teach the next generations of job hunters, budding entrepreneurs and go-getters from your time in your profession. The successes you've created, the mistakes you've learned from and the opportunities you have had will no doubt equip you with valuable words of wisdom for anyone looking to learn from your unique experience.

However, this is not to say that you have nothing to gain from listening to a younger, fledgling career maker. ‘Young’ people can have the upper hand in one, important sector of knowledge, and one that is rapidly shaping the modern world: social media.

Of course you can use the internet; you’re always on your email, you have a Facebook account and send the odd tweet, but ‘young’ people are the ones who are dominating this new technology and therefore the ones who are shaping how these vital communication tools develop. And they are developing and changing fast.

Social media is one of the biggest tools at your disposal in terms of career development. Here are five career enhancing tips on social media from Anna Pitts at the Graduate Recruitment Bureau

1. Take the ‘work’ out of networking

LinkedIn is the fast track to the people you need to be connected to. You can easily find and engage with people that you might never meet in your ‘real-world’ activities, therefore broadening your horizons and expanding your opportunities.

Statistics on visual.ly show that 61% of professionals use LinkedIn as their primary networking site and over 50% of users have a graduate degree. The internet erases the boundaries of ‘possible’ networking, opening up an almost infinite number of valuable contacts to you.

Conferences will always be a fantastic way to network, however they sometimes leave out junior professionals who aren’t yet ‘important’ enough to be invited to big networking events. Young professionals often overcome this handicap by using their social media connections to compensate for their restricted access to this networking channel.

Having grown up with text messaging and social media, they are expert at connecting and nurturing relationships through digital media. It could also be argued that they are often better at this than real life interactions!

Almost subconsciously, they have learned that valuable relationships begin with gentle, almost casual interactions. Over time they cultivate these to become as valuable as or even more valuable than a ‘real world’ relationship might be.

The Baby boomer generation have spent their lives in a different world. One where a desire and respect for privacy and some ‘old-fashioned’ etiquette still survives. And they often apply these attitudes to how they use social media.

The inevitable result of this is that their LinkedIn network is often restricted to being a subset of their real world connections and no more. They miss out entirely on a potential global network of contacts that hold the potential to be of immeasurable value.

2. Learn the new rules of online networking

Just blundering up to someone on LinkedIn and asking to connect with them is likely to result in a rejection. So totally unsolicited invitations may result in rejections, but if you add a polite and flattering message as to why you are inviting them to connect, the chances are they will accept.

Better still, your chances of having an LinkedIn invitation accepted will be almost 100% if you’ve first paved the way by means of a lower impact connection through other platforms like Twitter, Facebook or a LinkedIn Group discussion.

Additionally, messaging on LinkedIn can get faster results than emailing a work address, as it has a personal touch - don’t be afraid to take the direct approach. It may be the enthusiasm of new professionals that lets them make such bold networking moves, but using social media in these proactive ways will exponentially boost the size, quality and value of your network.


3. Job hunt sophisticatedly

You might be ready to take the next step in your career, meaning you’ll be looking for new, better job opportunities. By all means, ask around your colleagues and look on job sites, but the first port of call for your younger counterparts would instantly be social media sites. Recruiters use LinkedIn to look for candidates and publicise their roles.

Use the search box and edit your preferences so that relevant information will be filtered onto your feed. Make sure your profile is attractive and eye catching to recruiters and companies; update your experience and bio, making sure your achievements are highlighted.

Using the advanced search on Twitter can expose you to many opportunities. Companies will often hashtag their roles, so searching for specific terms on the advanced search will bring the information to you in the click of a button.

A recent phenomenon among job seekers is the ‘Twitter CV’; used by young job hunters and graduates as a quick way to get their information to employers who are recruiting. A template of such a tweet looks like:

[name][current position][seeks new position][link to online profile/cv/work][relevant hashtags]

For example:

annaepitts. Sussex uni English Lang student. Seeks marketing role. http://www.linkedin.com/vsearch/p?orig=SEO_SN&firstName=Anna&lastName=Pitts&trk=SEO_SN #CV #marketingjobs

Alter the information and use targeted hashtags to personalise your tweet and make sure it reaches the right people.

4. Tweet all about it.

Twitter is fast becoming the most influential social media site there is; according to visual.ly over 100,000 tweets are sent every minute so its contribution to the business world is massive- think how many of those tweets will be from major companies! Having initially been developed as a way to spread news fast, it has taken off (no bird pun intended) and is now used in a plethora of ways, limited only by your creativity. The simple fact is that Twitter doesn’t come with a set of user instructions!

As well as being a new job hunting method, Twitter retains its primary function of rapid communication in the corporate setting. This is the aspect that you, the professional, can access and utilise. Connect with companies and recruiters or colleagues that would be beneficial to your career.

It’s all very well having lots of followers, but to get noticed you need to be engaging- creating and sharing content that your followers will be interested in. Join in discussions, retweet points of interest or send direct messages to companies you want to work with. Including targeted hashtags in your tweets will mean they join relevant trends and your tweet, and hence name, will be seen by anybody searching for that term.

Putting ‘RT’ (retweet) at the end of tweets you particularly want shared and seen can boost the chance of it being retweeted, meaning the chance you get noticed increases too. According to sysomos.com 92% of retweets happen in the first hour, and 29% of tweets get a reaction. Say something worth sharing to make sure you are in that 29%.

5. Have dual accounts.

On the internet you do need to be careful about what content and information you have your name associated with. This is a lesson, many of the young (and not so young,) have learned the hard way. Remember, once something is on the internet you can’t get it back; digital footprints are indelible so think about the effect certain material could have on yours.

For instance, some MET policemen made a Harlem Shake video recently which had serious repercussions on their careers, as their behaviour was deemed unprofessional and immature, although the video itself is seemingly harmless fun.

A smart way around this issue of not being able to share funny cat videos is to have two accounts; a private one, which only friends have access to, and a professional one.

On Facebook, you can make a page for your professional account, set it to public, and treat it as a kind of CV and platform to publicise your work. Follow employers and relevant people to showcase your professional self. Additionally, your page will come up before your personal account when people search for you meaning your professional image will be the first one people come to.

However if you are looking for a new job it might be best to discuss with potential employers within the privacy of other platforms, such as direct messaging on LinkedIn. There’s no harm in connecting with other employers, but make sure you respect your current place of work and use appropriate methods if you are looking elsewhere.

A great example of youthful social networking that led to career success is the story of Ulrike Schulz. Ulrike was a German graduate looking for a job in London. She created a Twitter account solely dedicated to her job search and professional musings, through which she found and messaged relevant contacts. This resulted in a six week paid internship in London after one of her Twitter contacts passed on her CV to colleagues at a London firm. During her internship she blogged for the company and was involved in their social media. She continued to use Twitter and other sites to network, whilst employing more traditional methods, such as passing out business cards at events and approaching business owners. Her cyber-networking efforts led her to what she calls her ‘career destiny’; a job in her dream sector- social media. Read her full account here for inspiration!

So next time you get an invitation to a 2 day conference and are thinking about it as networking opportunity, ask yourself, ‘could I get more value from investing the same amount of time online?’

Anna Pitts, is a Marketing Assistant and Online Researcher at the Graduate Recruitment Bureau. Her work involves PR and outreach and writing informative, interesting advice based articles for graduates and students. Follow her on twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.

5 Simple Steps to Baby Boomer Personal Branding Success

By Marc Miller

Are you a baby boomer? Are you using social media to develop and promote your personal brand? Am I speaking gibberish? I wrote in a previous post that many baby boomers struggle with the concept of personal brand. In the old days it was your reputation. With the rise of the Internet many jobs can be done from just about anywhere.

So, you aren’t just competing for your next job with the guy around the corner but everyone around the world. How do you create a global presence? Social media.

So how do you create a personal brand using social media?

Step #1 Pick a Social Network There are a lot of social networks to choose from. You cannot be on all of them. There is just not enough time in the day. So pick one! If you are looking to create a personal brand around your professional life I would recommend you choose LinkedIn.

Step #2 Create a Profile Get a good picture. Yes, you need a picture. When you think of a brand do you get a picture in your mind? Of course. Not having a picture raises questions. Sometimes just throwing one up there raises questions, too. When someone looks at the picture what does it tell them about you? You have to be recognizable from the picture. I have seen a few pictures where so many years were removed using Photoshop that I could not recognize them from the photo. Enter only your last 10-15 years of work history. Do not enter the year you received any college degrees.

Step #3 Get Connected Go through all of your e-mail contacts and connect with them. Search LinkedIn for colleagues from past jobs, college friends, high school friends…. Take the time to reconnect on a personal level. That means don’t just send the standard message. Write something personal in your invitation. Join groups that pertain to your career interests. There are a million of them. And visit them frequently. Comment, positively, on other people’s posts.

Step #4 Engage You are now virtually connected with people on line. Read, share and comment on what you find. The whole idea is to be social. Meet new people. It is in this last step that you develop your personal brand. How you interact, what you share or even what you create will tell people a lot about your talents, skills and expertise.

Step #5 Return to Step #1 and Repeat Once and only once you have become comfortable with the selected social network pick another. For baby boomers who are looking to create a professional personal brand beyond LinkedIn I recommend Google+. Google+ is about finding people with similar interests. If you are adventurous you might try Twitter. It has taken quite a while for me to get comfortable working with and interacting on Twitter. But the site has video tutorials on how to use it. So go for it! Are you ready to take the plunge?



Author: Marc Miller is the founder of Career Pivot which helps Baby Boomers design careers they can grow into for the next 30 years. Marc authored the book Repurpose Your Career: A Practical Guide for Baby Boomers, published in January 2013, which has been featured on Forbes.com, US News and World Report, CBS Money-Watch and PBS’ Next Avenue. Marc has made six career pivots himself, serving in several positions at IBM in addition to working at Austin, Texas startups, teaching math in an inner-city high school and working for a local non-profit. Learn more about Marc and Career Pivot by visiting the Career Pivot Blog or follow Marc on Twitter or Facebook.

Read more at http://www.business2community.com/social-media/baby-boomer-personal-branding-using-social-media-0551545#mKfWF1CTBaIh1DkR.99

Insider’s Secrets to Uncovering Contacts and Jobs (VIDEO)

By Neil Patrick
One of the facts I return to again and again is that the job hunting process no longer works in the way it used to. If you don’t know this already, I can tell you that right now around 80% of jobs are never advertised. And the way to get into this sector of the market is through effective networking.

But it’s about working smarter, not harder. Part of this involves powering up your network and Linkedin profile so this works better for you. And I’ve posted a lot of tips here about this (if you want to find all of these, just type ‘Linkedin’ into the search box top right).

But you shouldn’t just rely on this alone. Networking into you next job isn’t about going to countless events and giving out your business card to as many people as you can. It’s about targeting the RIGHT people and the right organisations.

Put another way, it’s Ready, Aim, Fire, not Fire, Fire and Fire again!

Too many people think that effective networking is about self promotion and meeting as many people as you can. Wrong. It’s actually much more like detective work. So use your forensic and research skills to uncover WHO you should be talking to and find the right way to get to them. And that’s often by indirect routes.

Research them on Linkedin. Learn everything you can about their business and it’s challenges. Find out which Linkedin Groups they are in. See who may be in their network that may be in yours. See if they are on Twitter.

Do not find them and then lamely tell them that you are looking for a job. Connect with them and engage on topics that they are interested in. Be inventive. If they post about a topic on Linkedin, use it as an opportunity to bring yourself to their attention, by sharing your knowledge. And if you don’t have any, go and find some. It doesn’t matter how you got the information. It’s not about you, it’s about them and bringing yourself to their attention in a way which doesn’t ask anything of them. This is called ‘paying it forward’.

I have hired dozens of people in this way. Not because they applied for a job vacancy, but because they did their homework and reached out effectively to me. When I discovered people in this way, the chances are that I would pass the information to the relevant line manager, asking them to check the person out. And you could be sure that at the very least that we’d discuss that resume and quite probably invite the person for an interview. Not because we had a vacancy, but because the person had shown me they had something we needed.

This film from NYU will give you a lot more ideas to about how you can get creative in penetrating this market. No more lukewarm coffees and awkward chats with total strangers in hotel lobbies will be needed either!

How to network into the hidden jobs market (VIDEO)

By Neil Patrick

If you follow this blog, you’ll know that I am a strong advocate of targeting your effort into building strong personal networks. In today’s job’s market, this is without question, the most powerful strategy for securing your next role.

But we have to do this in the real world as well as online. It’s easy to be fooled into thinking that we are networking effectively whilst sitting in front of a computer. For sure, the internet provides a lot more options than were previously available, but it is a supplement, not a replacement for real world networking.

The most successful networkers know how to combine both, and if you know the tricks, you really can become so well connected that jobs and opportunities actually find you.

Successful networking doesn’t come easily to many of us however. How can you become more successful at doing this in the real world? And how does this connect with what you do online?

As with so many things, it is actually easier if you know a few simple tricks. And better still, these don’t require you to change who you are, just what you do.

So I was delighted to find this conference video segment from NYU which provides about a dozen great tips to improve your networking whether you are seeking your next role or just looking to invest in your personal career future.

It’s just 9 minutes long, so by my calculations, that’s one idea every 45 seconds!

8 Secrets for Using LinkedIn to Land Your Next Job

by Michael S. Seaver
Career advancement in the 21st century looks drastically different than it did even a decade ago. Climbing the proverbial corporate ladder isn’t as much of an option as organizations outsource, offshore and flatten their hierarchies. Instead, you have to continually develop your personal suite of skills by taking lateral moves, and sometimes steps backwards, that help you move towards the fulfillment of your larger personal mission. There are thousands of online portals that allow you to look for meaningful work, but the most important piece of professional online real estate you can have is a LinkedIn profile. Here are eight (8) insider tips to ensure your profile is robust and noticed daily.

1. 85% of Job Opportunities Come Out of 2nd Level Connections – A LinkedIn employee shared the research at an event I attended recently. I encourage you to review your connections’ profiles, learn about who they’re connected to and ask for appropriate introductions. There is a high probability that your connection’s connection will help you land your next job.

2. Success Patterns of Other People – If you review the profiles of five people that currently hold your ideal job, look back at the progression in their careers to help you craft your story and resume. Attempt to use their keywords or phrases in the development of your resume and LinkedIn profile. The steps in their careers will open your eyes to paths that you may not have considered before. 



3. Contact Information Section – At the top of your first level connections’ profiles, you can click on the “Edit Contact Info” button and enter information as though you were keying in into a contact management system. After every interaction with him/her, enter key data like interests, family member names or specific tasks you promised to deliver.

4. Interests – Near the bottom of your personal profile is an Additional Info section for Interests. When conducting informational interviews, use the person’s interests as a warm opening to break the ice and get a robust conversation going.

5. Your Top 5 Endorsed Skills = Your Personal Brand – There is significant power in how people perceive you. If you are struggling to identify your personal brand message, review your profile to see the top three to five skills that others have endorsed you for. If others perceive you as already having specific strengths, be sure to leverage those ideas in your cover letters, 30-second commercials and when interviewing.

6. Import Your Resume Word for Word – Advanced applicant tracking systems are now allowing you to apply for jobs with your LinkedIn profile. When applying on company websites, you do not have to take the time to upload your text-based resume. Ensuring that your resume and LinkedIn profile are the same also helps to relay a consistent brand message from the perspective of the recruiter.

7. LinkedIn’s Alumni Tool – The new feature is incredibly helpful in seeking out 1st, 2nd and 3rd level connections in a specific geography, company, industry, function or from a particular educational institution. Instead of taking hours to send emails and making phone calls to find someone, you can find connections in your target companies in less than 30 seconds.


8. Create a Connection Acceptance Follow-Up Template – As you meet and connect with more people, it is important to connect with them on LinkedIn as quickly as possible. When your connections accept your LinkedIn invitation, immediately send a response back that includes what you are following up on, mention a shared connection (person or interest) and close with a suggestion for developing a further connection.

Creating a robust LinkedIn profile and then remaining active daily is very important. Without this focus, there is likelihood that you’ll become conversationally irrelevant. You want to be remarkable (worthy of making a remark about) in the eyes of your stakeholders. The above eight (8) tips will help you do just that.

Remember…find a career that you would die for…and then live for it!

This post originally appeared here:

 http://michaelsseaver.com/careerbusinesscoaching/8-secrets-for-using-linkedin-to-land-your-next-job/

How You Can Unlock the Secrets of the Hidden Jobs Market

By Neil Patrick

The unemployment figures are daunting and the competition fierce. You can send out 100 resumes a week and still have trouble finding a job. So, where is the hidden jobs market and how can you tap into it?

Depending on your location and industry sector, anything from 60-90% of hirings are never advertised. That’s right 90%! That’s because in these hard times, firms are increasingly reluctant to pay recruiter fees. It’s also because firms are getting savvy about how they can use their own networks, both personal and online to find the perfect candidate for the role.

From the applicants perspective, since an advertised role attracts an average around 200 applications, this means that your resume will get an average of 5 seconds attention upon receipt – and yes that’s a fact proven by research.

So signing up for jobs boards, scouring firms’ advertised vacancies online and posting your resume speculatively is a really bad strategy. It might make you feel better because you are so busy, but it’s a recipe for a long and probably disappointing job search.

But there is an alternative and it means that you can be in the 90% rather than the 10%. It also means that instead of fighting against 200 others, you may very well be one of just a handful of candidates considered. Couple this with the other tactics that I have posted here and suddenly your chances of success are more like 50% instead of 0.5% - that’s right 100 times greater!

So how do you leverage your network to penetrate the hidden jobs market? Well you can start right here with this video from an NYU conference where several experts describe their experiences and provide some great tips. It’s just 10 minutes long . How many good openings could you find on the job boards in that time?