Peak Careers

Professional Development for Career Practitioners

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What is happening with LinkedIn?

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What is happening with LinkedIn?

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I have been on LinkedIn since December 20, 2007 — making this my 9th year. The first few years I sat back and watched a lot because I simply did not know what was happening…I needed to learn the culture, like you do when you go to a new country.

A few facts: LinkedIn was launched in 2003 and by the time I joined in 2007,LI had 17 million profiles. As of August 4, 2016 there were 450 million users. Though there are millions of people who have created profiles on LinkedIn, there are those who don’t know what to do, haven’t logged in in months, or have lost their passwords. According to Wikipedia, there are just over 100 million active users. I can believe that.

LinkedIn has changed over the years and not all for the better.  I am now seeing more spammers out there requesting to connect with me to gain access to my 945 connections. I am also seeing many more LI messages for me to buy buy buy something they want to sell, sell, sell. I’ve also seen and heard about many more users with fake profiles who are also trying to access people’s contacts to do the same thing.

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Developing Your Network One Drip – One Drop at a Time.

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Career development is all personal. People do not hire resumes. People do not connect with texts or emails. It’s always been, and probably always will be, human contact that matters. Paper and electronic communication should be tools to create human contact or to maintain relationships.

Notice I did not say that evil word, networking. Not sure why but the word networking causes anxiety with some people. Maybe it is too stuffy or old school. Regardless of why it doesn’t resonate with many people, I have begun calling it “relationship building”.

Think of relationship building as the drip on your faucet. You can fill a sink with a dripping faucet but it will take awhile. Relationship building does not happen by “turning on the faucet”.  The friends you have today did not happen because you walked up to a perfect stranger and HUGGED them 🙂 Oh my…that is a visual, isn’t it? I can only imagine my hockey buddy Pete running away from me the first time we meet and I hug him. [Read more…] about Developing Your Network One Drip – One Drop at a Time.

LinkedIn is your toolbox – Here are four “tool” tips to maximize LI

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There are thousands of blogs, articles, webinars, workshops, and more out there about how to use LinkedIn and how to make sure your profile is 100% complete, so I’ll keep this simple.

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LinkedIn is a toolbox.

I thought about ending my blog there but for the sake of reaching 650 words, I’ll add a bit more.

Everyone has their own career development path. You are either looking for work or you will be. Even if you retire it is likely you will be looking for ideas of where to spend your time and energy.

Here are four tips on using the LinkedIn toolbox.

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Twitter confuses me

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Twitter confuses me. But so did LinkedIn when I joined it seven years ago, but I was patient with LinkedIn and will continue to be patient with Twitter now. I am not an ‘early adopter’ of technology preferring others to lead and my experience with Twitter is no different. Let me humbly share with you my thoughts on Twitter for career practitioners after two years. My profile says I joined in February 2011 but I think I was shell-shocked the first two years.

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How do you fit an idea in 140 characters?

KEY POINT #1 Be thoughtful and patient. It really is amazing how much you can share in a tweet if you think about the essence of your message.

How can people communicate only using 140 characters? Verbosity is clearly not rewarded here in “tweet world”. I think Twitter was created by an introvert and early on attracted more introverts who found a way to cut down on the noise created by us extroverts. Twitter requires some thought on messaging and has really forced me to be a minimalist.

“How can I say this using less characters, words, and spaces? AND still convey the message?”

As I wrote in a recent blog, “Less is Best” http://bit.ly/peakcareers7 and Twitter challenges this thinking all the time.

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LinkedIn – Now What Do I Do?

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“I have a LinkedIn profile but no idea what to do with it.”

“There is no time for LinkedIn in my life.”

“I need a career change and have applied to 100’s of jobs, but there is nothing out there.”

Recently I was working with a young man who was desperate to get out of his current job. My first question was, “What have you done so far to find work?”

His response was a combination of all of the above statements rolled into his three-minute overview of what he’d done.

My response to him, “What you have done is a huge waste of time.”

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Pause for effect…         “What?”

And then the session began.

Rule number 1, people hire people. This young man was applying for jobs every night, literally every night, all night until he went to bed. He was SO BUSY that he felt he was being productive.

Rule number 2, see Rule number 1.

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LinkedIn – Start From The Beginning

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inigomontoya

linkedinInigo Montoya in the Princess Bride (my favorite all time movie) “I am waiting for you, Vizzini! You told me to go back to the beginning… so I have.“

With over 450 million people (as of 10/2016)  on LinkedIn and most of them in professional positions, to be current you need to learn what LinkedIn is and how to leverage the power of LI in your future.

For many people I work with they really need to “go back to the beginning” and create or update their profile and know WHY they are doing it. Below is my attempt to summarize “Why LinkedIn?” and some excellent resources to support many of the sections of your profile.

Why LinkedIn?

  • Create a professional online presence
  • Identify & make connection to develop your network
  • Identify groups that are discussing topics of interest
  • Research companies
  • Find employment

You want to ensure you have presented yourself as professionally as possible.  Below are tips on how to create / improve your LI profile.

To EDIT, simply go to your Profile page and click on the “pencil” in the upper right corner.

PICTURE:  You should have a professional looking picture of yourself, preferably with a blank background. i.e. not taken at the formal dance.  Do a quick search for people on LI and see how their pictures show up for ideas.  Not too close.  Not too far away.  Not too busy in the background.    Additional information

TAG LINE / HEAD LINE:  The area immediately under your name is your ‘tag line’ or ‘head line’ and is pulled automatically from a section in your profile with your most current position. Edit this section to highlight your career interests, skills or passion.   When people search for you they see your picture and this tag line, so it is important to capture a highlight of who you are in this section. Check out other peoples profiles and generate some ideas on what might work for you.  Additional Information

Example:  Career Coach |  Passionate | Creative | Problem Solver
Example:  Higher Education Professional | Collaborator & Connector

ABOUT SECTION (formerly called SUMMARY):  Near your name and Headline, you will see a blue box “Add Profile Section”. Click on this and add ABOUT. Think of this section a bit like your cover letter.  This is an area where you can write about yourself, strengths, passions, interests, etc… that you would NOT find on a resume. Keep it short, bullets work well, and think of ways to set yourself apart from the other college students looking for employment. Additional Information.

CUSTOMIZE YOUR LINKEDIN ADDRESS:  You can change your LinkedIn address / public profile URL and can then add it to your resume, business cards, and/or in your email signature.

  • On your Profile page, look to the right column for EDIT YOUR PUBLIC PROFILE
  • In the upper right of that page is “Edit URL”
  • Simply put in your name or if your name is taken, use your name with a simple number after it. SAVE is at the bottom.
EXPERIENCE SECTION:  This is the one area that will look much like your resume.  You can add a few ‘bells & whistles’ here, but start with replicating what you have on your resume for experience.

SKILLS SECTION:  Take some time and look at people’s profiles who are working in the industry / occupation you are interested in.  Check out their SKILLS listed and if you have those same skills, add them to your section.  Think about the top skills employers are looking for as this is one of the sections RECRUITERS use to search for candidates.

 
There is so much more LI can do for you in developing your network, learning from others in groups, and finding work, but I will save some of these topics for a future blog.  
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Jim Peacock is the Principal at Peak-Careers Consulting and writes a monthly newsletter for career practitioners. Peak-Careers offers discussion-based online seminars for career practitioners focused on meeting continuing education needs for CCSP, GCDF and BCC certified professionals as well as workshops for career practitioners and individual career coaching.

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