LinkedIn is becoming on the most important social media tools out there if you want to stay connected to potential employers. More employers are reviewing LinkedIn profiles for all job applicants. In addition, if job seekers can use LinkedIn to find potential employment. But, if you are wondering why more potential employers are not clicking on your LinkedIn profile, you may need to employ certain strategies to increase your exposure.
The first strategy you should do is to update your LinkedIn profile consistently. Updating your profile does one of two things: it strengthens your resume by highlighting more skills and it makes your profile appear in searches. The more you update your LinkedIn profile, the more your profile is not only seen as active, but also updates make your profile appear in recent searches. Say you add SEO as a skill. When employer searches for workers who are experienced in SEO, your profile will appear near the top because of this update. Try to update consistently until you reach the max amount of updates per section.
The second strategy you could employ is to carefully select your skills. Having unique keywords in skills or expertise narrows how people will search for you. For example, if you live in Illinois and are an accountant, you could have a skill keyword like “Illinois accountancy”. Not many people will have “Illinois accountancy”, making you one of few people in a pool of workers an employer could be looking for. This also follows with the job titles you have in your work experience. Obviously, you cannot lie, but instead of saying “accountant at company X”, you could say “Illinois accountant at company x”.
A third strategy that can connect you more people and potential employers is to get endorsements. Former employers, co-workers, and friends can endorse skills you listed on LinkedIn. When a person endorses a skill you hold, this adds to your exposure. For example, other LinkedIn users who are connected to your former employers, co-workers, or friends will see they endorsed you on a skill. This can make these viewers click on your profile to find out more about you.
A fourth strategy is to increase your potential connections, thereby exposing yourself to more people. You could import all your professional contacts into your LinkedIn profile, allowing many people you worked with the chance to connect with you. Join professional groups on LinkedIn and interact on the groups. This allows you to meet, interact, and connect with new people.
Another useful strategy is to edit the URL for your LinkedIn profile. This is a helpful technique if you are a professional expert in a field. Your URL could have your name, but it can also have “licensed Illinois accountant”. This allows search engines to pick up your LinkedIn profile if an employer wants to find a licensed accountant in Illinois.
Once you feel your LinkedIn profile is crafted correctly, you still need to network it properly for better exposure. One strategy is to badge your LinkedIn profile with other accounts you have. If you have a personal blog or other social accounts, like Facebook, you should add your LinkedIn link to those accounts so visitors of your blog, personal website, or social media accounts can connect to your LinkedIn profile.
Finally, if you want to utilize all the resources LinkedIn has to offer, you can consider paying for a full account. A full LinkedIn account allows you to contact recruiters or executives of companies who might not have contact information available if you have the free LinkedIn account. The full service LinkedIn account does cost money per month, but it could be one the best ways to connect yourself to other people and increase your exposure.
Nisha represents a site called Monetise.co.uk. she enjoys writing about business and indulges in the internet marketing world.
