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Monday, September 7, 2015

5 minutes To Optimize Your Linkedin Profile:Feel'n Like A Needle in a Haystack:



In 5 minutes you can Optimize your Linkedin Profile:
"Optimizing LinkedIn Profiles for Job Search" 


 LinkedIn continues to gain momentum as a resource utilized by both internal and external recruiters to find well qualified candidates. A quality LinkedIn profile is quickly becoming an essential element of a complete career marketing package.


Like a resume, a LinkedIn profile serves as a summary of your work history. Both your resume and your LinkedIn profile need to be well-organized, well thought out, and well written. Although a resume will typically go into greater detail of accomplishments, a LinkedIn profile needs to offer enough facts to drive further action by recruiters.

As every job seeker is hopefully aware, when resumes are submitted to corporations or job boards, they are then filtered by Applicant Tracking Software.(ATS) The software looks for “key words” to decide which of the thousands of resumes being reviewed, deserves a personal review by the recruiting or hiring manager. There are great resources on the Internet to help job seekers identify for inclusion, commonly searched key words utilized by ATS systems. These resources will be make specific keyword suggestions based on the position a job seeker is targeting. However, in the end, once the resume is submitted, it is a bit of a “black box” in terms of how your resume is actually parsed. So although, you may attempt to include all the right keywords to go to the top of the pile, a candidate is never really sure how a particular ATS system will treat their resume.

Conversely, LinkedIn profiles are not a black box. A simple audit will allow you to see which queries bring your profile to the first few pages of a search. Try it.

• Go to the peoples tab and hit advanced search.
• Now enter a keyword or keywords associated with your targeted position. Ex: customer service manager
• Now enter a geography zip code and a distance quotient. 50 miles is a reasonable choice.
• Then select an industry or multiple industries that apply to you. Understand the broader you make your search the lower your ranking will be.
• Now hit search. Can you find yourself in the first few pages of the LinkedIn results?

Now look at the top few names that have appeared and open their profiles. By looking at the highlighted words, you will see the criteria that LinkedIn used to filter the search. As of today, LinkedIn appears to scan only four categories: Professional Headline, Titles, Specialties and Industries. LinkedIn scans these categories for frequency of the keywords selected. In our example: customer service manager.

So what do you do with this information? The simple answer is optimize these four LinkedIn categories with the keywords that you believe a recruiter would most likely use when looking to fill the employment position you are targeting. If you invest an hour to insert the keywords to make sure you show up in the first few pages of a LinkedIn search for the position, geography and industry you are targeting, you will increase your chances of being found.

Now remember, a quality job search strategy encompasses both pull and push marketing. Optimizing your LinkedIn profile is only one important component of a “pull marketing” job search strategy. Never forget as a job seeker, you should focus the majority of your time and effort on a “push marketing” campaign focused on targeted job search networking.

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Guest Contributor: Ian Levine Career Brander For More Information on Career Brander

    
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  • 21 comments:

    1. As a 50 year old frustrated "career change candidate", I am continually impressed with your content. Specific, concise, usable and relevant info in regards to those of us who have had great careers so far and are looking forward to our "phase II"! With a wealth of experience, our age group has so much to contribute to our economy. Thank you for your brilliant focus on tools that work.

      ReplyDelete
    2. Thank you for the LinkedIn advise of optimizing profiles to obtain maximum visibility to recruiters.

      ReplyDelete
    3. This works. I did not try intentionally to do it, was just being thorough as a communicator. I recently got hired through LinkedIn and now I know why: I was in the first 10 hits, in 100 miles of my target geography for my skills. Optimizing your landing page is therefore essential.

      ReplyDelete
    4. Excellent advice!

      I am going to optimize my LinkedIn profile immediately.

      And thanks for the reminder about networking.

      -- Jennifer W.

      ReplyDelete
    5. Thanks for this article....I was never quite sure what was really important on LinkedIn...you made it simple. Yes, going back to my profile and redoing it thanks to your advice.

      http://www.kathycondon.info

      ReplyDelete
    6. Ditto Kathy Condon. Thks. Clear. Concise. Helpful.

      ReplyDelete
    7. Nice article. I don't see the highlighting mentioned however. Am I the only one? Does this require a pay account?

      ReplyDelete
    8. I like your articles. They are clear and concise and offer very practical advice for the job hunter.

      In this article you mention screening software that is used by some companies. The article I plies it's used virtually by everyone, I can tell you I worked in HR with two Fortune 200 companies, and neither of them used this software to scan for keywords. Both had online applications and third party software to help track applicant status, send letters, etc.

      ReplyDelete
    9. This was great! I had no idea I wasn't coming up in searches. I am now! Thank you so much!!

      ReplyDelete
    10. This is great. But I too, fail to see any highlighting. Can you clarify why this might be so?

      ReplyDelete
    11. OK, I see now that when you use the "extended" view, the key word is highlighted if it is in a position to be seen - though when you view the entire profile, the highlighting disappears. I just spent that five minutes - oh, no, it was really probably fifteen. But after I did my name came up within the first 20 names. Before it didn't show up in the first 100 names - the limit of "free" for a basic account search. I don't know if it will really get me noticed more, but it was a pretty impressive effect. THANK you.

      ReplyDelete
    12. As the author of this article, I am pleased that it has now been read over 25,000 times all over the Internet. I continually verify LinkedIn has not changed their algorithm so the content remains relevant. Go optimize.

      ReplyDelete
    13. I like your this article because it is for every one who is searching for job and you are providing beneficial info about linkdin which i never heard. Is that really works.

      ReplyDelete
    14. Thank you!! It's very helpful tip!

      ReplyDelete
    15. Great article....most people do not know that even LinkedIn uses keywords to sort through the people....this can really help in getting spotted!
      Feel free to check out my profile for how I have done it: www.linkedin.com/ritaschwarcz

      ReplyDelete
    16. Excellent article.

      I have been working on optimizing my profile, especially the summary and specialities section. And I have done exactly as what you have said in your article. Got that tip through a networking organization.

      Thanks for the reminder about networking.

      ReplyDelete
    17. This is great, I shall get onto it now and also share it with a friend or two.
      Excellent advise and well presented.

      ReplyDelete
    18. Thanks for the great tips. Having an informative Linkedin profile is getting more and more important. When you send your CVs, most chances are the company will search for you online, primarily your business Linkedin profile. It's also a great tool for job searching since there are so many professional groups there.

      ReplyDelete
    19. Hi

      Tks very much for post:

      I like it and hope that you continue posting.

      Let me show other source that may be good for community.

      Source: top 5 most optimized linkedin profiles

      Best rgs
      David

      ReplyDelete

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