Everyone is on LinkedIn these days. Let’s face it. Almost every CEO from every Fortune 500. Last count was over 50 million users.
In contrast, job boards have only about 3.5 percent of available jobs. This is common knowledge in the career industry, but then why do so many people spend so much time on job boards?
The answer is because it feels safer. LinkedIn is really all about networking. And socializing in an unfamiliar environment can be frightening. I know, I’m an introvert. I totally understand why job seekers try to spend as little time as possible in front of LinkedIn.
So I want to offer you 3 of the most common mistakes in using LinkedIn and how to avoid them. My goal is to help job seekers get over any unconscious resistance to using the most powerful job finding tool ever invented.
Mistake 1: Not Having a Brand
Shoe companies have brands, not people!
Wrong.
Looking for a job is just another sales situation. You are your product. And everything about you is going to either sell you or turn people away.
It’s really just a choice you have to make inside.
Just like how we make buying decisions emotionally, sometimes based on silly things, like the color of the packaging. So too do hiring managers unconsciously make decisions about our candidacy.
If your résumé doesn’t quite match your LinkedIn profile, and that doesn’t match what your referral said about you, then you are in big trouble.
The risk of being inconsistent is huge, and it helps to have defined “who you are” long before you put yourself out there.
The second part of branding is knowing your audience. What are their two biggest problems right now, problems that you could potentially solve?
The trick is to align the “who you are” with the “what they need” so there is a nice overlap.
This, my friends, is your personal brand. It will define your strategy, your writing style, your colors, photos and everything else about you online.
Most people crank out their LinkedIn profile without doing this step first.
Mistake 2: You are NOT Your J-o-b
“Systems Engineer”
“Marketing Executive”
“Fundraiser”
These appear under people’s names in their LinkedIn profiles. And they tell us nothing about who this person really is.
They are a commodity.
Quick story. I had a client, a network engineer, who wanted to work for a very large shoe company. No, not Nike, but good guess.
He knew they had two problems. First, they had no internal network. Second, their external network was so broken that it was affecting supply chain.
So in order to really appeal to this company, we needed to directly address their biggest challenges — challenges that he had the capacity to solve.
So his headline went like this, “Powerful Intranet builder | Supply Chain thought leader | Project management guru”
You have 120 characters to tell the world who you are and what value you bring.
And every communication you generate on LinkedIn will have this professional headline attached to it.
So choose wisely.
Hint: don’t use your job title as your headline
Mistake 3: Don’t Look Like an Axe Murderer
Every single time I speak about social media in the job search, someone always comes up to me afterward to ask me this question, “But I’m just not that comfortable putting my picture up.” They are either too young or too old or too something.
Yes, ageism, racism and sexism are very real. It’s sad and terrible that they still happen in our society. But using a black and white photo, or zooming way out to try and hide something about ourselves is not going to solve the problem.
The only thing we can do is put some time and effort into our photos, to reflect who we are honestly. And to make a nice looking photo.
All too often, people will put up a mug shot, and wonder why they aren’t getting call backs.
This happened to a friend’s client. And the day he changed his photo, he got a job offer. No exaggeration. (I can hear the HR people cringing from this story, but it’s true).
So the lesson from this is that it is worth getting a professional headshot taken if you are serious about getting a job.
Joshua Waldman
Joshua Waldman, author of Job Searching with Social Media For Dummies, is recognized as one of the nation's top authorities in Social Media Career Advancement. To learn Joshua’s secret strategies for shortening the job search and getting the right job right away, Get The Missing Manual for LinkedIn Success
Great article. The part I relate to most is to make better use of the headline area in your LinkedIn profile. Don’t just use a stale old title from the last job you held. Use the full 140 characters to tell people who you really are. However, if recruiters or employers are searching for a particular job title and you want them to find you for jobs that go by that title, then you’d better include that mundane old job title along with your catchy branding information.
That’s right Sandhya, sometimes you just have to play by their rules…like sending in a résumé. But remember to always augment their rules with your own personal brand. Which may be a headline that consists of your job title, followed by a powerful elevator pitch. Or your résumé including a link to your video resume etc.
Thanks for your comment!
Privacy issues/paranoia abound in putting up your photo and info. Just looked at Spokeo.com directory and even though linked-in details were not there-( integrity of their privacy set-up) some interesting/scary info was. Quantity as was said, is not necessarily the best way.
Also, I find linked-in still attracts IT and Fortune 500 people, but what about the teachers, nurses, social workers, healthcare people? Most of them never looked at linked in.
Cheryl,
Respectfully I disagree with you about social service professionals on LinkedIn. A quick search for “Nurse” or “Teacher” in LinkedIn will quickly prove your point wrong.
“teacher”= over 800,000 results on LinkedIn
“Nurse” = over 180,000 results on LinkedIn
“social worker” = over 69,000 results on LinkedIn
Not to mention all the groups that are represented for these professions.
I’m not disagreeing with you for the fun of it. My point is that we really cannot assume who is on LinkedIn and for what reasons they are there. Otherwise, it’s just a limiting belief which may sabotage our own job search. I would encourage you to keep an open mind about any social media tool. They change daily.
Privacy issues/paranoia abound in putting up your photo and info. Just looked at Spokeo.com directory and even though linked-in details were not there-( integrity of their privacy set-up) some interesting/scary info was. Quantity as was said, is not necessarily the best way.
Also, I find linked-in still attracts IT and Fortune 500 people, but what about the teachers, nurses, social workers, healthcare people? Most of them never looked at linked in.
Cheryl,
Respectfully I disagree with you about social service professionals on LinkedIn. A quick search for “Nurse” or “Teacher” in LinkedIn will quickly prove your point wrong.
“teacher”= over 800,000 results on LinkedIn
“Nurse” = over 180,000 results on LinkedIn
“social worker” = over 69,000 results on LinkedIn
Not to mention all the groups that are represented for these professions.
I’m not disagreeing with you for the fun of it. My point is that we really cannot assume who is on LinkedIn and for what reasons they are there. Otherwise, it’s just a limiting belief which may sabotage our own job search. I would encourage you to keep an open mind about any social media tool. They change daily.
Great advice once again, Joshua. I would also add a note about investing some time on the front end as you build your LinkedIn profile and network. A mass message is handy for adding all your former co-workers in one shot, but follow up with a phone call or personal e-mail. Networking isn’t just about racking up your contact list, it’s about building and maintaining relationships with integrity. After all, do you want your network to be about quantity or quality? Are you confident that you can count on your network when you need help? Think proactive, not re-active.
Great paradigm shift. Build your network before you need it. Be in a position where they own you favors. And stop relying on posted jobs, when most of the best opportunities come out of conversation. Thanks for bringing this up!
Great advice once again, Joshua. I would also add a note about investing some time on the front end as you build your LinkedIn profile and network. A mass message is handy for adding all your former co-workers in one shot, but follow up with a phone call or personal e-mail. Networking isn’t just about racking up your contact list, it’s about building and maintaining relationships with integrity. After all, do you want your network to be about quantity or quality? Are you confident that you can count on your network when you need help? Think proactive, not re-active.
Great paradigm shift. Build your network before you need it. Be in a position where they own you favors. And stop relying on posted jobs, when most of the best opportunities come out of conversation. Thanks for bringing this up!