Are You Difficult to Connect with on LinkedIn in Your Job Search?

Many candidates are obsessive about protecting the confidentiality of their contact information on LinkedIn when they are in a job search, even when they indicate on their LinkedIn Profile that they are open to career opportunities.

Why?

This doesn’t make any sense!

Here’s the sad part: Most recruiters, human resource professionals, and hiring managers will skip right by you on LinkedIn searches for candidates when recruiting if you make it too difficult to connect with you. When I do a search on LinkedIn for candidates in our Executive Search Practice, if you make it too hard to connect I’ll move on to the next candidate – I might sound a little harsh – regardless of how much you might be a perfect match – I just don’t have the time to play games or dig too deeply – particularly when there is lots of other great talent available.– I’ll define “too hard to connect” as the following:

• You have no phone number on your LinkedIn Profile
• You have no direct email on your LinkedIn Profile
• You have not checked the settings for “open to career opportunities”
• You have not checked the settings for “open networker”
• Your group settings prevent me from sending you a direct message if we are in the same group

You could be missing out on great opportunities because of inappropriate fears of confidentiality or security. What’s the risk that someone has your cell number or email address when you’re looking for a job. At a minimum, what’s the risk in adding to your account the “open networker” designation so that recruiters and others do not have to use up their precious allotment of inmails?

I’ve had my phone number and email address on my LinkedIn Profile for years. I can count on one hand the number of solicitor calls and inappropriate emails from that contact information. It’s irrational to think you’ll be bombarded with solicitors and crank calls/emails. Take a risk and make yourself available – you’ll be amazed at the increase in the number of calls and emails you get when recruiters, human resource professionals, and hiring managers reach out to you when they are recruiting to fill an open job.

Take a look at my profile on LinkedIn as an example. I would also recommend joining our Discussion Group on LinkedIn and participating in the discussion regarding LinkedIn Profiles for your Job Search.

Barry

Your LinkedIn Profile as an Expanded Multi-Media Presentation of Your Resume

I’ve posted a Slideshare Powerpoint file through LinkedIn as a demonstration of one small aspect of how you can improve your personal brand and visibility on LinkedIn. Do you STAND OUT among a crowd of “me-too” profiles?

Here’s the actual Slideshare link to view or download the presentation. Over the next few weeks, I’m going to do a voice-over narration of this Powerpoint as an additional test. You can do this too.

I’ll be adding audio and video files to my LinkedIn Profile to demonstrate how you can leverage simple tools on this wonderful service to dramatically improve your job search. Take a look on slideshare at some of the other Powerpoint and Video files other job seekers have posted.

Employers and recruiters (including Brad and I) would love to hear you talking about your expertise and accomplishments, view a video of you answering interview questions, and be able to download a powerpoint presentation about your job achievements. Imagine LinkedIn as an expanded multi-media platform to enhance your traditional resume.

The funny thing is that less than a tenth of one percent of all job seekers are using all the available tools on Linked for their job search – and the tools are available for FREE – go figure!

What a shame!

Try it – look at my profile or Brad’s profile on LinkedIn. Look at some of the profiles of the masters of job search personal branding and job search networking. I’ll feature once a week a candidate who is truly leveraging LinkedIn for their job search – for each person selected every week, they’ll get a FREE copy of our book. Would you like to throw your profile in the ring to try and win a FREE copy of our book, This is NOT the Position I Accepted. Be the first to volunteer!

In the meantime, if you would like to start taking months off your job search, start taking the initiative to improve your LinkedIn Profile as a small step forward.

Barry

P.S. Don’t forget to take the Self-Assessment of your LinkedIn Profile by using our FREE scorecard for assessing your LinkedIn Job Search Profile to determine your effectiveness of being found by recruiters, human resources, and hiring managers.

P.P.S. Brad and I also did a broadcast on our radio show about this LinkedIn Profile Self-Assessment Tool and how to most effectively improve your visibility.

Building Your Personal Brand- Audio File

Being different from the rest of the crowd is critical, not important – critical, during a job search. We discuss not only how important it is to develop a personal brand, but the steps to doing it and finally how to get your brand into the market place.

If you want to get noticed by recruiters, hiring managers, CEO’s and referrals, you have to brand yourself so people remember you and refer you. We give two resources in this talk that will make sure you are different from the rest.

Don’t be the same- – be different and download this show.

Every Monday from 11-noon Pacific time on www.latalkradio.com we talk about what’s important in your job search. To download this show or any of our radio shows go to our audio library. CLICK HERE.