How to Find a Job on LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a powerful networking site, but it can be confusing to job seekers when they first visit. You don’t have the ability to post on anyone’s walls, create picture albums or play games. So what do you do?

LinkedIn can be used for many things, but there are certain parts of the site I think are particularly useful in helping you find a job.  Here are 5 things you can do today to get more value from LinkedIn:

1. Join professional groups. Click on the “More” tab at the top of the page and select the “Skills and Expertise” option. Plug in your major, the industry you’re interested in or a skill you have that you would like to use in a future job. It will give you suggested professional groups to join based on what you typed in among other useful pieces of information. A lot of groups will have an internal “Jobs” tab that could give you leads. If nothing else, it can help you identify other people you could network with that are interested in the same area as you. Don’t be shy! Message someone and ask them for advice or tips on how you can break into the field.
2. Make people want to talk to you. Make your profile dynamic by adding in samples of your work: PowerPoint presentations, professional blogs, or a portfolio are just a few of your options. Don’t forget to ask for recommendations from previous employers so you can include that on your profile. You can also request for your connections to endorse your skills.
3. Create a keyword rich profile. If you click on the “Jobs” tab in the top bar you’ll see that LinkedIn suggests jobs you may be interested in based on the information you included in your profile. If you aren’t sure what career you want to pursue in the future, this could be a great place to get ideas! It also has a broader job board you can search through using keywords.FYI–Some employers seek out inactive job seekers using keywords so you may even get contacted about future opportunities if you strategically use them!
4. Create conversation. Share information in groups or pose questions. This may help you get noticed by other members who might click on your profile (aka your online resume). If you start building professional relationships, you naturally have an insider’s advantage if you apply to positions that are affiliated with your networking contacts.
5. Contact members directly. You’ve got a name. You know where they work. Google it! See if you can find an email address so you can contact them outside of LinkedIn if you can’t message them directly through the site. Just don’t ask if they have any jobs open. A better way to get the same information would be to ask a question like “I’m really interested in pursuing a career similar to yours in the future. Do you have any tips or advice that you would be willing to share with me?” If you make a good impression they’ll tell you about any open jobs they have now and if they don’t have any at least you got some advice that could lead to a job.  And who knows? Maybe a position will open up a few weeks after you talked. Again, if you impressed them, you can bet they will be emailing or calling you to get you to apply.

Tip: Do an advanced people search to see if any UGA alums work in your targeted organizations or industries. People are more likely to respond to these requests when they can relate to you.

 

The key thing you should take away from this is that you have to take action.  A job isn’t going to fall out of the sky and into your lap. However, the more you increase your network and maintain it, the more likely you’ll hear of future openings!

The Secret Hook: How To Engage and Keep Your Customers

You’ve probably heard that millenials and Gen Y as a whole is the “trophy generation,” meaning they think the mere act of participating in something should result in an award. Many grew up with teachers and coaches that gave them a trophy for virtually everything.  You may think of this as coddling or ridiculous, but businesses and higher education would benefit if they would stop fighting the “helicopter parent” mentality and show some appreciation not only to Gen Y, but to their customers as a whole.

Celebrities are the best at this. Take this scenario: Kim Kardashian will occasionally retweet a fan’s comment. Fan freaks out. Tells all her friends on Facebook & Twitter. However many friends that fan has, now knows about Kim Kardashian and is more likely to see who she is and what she does. Conveniently, there is a direct link to her new perfume on her Twitter profile. Coincidence? I think not.  That is the mark of a savvy businesswoman. By the simple act of recognition, her follower becomes an even more avid fan, and new followers may engage with her social media presence that might not have done so before.

You may be thinking that you’re not a celebrity, so obviously the same scenario couldn’t happen to you. I’ve got a few examples that would beg to differ, however.  This phenomenon is an example of a new trend in consumer behavior: recognition. They want to have their questions answered. Be featured on your social media pages. Thanked for sharing your posts. Feel like someone is paying attention to them period.

My definition of recognition is a little broader than the trophy concept. It’s showing your customer respect. Respect for their opinions, showing that you listen, and demonstrating that you act based on what you heard.

How do you show that you’re paying attention to your fans?

How to Create a Social Media Content Calendar

It sounds a lot more complicated than it really is.  You can create one on Google, Outlook, or (what I do) through Publisher.

The trick is figuring out WHAT your audience wants to hear about and WHEN. That’s not easy to figure out necessarily either, unless if you have kept track of your analytics using something like Hootsuite or Bit.ly.  If you’ve been shortening your links using Hootsuite or bit.ly and identifying popular topics, all you have to do is lay it out on the calendar.

Here’s a basic outline of what I plan on posting for my audiences this Fall.  Note that’s it’s not complete, and I did that intentionally.  You can’t give away all your trade secrets, right??

If you haven’t been keeping track of how your audience is engaging with you, I recommend that if you go ahead and create a content calendar that you also create a plan of how you are going to measure whether or not your calendar was effective.  Facebook insights and Hootsuite can tell you a lot of information as to whether or not your followers/fans are paying attention to what you’re posting.

Note that with many things in life, sometimes it’s trial and error.  You may think you’ve got the perfect plan in place, but it’s important to monitor your progress to see if you need to adjust in the future.

Do you have any other tips on how to create a content calendar?

Consistency is Key in Social Media

I’m guilty of not following one of the cardinal rules to successfully using social media for your business/organization: consistency.  I’ve been traveling and working on several different projects for my office, so posting blogs got pushed to the back burner temporarily.  It’s no excuse, but it’s what happened.

We all have times like this in our lives where the here and now overtake us and we lose sight of other things that are important.  Sometimes you can’t predict this, but other times you know it’s coming.

 

That every September you’ll get rush of clients.

That you’ve got a big deadline coming up.

Ultimately, that something else more important that social media is happening in your life.

If you can predict these things are coming up, it’s important for you to go ahead and plan early.  Go ahead and write a few “filler” blogs or social media posts.  You can even go back and recycle some of your content because likely your audience isn’t going to remember you already posted that tweet.  They could’ve missed it all together.

We don’t always know when we’ll be busy or when things we can’t predict are going to come up.  We can, however, have our “just in case” content in place to keep you on track.

 

LinkedIn for Students – Making the Most of it

To build upon what I wrote about on SoshITech, I wanted to share some more information about how college students can leverage LinkedIn in the job search and as they start their careers.

Jasmine Hall shared the infographic seen below and shared an excellent blog they posted here. Check it out!

SEO, SMO & Your Job Search: Why you SHOULD care

SoshiTech - Soshitech.com

What do you do when you need to find the answer to a question? Pull out an encyclopedia? Head over to the local library? Talk to the reference librarian? Likely not.  You probably go on Bing or Google to find the answer online.  Employers are no different when they are trying to answer the unknown: are you a good fit for my company? Do you seem like the kind of person I want to work with day in and day out? Is this person hireable?

If you work in marketing and don’t live under a rock, you’ve probably heard of SEO: Search Engine Optimization as well as SMO: Social Media Optimization. Unfortunately for job seekers, these are terms you likely never heard of but they can directly impact whether or not you get your next job.

Many laws are still up in the air regarding social media and…

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Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans

As I began composing an application for a Marketing and Branding award based on the Career Center’s social media strategy, I began to get frustrated.  It’s difficult to explain what you do day in day out.  Sitting down and trying to convey into words the communication strategy was more difficult than I imagined and it got me wondering…why?

Sometimes when we focus so much on measurement (clicked links, total student attendance, reach, etc.), it becomes easy to lose sight of the goal.  I knew I had a plan in place.  I would post tweets and Facebook posts on specific career topics timed when students would likely read them. Sounds simple right?? That’s because it is.

The more complicated your plan is the more difficult it may be to measure.  More complicated does NOT equal more successful. Set a goal before you begin and post it in a place where you can’t overlook it.  This way you remain focused and ever reminded that all you do should contribute to the goal set before you.

My goal for the week: post on Facebook & Twitter about networking & the job search.  Why? Because this is the time of the year we get a lot of questions about those topics. Simple, right?

Branding: If you Build it, They Will Come

Just a few days ago was the UGA Career Center Spring Career Fair where over 160+ companies came to campus to recruit students from a variety of majors.  The event was well attended with over 1,800+ students attending, but I heard a few employers mention that they weren’t seeing enough students from a particular major or set of majors.

I can certainly understand that frustration. You spend time and money to come and hire people (it’s a down economy. Why aren’t they here talking to me, right??) and for some reason they just don’t come to talk to you. Is your display not big enough? Were you not in the right location? These are all questions you may ask yourself.

What I’ve found over time is that the most successful companies that recruit on campus have branded themselves effectively through consistency and the size of the displays they bring in and the location of where they are in the fair do little to deter quality candidates from seeking them out. Being consistent means interacting with your targeted audience OFTEN: through class presentations, networking events, career fairs, hosting student interns and so on.

It’s also important for you to be consistent online as well.  What is the first thing you do when you seek information? For this generation they Google it.  Social media typically pops up on the first page of search results, so revisit your sites and make sure they are up to date and make you appear engaged. Check out your website and make sure it’s been updated and jobs you list can be prominently found. Sharp students will seek you out: online, at a career fair, or at a networking event.  They won’t seek you out if they don’t know you typically.

Lesson of the day: Google yourself. Do you like what you see?

Timing is Everything Especially in Social Media

The title says it all.  A common worry I hear expressed by people looking to use social media professionally is that they don’t have enough time in the day to manage it.  I agree that it’s tough, but as I explained in my previous post about Hootsuite, you can easily schedule future posts and monitor your presence on multiple sites through one source.

One thing that I did not touch on in my last blog was WHEN to post.  Think about when your audience would be likely to see your Tweets, Facebook posts or LinkedIn updates.  Even though you may have time to tweet at 8am in the morning, ask yourself if your audience is going to be up at 8am diligently looking for your post.  They just might be…or they might not.

This is partially why I use bit.ly in conjunction with Hootsuite.  It’s easy for me to quickly scan down my shortened link list to see if my audience is clicking on my links.  I also monitor Facebook Insights to see how far my post was able to reach.

The only way to figure out if your timing is good or bad is to monitor your clicked links (can be done through bit.ly or Hootsuite) or to check your Facebook insights.  Don’t be afraid to experiment with the timing of your posts.  One of my most viewed links came from the day after Christmas!  Check your statistics often and you may begin to see some trends of when your audience engages with your social media sites.

Hootsuite Analytics

As promised, I’m going to go through why Hootsuite analytics have been so useful in helping me to measure the effectiveness of the UGA Career Center Twitter Account.

Let’s go through the quick steps of how you can get the exact report that’s show above:

1. Select the 3^rd icon from the top in the left vertical tool bar that looks like 3 bars.
2. Click on “Quick Analytics” then “Ow.ly Summary Stats.”
3. This automatically creates the graphs that you see in the center of the above screen.

If you scroll down the page, you can see it starts to identify the top posts with most clicks.  You may be surprised to find (as I was), that the content students click on the most may not be the career articles you are posting.  A little variety and sharing of useful information outside of career may increase the engagement with your audience.

It isn’t immediately apparent on the surface all of the implications these statistics have. You can even become a paying member to get more in depth statistics, but a lot of information can be told from this alone—

1. Students ARE paying attention to the tweets  that are streamed on the homepage of www.career.uga.edu as evidenced by the “Top Referrers” graph.
2. I can also infer trends of popular topics from the “Most Popular Links” section.  These statistics are only for the month of December, and what is being clicked on seems to be anything other than specific to the job search.  Perhaps students are checked out at this point or focused on their exams.  Perhaps this could be a new addition that I could add to my tweet strategy—adding “nice to know” information rather than only career information.
3. The line graph at the top gives you a hint as to which days your audience may be most engaged with your content.  Large amounts of clicks could imply that you are posting a popular topic, but part of the popularity may also be that you aren’t tweeting that at 8 in the morning.

All in all, it’s important to try a few different strategies to see what works. You may also want to revisit older ideas that were deemed “failures” to see if perhaps the timing was off or you may need to identify new ways to appeal to your audience.

That’s it for now, but Happy Holidays Everyone!!