Job Hunting with a Growth Mindset: Prepare for Career Progression
Job hunting isn’t just about finding a role. It’s about the career path that’s on offer too. With this in mind, having a growth mindset is important at every stage…
By the time you’re ready to join the professional workforce, chances are you’ll be using at minimum one social media platform on a regular basis. LinkedIn is a social media tool as well, and a powerful one at that. An incomplete or absent LinkedIn profile could be costing you significant career inroads.
LinkedIn is essentially a worldwide professional database, with contact names and information all available at a tap-tap of the keyboard. Gone are the days of calling an office reception desk to find out the recruitment or HR contact name, or relying on a physical introduction from a friend or colleague. Now you can find them in a matter of seconds. LinkedIn will tell you who your connections know, what they’re interested in, what they’re talking about and who’s moved from Company A to Company B. If you’re using it properly, LinkedIn can absorb a huge amount of your job-search-related research load.
But how does it work? Below, we’ve put together some pointers to optimise your LinkedIn profile to ensure it’s working just that little bit harder for you.
1. Make your headline count
Your LinkedIn headline is the field positioned just below your name.
Why is it important?
When a LinkedIn user conducts a search of suitable candidates for that dream role of yours, it’s your name, photo and headline that will appear in the search results. It forms part of your personal brand and is hugely significant. If you’re actively searching for a role, we’d recommend reflecting this in your headline.
2. ‘Complete’ your profile
Simple as it sounds, a meagre presence on the biggest professional networking site in the world will not do. According to LinkedIn, a user is 40 times more likely to receive opportunities with a complete profile than without. Engage with the prompts and pay attention to the sections it’s asking you to complete.
3. Furnish with details
Once you have the basics up to date, it’s time to give your profile a little flair! Give potential hiring managers a reason to contact you. Upload a particularly impressive presentation you put together, or a video of you presenting to a group. This is an opportunity to maximise your personal brand and move away from a simple chronological timeline of your CV to date.
4. Broaden your network
The more connections you have, the more 1st and 2nd degree contacts you’ll have access to within your network. The more visibility you have to others and them to you, the better! LinkedIn helps in this regard by allowing you to import your address books from other sources, so go on: get connecting and secure those interviews!
5. Follow the companies you want to work for
If you have a target list of companies you want to work for (and we recommend putting one together if you don’t), start following them on LinkedIn to get all their latest updates and news. If they’re active, following companies should inform you of recruitment activity, sector updates, reactions to press activity or product releases.
LinkedIn can be enormously beneficial to your job hunt and the likelihood of being noticed. We estimate that over 9 in 10 recruiters use LinkedIn as a candidate-searching tool, so it’s crucially important to keep your profile up-to-date with the most relevant and detailed info.
Looking for your next role and not sure where to start? Get in touch today!
