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Finding a Job Online – Part 1: Linkedin.com

December 31st, 2008

Are you out of work? I know many of my friends have been losing their jobs and/or having their roles changed recently. The days of reading the want ads in your local paper are over. If you want to find a good job, you need to have a strategy. For part 1 of this series, I’m going to show you how to setup a profile on the LinkedIn network. Next I will provide some tips for optimizing your profile for finding a job. This post is kind of geared towards tech and design people, but the information rings true across many fields.

Finding a Job Online – Part 1: Linkedin.com

Linkedin.com is a social networking website for professionals. It’s a great way to network with like-minded people, and a great place to look for a job. Feel free to check out my profile as an example. To get you started, surf over to Linkedin.com and register for a new profile. Once you have filled out all your stats, make sure you add the below items to your profile:

1. Make sure you add your past employers. That way you can search for previous co-workers who might be able to point you at a new opportunity.
2. If you have a website, make sure you add it. This is a must for creative types, you need a online portfolio of your work. Also, add links to your Twitter account, and your personal blog if you have one. The idea is to create a brand for yourself online. Treat yourself like a product that you’re selling to potential employers.
3. Be sure to include a short, to the point personal summary. As well, don’t forget to add a list of specialty skills that you possess.
4. Setup your educational background. That will allow you to search school colleagues that might be able to set you up with some job leads.
5. Edit your contact settings and select all the types of work you are interested in securing.
6. Last but not least, update your personal status to say “Looking for work!”

Once you have finished filling out your profile, it’s time to start adding some friends. There’s a couple of ways you can do this.

1. Click on “Add Connections” in the left sidebar which will bring you to a new screen. From here you can search your Hotmail, Yahoo, Gmail, and AOL contacts for people that have a Linkedin profile.
2. The colleagues tab will allow you to search for co-workers you have worked with in the past that are on Linkedin.
3. The classmates tab will allow you to search for classmates you went to school with that are on Linkedin.

Hopefully that will get you going with a few connections. However, if you have no luck finding anyone you already know, I would suggest checking out the Groups section. From there, you can join groups in your city, groups of people from your industry, etc… Once you have joined a few groups, it is up to you to get involved so you can make some connections. Also, consider starting your own group like “Interweb Magician looking for rabbits to pull out of a hat!”. You might want to be a bit more serious but a catchy name never hurts.

Linkedin also has some more direct job searching functions that you can take advantage of. Check out the Jobs section in the main navigation to search for jobs on the network. Also, I would suggest checking out the Companies section. From there you can find specific employers you might like to work for.

Getting back to finding connections when you first setup your profile. Hopefully you will find a few. If that is the case, make sure you ask your past colleague(s) for a recommendation. Recommendations can be a great way to appeal to possible employers. Offer to trade a recommendation with your colleague, therefore making it mutually beneficial.

The main key to Linkedin, as is with other social networking websites, is to get involved! The more you put into the community, the more you will receive from it. Check back in the next couple days for part 2 of this series on finding a job online.

Tags: employment, job, linkedin, online, Social Media, social-networking, twitter