Top Tips for using Linkedin for Job Search

LinkedIn has great potential as an online CV, and can become a crucial professional tool in your successful job hunt. Leveraged effectively to build your online presence, LinkedIn is arguably the most useful of the social media tools for career development. “LinkedIn is an excellent innovation for both job seekers and employers, but many candidates fail to use it to its full potential when they are job hunting,” explains Big Sky Additions’ director, Justin Murray. “Many of the features of LinkedIn are free to use, and with a modest investment of time, active job-seekers can see significant returns.”

Here are Justin’s 5 tips to maximise your of Linked for Job Search:

1. 1. 1. Ensure that your personal profile is suitably detailed and contains key information about your career history. Recent jobs should feature a paragraph explaining the key parts of that role and your significant achievements during that employment.
      2. Ask connections to endorse you and write online recommendations, which may save a potential employer time when looking for rapid references. Try and get recommendations from a mix of employers, colleagues and professional associates.
      3. Update your LinkedIn profile every time you change jobs – you may even consider adjusting the wording when you are actively job hunting to specifically appeal to the type of employer you want to work for.
      4. Ensure the email address and telephone number associated with your profile are both up to date – consider using a home email rather than your work address to ensure continuity and prevent embarrassing incidents when your emails divert to your boss while you’re on leave.
      5. Build your network on LinkedIn by connecting with professional people as you meet – requesting a LinkedIn connection is a great way to follow up on a networking contact. Your contacts might include suppliers, recruitment agents, existing and former colleagues, and even competitors who you connect with during the course of professional development training for example.

Bonus Tip

Find some active professional LinkedIn groups relevant to your sector and start contributing to discussions. Sharing expertise in this way is a great way to make friends and get noticed.