Hello and welcome to Captain Career videocast/blog series…a series of ‘how-to’ videos/posts and a lot more. I’m Martin Buckland, a Global Executive Career Management Practitioner. This series of videos/posts is where I share my wealth of expertise and knowledge on executive career management to help you reach your career goals.
Today we’re going to be talking about 4 LinkedIn tips to raise your presence, be professional, and be found.
Professional Photograph. By professional photograph, I mean a professional photograph. Not a photograph of you carrying a fish, cuddling your kids or cuddling your dog. A professional photograph in attire that you want to be recognized in and that is completely professional. Why should you have a photograph? Because instantly when you post a photograph on LinkedIn, Google and its algorithms will pick up your profile, your LinkedIn profile, and give you a 1400 % uplift in visits to your LinkedIn profile and IT’S FREE. Plus you are broadcasting yourself as being very professional. We can actually see you online.
Customize Your Linkedin Address. When you signed up for LinkedIn, they gave you a default address.
Typically there is a combination of letters, and numbers after your name. That’s how I can tell you haven’t customized your LinkedIn profile address. It takes you two minutes, but it brings you tremendous value. As soon as you go and customize that LinkedIn address, Google in its algorithm visits to your LinkedIn profile, will give you a 400% uplift. If you combine that with your photograph, which both takes about two minutes to do, you’ve got an 1800% uplift for free on Google. This is great as you want as many people to visit your LinkedIn profile as possible because right now, somewhere in the world, an executive recruiter or HR professional or other decision-maker is looking for talent like you and you want to be number one. You want to come up number one in their searches.
Join Groups. This is something that so many people miss out on. There are hundreds of thousands if not millions of groups. Some are geography related, some are trade-related or designation related, and some are industry related. You need to join groups. Don’t just join a group and think it’s going to work for you. It doesn’t work like that. You need to introduce yourself to groups, so when you join a group, (don’t join groups like a knitting group or a woodworking group) you need to join groups that are pertinent to you. Create an introduction of yourself in Microsoft Word and as soon as you join a group, you can customize it and cut and paste that to that group. There are people in those groups who may be influences in your industry, in your designation, or your geographical area who might be able to generate leads for you.
If you are in career transition, tell them you’re in career transition and even be as bold as to mention the company where you want to go and work because you never know, there might be somebody in that particular group who could introduce you to somebody such as a decision-maker at that particular company. Or they may be the decision-maker themselves and then you roll in. So never miss out on the opportunity of using groups. Don’t just introduce yourself, make comments because this allows you to market yourself as an expert within that group environment. Go to the search engine of groups and look for groups. You’re allowed a maximum of 50.
Follow Companies. You need to follow companies. If you are my coaching client, I would tell you that I’d want to see you follow 35 companies and don’t just pick any company, you need you to have a reason why you want to go work for those specific companies. Choose companies where you may like their service offering or you may like their products, or they have something that’s going to latch them onto you. They may be going IPO and you’re an expert in IPO or you want to take advantage of the financial benefits that go with IPO. So follow companies…the more than merrier. You must have a target list of companies you hold in high esteem where you’ve always wanted to go and work; you like their culture; you like their service offering; you like their product offering.
[BONUS TIP] Recommendations. Many profiles are void of recommendations. When somebody is looking at your profile and they’d screening you for a potential interview or as a potential candidate, one of the red flags is you not having any recommendations.
You need to have many, many recommendations on LinkedIn. How many? People are horrified when I say this, but you need to have five per job for the last four or five positions and who would they be? Try to get one from your ex-boss or your boss; I know that’s tough, especially if you are gainfully employed then that might be impossible. But try to get a recommendation from an ex-boss, that might be possible or a retired boss. Try and get somebody lateral to you, somebody who works with you at the same level, one from an employee, one from a vendor/supplier and finally one from a client or customer. The more you get the better it’s going to be for you. Also, give recommendations as well. Don’t just take them. It’s all about good, valuable networking. It would bring you value to give as well as receive.
I am passionate about helping you reach your career goals. I have an offer for you, a free no-obligation, no sales pitch, resume critique, AND LinkedIn audit. However, I am realistic. I am tough. I say it as it is because as you know, you only get one kick at the can here. So I want to remove all those red flags so you can have a bank of green lights. So when you come to career transition and executing a job search, you will move from A to B in the fastest possible way. Are you interested in my offer? If so, send your resume via LinkedIn, or send it to the email in the message below.
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