Be Found on LinkedIn: Are You Eliminating Yourself from Consideration without Realizing It?

Be Found on LinkedIn- Are You Eliminating Yourself from Consideration without Realizing It_.jpg

In completing another LinkedIn strategies seminar last week, I garnered numerous insights and takeaways. Following are a few standouts.

There are five primary reasons that a candidate’s profile is either never viewed by a recruiter using LinkedIn’s “Recruiter Corporate” app, or if it is viewed, it doesn’t make the initial cut: 

  • Your profile was not found (not complete and optimized for keywords, so it did not appear in the search results).

  • Your “snapshot” mini-profile that shows on the search results page didn’t attract the recruiter enough to make them click through to your full profile. (You didn’t make sure that what they see in that little slice is relevant and compelling.)

  • Your full profile wasn’t viewable (because you were not in their network).

  • Your profile didn’t demonstrate the applicability of your qualifications and capabilities for the position at hand.

  • You weren’t easily reachable (contact information readily accessible).

So, what can you do to avoid these five eliminators?

  • Make sure LinkedIn deems your profile “100% Complete” and that it is rich in the appropriate keywords for your profession.

  • Optimize these items which appear in the Recruiter Corporate app search results “Snapshot”:

  • Photo (professional and appealing)

  • FirstName LastName and Credentials (shows your name and any variations by which you might be known)

  • Relationship (You want to be a 1st or 2nd level connection, so this means expanding your network.)

  • # of Direct Connections You Have (the more, the better)

  • Headline (a keyword rich and compelling tag line)

  • Geographic Location (hopefully within 25-50 miles of position)

  • Industry (Look at others’ profiles to make sure you pick the most relevant.)

  • Current Company and Title (These are more flexible and can provide more information than you might think, but that’s a topic for another post.)

  • Past Roles

  • Education

  • KEYWORDS (A snippet from your summary shows, and the first 100 characters are critical.)

  • Continually work on expanding your network so that it is more likely you will be in the recruiter’s network at first or second level.

  • Hone the entire content of your profile to “make the sale” once the recruiter does click through–demonstrate how your qualifications and capabilities make you a match for your desired role.

  • Include contact information to make it as easy and quick as possible to reach you. Recruiters do NOT want to have to use InMail to make
    contact, as they have a small number of in-mails they can send to out-of-network contacts as part of their Corporate account. Make sure your Public Profile is set to be available to “everyone” so that a recruiter out of network can see it. Most recruiters prefer initial contact by phone, so provide your number (preferably not a work or home phone)!

External and corporate recruiters were spending upwards of $1.2B on LinkedIn’s Talent Solutions (including Recruiter Corporate) as early as 2013 and well over 97% of recruiters were using LinkedIn as a primary sourcing tool (estimates run as has as 99%+ now). So coming up in their search results, and then surviving and advancing through each step of the process as they winnow out those of little interest and select those candidates they wish to pursue further is a must to be competitive in your executive job search.

And by the way, the executive resume you uploaded as a document attachment to your profile will notbe seen by the recruiter using the Recruiter Corporate app, nor will it be scanned for keywords in his search. This makes it all the more important for your LinkedIn content to be compelling on its own.

There are of course a number of reasons why you may not wish to have your executive resume so widely available, which is why many executives opt not to include it with the LinkedIn profile. 

If you do wish for recruiters to be able to view your executive resume when using their Recruiter Corporate account, it is suggested to insert a link to a Slideshare version of it as one of your “websites” in the Contact Info section of your profile. 

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