LinkedIn Job Search Tips for the Experienced Worker
– Part One

Posted in Career Search Tools & Education, Dynamic Training News, Latest Leadership Posts, Talent Development & Training on May 28,2013

No one is too old or too experienced to benefit from LinkedIn when conducting a career search. Some of these steps will take work to complete. Consider how you might utilize or adapt these strategies and tactics to your own search:

1. Build your network while you are employed. One of the biggest mistakes people make is to wait until they are not employed to begin networking. The best time to network is when you are employed and without the pressure to add people.

2. Leverage the power of weaker connections (aka second level connections). Unless you’ve connected with a lot of folks you don’t know personally, chances are you’ve told most of your first level connections (not associated with a current employer) about your search. What you want to do is to examine your first level connections’ connections who might be hiring managers or HR staff employed by companies of interest. When you find someone in that category, reach out to your first level connection and see if they are willing to introduce you.

3. Study the patterns. You can learn a great deal by studying LinkedIn data patterns:

a. Where did your former coworkers go when they left your current/former employer? If you see a pattern, recognize that the new employer may want to hire people from your current company.

b. What is the background of current employees of an employer of interest? From the Companies page, select a company then the Insights tab. On the right hand panel of the Insights tab you can see where people came from and their top skills. If you see some commonalities in the skills you possess, highlight these in your application / informational interviews.

c. Find out where people with your set of job skills are working – the Advanced search feature allows you to enter keywords (use Boolean logic for multiple keywords) that describe you. Make note of companies of interest.

4. Reach out to new hires and newly promoted people. People who have been recently hired (or promoted) at a company of interest might be willing to speak to you about how they got hired (or promoted). You can learn who got hired (or promoted) by diligently scouring the LinkedIn Updates activity feed for people who have changed their titles or changed employers. You can also see recent title changes on the Insights tab of a company LinkedIn page.

5. Continue to seek recommendations. While heavily endorsed skills (those with 40 or more endorsements) tell recruiters that you likely possess these skills, recommendations are seen as the best indicators of your ability. Reach out to former colleagues (supervisors, peers and direct reports alike) and ask them to recommend you. By having recent recommendations added to your profile, recruiters and hiring managers generally view you more favorably. Initiate the process from the Recommendations option of your Profile tab. Make sure you customize your request.

Look for Part 2 of this blog in June.

Boyer Management Group works with employers and job seekers alike to help both become more successful. For job seekers, we offer the world’s first assessment to measure an individual’s knowledge and awareness of current and emerging career search best practices, along with the educational programs to support higher ed curriculum, career coaches and individual job seekers. For employers, we offer world-class talent acquisition and onboarding tools and programs. To find out more, please visit us at www.boyermanagement.com, or
call us at 215-942-0982.