LinkedIn is a very useful tool for professionals and business people from all industries.
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It connects entrepreneurs and professionals, allowing them to share ideas and build their careers.
A complete LinkedIn profile should contain a summary of your professional experience, certifications, past and present employers, achievements, milestones, etc.
You can also showcase your professional life, skills, and interests on LinkedIn.
It is considered the biggest cooperate social media on earth.
Many LinkedIn users (and non-users) are not aware that LinkedIn is also a very useful job search tool.
This may not be so obvious to many new and casual LinkedIn users.
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In this article, I would be showing you how to use your LinkedIn profile to get hired for your desired job.
Set up your complete LinkedIn profile
A LinkedIn profile serves as a professional landing page, where you can let everyone know about your personal brand and professional activity.
Define how you want to be seen by recruiters and other members of LinkedIn, with your customized profile.
1. Add a good profile photo
A professional-looking, quality profile picture adds a sense of legitimacy to your profile.
According to LinkedIn, members with a profile picture receive 21 times more profile visits than members without a photo.
Also, add a personalized background picture that resonates with your brand.
2. A summary
Keep your summary short and concise but make sure you express your mission, motivation, and skills.
Let those who read your summary understand your value.
3. Headline
Choose a personalized headline, tailored for your audience.
As a jobseeker, your headline should:
a. Show your skills and expertise
b. Include one keyword for the type of job you want
c. Highlight the value you bring to an employer.
Finally, keep your LinkedIn profile fresh and up to date, do not just set up your profile and forget about it.
To increase your chances of getting noticed and securing a job on LinkedIn, you must post updates on your career as they come and share useful information in the form of articles, photos, or videos related to business or your profession.
Follow all your target employers
Make a list identifying the specific organizations where you would like to be employed, and follow all of them on LinkedIn.
This is a great way to stay up-to-date on what is going on in the company, the changes, trends, and every useful information you might need.
Identify key players in your target organizations
One of LinkedIn’s most useful features is that it allows you to locate and connect with key players in the company you want to work with.
The easiest way to do this is to use the search bar.
Once you find the person you are looking for, click the follow button and follow.
They do not necessarily have to carry the job title you are searching for; they only need to be in the same department or work as recruiters in your target organizations.
Network with professionals and get noticed
It is now time to interact with professionals in your field, potential employers, and recruiters.
1. Follow people from the target organizations and interact with them.
2. Ensure that your profile visibility is on while engaging them.
3. Like and comment on their posts.
4. Send a personalized message asking to connect with them.
5. When you find out about a job opening in any of these companies, inquire about an employee referral program, and ask your contact to refer you.
It should be a win-win for you and your company contact.
Applying through a referral program increases your chances of getting contacted.
Make yourself reachable
Many people create LinkedIn profiles and forget to add an email or phone number for those who want to reach them.
You should add a means where you can easily be reached to your summary
Search for your desired job roles and location
With LinkedIn’s job search tool, you can identify job openings in your desired roles, and the locations you would be willing to move to if you are hired.
To do this, type the position you are looking for on the search bar of your LinkedIn page or directly in the LinkedIn jobs search bar.
One of LinkedIn’s biggest strengths over its competition is its advanced job search filters; you can filter by the time the job opening was posted, experience, company, etc.
Apply for desired roles
When you find job openings that check all your boxes, proceed to apply.
Click the “easy apply” or “apply” button to do this.
Fill in all the required fields and submit your application.
When you see an easy apply button, you would be redirected to the company website to complete your application process.
But when you see an apply button, you only need to fill all the required fields and submit your application.
You can find information about each job opening at the top of each post.
Information such as; location, the time when the job was posted, number of views, how many of your listed skills match the job poster’s required skills, number of applications, company size, number of company employees that you are connected to, etc.
When you scroll below the top section, you would find a job description provided by the company and the responsibilities of your desired position.
Check your chances of getting the job
This feature is only available for premium LinkedIn accounts.
It allows you to see where you stand against other applicants.
In terms of skills, seniority, location, and education.
You even get to see a percentage ranking which gives you an idea of your chances of getting hired.
LinkedIn premium also gives you an inside look at the company’s hiring trends.
Gives you some information on those who the company’s hire, the schools they mostly hire from, and previous companies the talents they hired have worked with.
Join LinkedIn groups
LinkedIn allows you to join as many as 100 groups.
You can network with professionals in your industry through these groups.
There are groups created specially to help job finders.
You can also find jobs that are not listed on LinkedIn’s paid jobs posting service.
To join a group, click on the work icon in the top left corner of your LinkedIn page, a drop-down menu appears, locate “groups” on the drop-down menu.
Finally, LinkedIn is a really useful tool for those seeking a job.
To make your search much easier, you should subscribe to LinkedIn’s Premium Career plan.
The premium career plan costs $30 per month and $216 per year.