13 LinkedIn Tips For Job Hunters

Published by pratyushkp in Social, Technology on August 27th, 2011

Image via CrunchBase

LinkedIn offers a slew of helpful tools for landing a job, but making your profile stand out from the millions of others can sometimes seem like a daunting task. As of August 2011, the site boasted over 120 million users and more than 2 million companies worldwide.

If you want to be noticed (and hired!), one thing you should not do is describe yourself the same way everyone else does: In 2010, LinkedIn conducted a study that found the 10 most overused words on users’ profile are “extensive experience,” “innovative,” “motivated,” “results-oriented,” “dynamic,” “proven track record,” “team player,” “fast-paced,” “problem solver,” “entrepreneurial.”

Use LinkedIn InMaps To Visualize Your Network – If you’re a visual learner, you’ll likely benefit from this color-coded web that maps your LinkedIn connections. Each color represents a different group within your professional world. You can fill in the legend by labeling each color: Red for places you’ve worked, blue for friends and family, green for college, yellow for conferences you attended, and so on. Once your network is laid out for you, you’ll be able to see in which areas you need to focus on building connections. You can also share the map with your connections on LinkedIn and elsewhere.

Import Contacts – For those who wish to curate a broad network of connections, LinkedIn lets you import contacts from your email address book, be it Microsoft Outlook, Mac Mail, Gmail, Yahoo!, Aol or Hotmail.

Utilize The ‘Answers’ Section – LinkedIn’s “Answers” section lets you pose practical question to those in your network and establish new connections with experienced people. You can also send your questions directly to connections via email.
You can beef up your profile by answering questions left by other users. According to LinkedIn,

Every time the questioner picks your answer as the best, you gain a point of expertise in the category of the question. The best way you can gain expertise is to answer questions in the areas you know. Experts in each area are recognized on LinkedIn: the more points of expertise you gain, the higher you appear on lists of experts.

Create And Participate In Polls -LinkedIn’s Poll creator app is a great way to maintain an active voice on the site. You can create polls and surveys for your own profile, participate in other people’s polls and share results with your connections.Writes Jimmy Chen for the LinkedIn Blog:

Given our professional audience on LinkedIn, we know there are millions of marketers or small businesses who’d not only like to ask questions on the web, but would also like to understand the results with a detailed breakdown. How do CEOs respond to your question? Does age influence the results? Do men and women answer differently? The new LinkedIn Polls results page provides all this information and more.
Enrich Your Profile With More Applications – LinkedIn has many profile apps users can try out. If you have a professional blog, add the WordPress app, which will push new blog posts to your LinkedIn profile. Similarly, the Tweets app displays your most recent tweets. Another fun app is the Amazon Reading List, which lets you add to your profile the books you’re currently reading and lets you see what others in your network are reading. TripIt shows your connections where you’re traveling and helps you meet up with others abroad.

Take Advantage Of Student Perks – If you’re a student or recent grad, you can post your extracurricular and work experience in a special section of your LinkedIn profile. You can also include special projects you completed, as well as honors and test scores you received.
The site’s StudentJobs portal has tons of listings about who’s hiring. Select a field in the dropdown menu (“What kind of job are you looking for?”) and a list of relevant companies that are hiring will fill the page, along with any people in your network who are employed at those companies.

Download LinkedIn Mobile Apps – LinkedIn’s mobile apps for Blackberry, iPhone and Android devices will keep you in the loop, no matter where you are.

Check & Follow Company Pages – A company page shows who the company has recently hired. From here, you can view what kind of work experience new hires have, which companies they worked at previously and more. A company’s page will also tell you where employees go next once they’ve moved on.

See Who’s Viewing Your Profile – Trace who’s been viewing you on LinkedIn and how many times your profile has been viewed in the past few days. The “who’s viewed my profile?” tool will also show you how frequently your profile appears in search results. You can improve this score by adding keywords and phrases that recruiters are looking for.

Personalize Your Job Search – LinkedIn’s JobsInsider browser toolbar personalizes the jobs posted on widely used job boards like Monster, CareerBuilder and HotJobs. When you open a job posting, JobsInsider shows you the people in your LinkedIn network that work at that hiring company. You can also request an introduction to the hiring manager so you can get your resume directly into the right hands.

Upgrade Your Account – Though a basic LinkedIn account is free, you may be interested in upgrading to Business Plus, one of the site’s premium options. This upgrade will cost you $25 a month and offers more options, such as a larger pool of searchable profiles and a more complete and detailed list of who has viewed your profile. The other two premium options are geared toward high usage customers and cost $50 a month and $500 a month.

Create A Custom URL – Using your own name for your LinkedIn profile URL makes you a little easier to find. To customize your URL, visit your profile editor page and click “Edit” next to “Your Public Profile URL.” If someone has already used your name for their own URL, you can try other variations of your name until you find a match.