Search. Click, Submit. Search. Click. Submit... Repeat. Over and over again you submit your resume to online job postings with little to no feedback. You can search on multiple search engines but without having the right resources at your disposal, your results will be typical. How do you overcome this drought and help your job search blossom? Why not add LinkedIn to your arsenal of job hunting sites?
I have become an avid user of LinkedIn for professional networking purposes and although that is how it was intended, LinkedIn, combined with Emurse.com, can also be used very successfully as a valuable resource in your job search. Here are some suggestions to using the popular networking website.
#1 Join groups. Very simply the groups should be something you are interested in, i.e. you local area, our skill-set, your college, your fraternity, recruiting groups, job groups, etc. These groups are able to post open jobs to their pages and you can browse through here to see what is open that you would be interested in. What makes this even better is that each job has someone who posted to it that you can use as a resource to get more information about the job or feedback about submitting of your resume. Much better than Search, click, submit.
#2 Recommendations. LinkedIn is more than a resume it provides employers and your network with an overall idea of your skills and accomplishments while backing them up with recommendations from employers and fellow co-workers. Don't be afraid to solicit recommendations when deserved. Think about it logically... if two identical resumes came across your desk and one had recommendations attached, who would you call first.
#3 Grow your network. This is what LinkedIn is for. Grow and develop your network. This will give you a chance to find out about more opportunities in the market. Also, this will help you when you find a random job online with a company and are looking for a contact there. You can search based on name, company, location, etc. Use this resource to ass value to your job search.
#4 Use LinkedIn for resume ideas. Believe me you are not the only person out there who has developed a program to count the grains of sand in an hourglass. Find people out there who have the same or similar experience to you and get resume ideas from their LinkedIn profiles. These people are the ones submitting their resumes against yours. See what they have and make sure you are better. Use Emurse to come up with multiple presentations of your resume and/or experience based on what you have found and then send your resume out to fresh jobs.
Additionally, you can use the information you have added to your resume on Emurse.com to update your profile on LinkedIn. Using these sites simultaneously adds strong value to your job search and professional network.
I have been using LinkedIn for about three years now and it has been very valuable to me in terms of building my network, finding employees for jobs (I'm a recruiter by trade), building groups, and posting jobs online. It can be used in a multitude of ways and these are just basic tips. Search online for more details on how to fully utilize LinkedIn.
For those super interested in LinkedIn, check out our friend Jason Alba's new LinkedIn DVD.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Spencer R. says: (2:41AM on Jul 14th 2009) Vote Up Vote DownReport2/5
Just out of curiosity, do you use a paid LinkedIn account, or the free one? Is the free version useful enough as is, or is ti worth upgrading? I ask because I'm unemployed and my costs are very tightly budgeted.
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Stephen says: (8:07AM on Jul 14th 2009) Vote Up Vote DownReport2/5
Spencer,
Personally I use the free version of linkedin. However, we do have internal recruiters here at my company who have the paid version. Though I can not personally speak to the benefits of the paid part of linkedin, I can rightfully claim that I have been very successful and able to do anything I need with the free version. The trick is to really build your network, connect with LinkedIn Open Networkers (LION's), join groups, and make sure when you do invite someone to your network you are specific with your request.
After so many attempts to connect to individuals who do not know you Linkedin will eventually place restrictions on your account requiring you to know the email address of all invitees. A quick call to Cusotmer Service can fix this but it is kind of annoying.
Nevertheless, combining linkedin with Emurse as a resume tool will give you a stronger understanding of how you can use linkedin for your job search. Often times administrators place job postings in groups, send them out via email to their networks, and so on. The key to your job search using linkedin is to build you overall network as a whole, then to utilize that network in your job search. This can be done with the free version quite easily.
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Scott says: (4:52PM on Jul 14th 2009) Vote Up Vote DownReport2/5
Stephen - I just read an article on the recruiters lounge about a technology caled realmatch, I have read about this a few times now. Is this better then linkedin?
The article is here -
http://www.therecruiterslounge.com/2009/07/14/5-reasons-why-realmatch-kicks-a/
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Stephen says: (5:09PM on Jul 14th 2009) Vote Up Vote DownReport2/5
Scott,
Is it better than linkedin? Thats tough to tell... they are two totally different technologies. From the get go you can see that Realmatch is aimed at job seekers, hence why when you go to the first page it is similar to careerbuilder.com. Personally, I do not use realmatch for the simple reason that there are too many other candidates on the other job boards to spend money on that one. It is likely that you will find very few candidates on realmatch that you would be unable to find on any other job boards.
A few rebuttals to what Relamatch says they offer that is not found elsewhere:
Must pay up front:
Realmatch says they do not require up front pay, all other resume engines require this. This is a definite positive for realmatch. However, since I do not use them I do not know if they require you to pay to see the contact information of the candidates. If so, then it is true you can see the resume of a candidate but whats the point without the contact info. As a recruiter I could pay to see resumes but it isnt going to help me if my client doesn't hire them. Additioanlly, if you can post jobs without paying so you can see the resume it hurts the candidates. Who is to say how many jobs are posted on there where the candidate thinks they are real but the client never intended to pay the fee after all. Then resumes are essentially submitted to a black hole.
Can review resumes before you pay:
See above for logic on this notion.
Powers the channels of hundreds of other sites:
But I doubt as many as the main competitors out there.
Provides access to passive users:
So do other search engines, you just have to search for all resumes instead of just the resumes posted 30 days back or sooner. Alternatively, most recruiting companies and large organizations have applicant tracking systems that they keep their candidates in. That is a passive database on its own. Realmatch says they act as an ATS as well but do those resumes dissapear when someone leaves the site? In a propiretary ATS nobody can erase your candidates but you.
Screens, Grades, and ranks candidates:
So do other sites, you sort them by relevancy instead of salary or dates. Additionally, this is dependent on candidates entering ALL their skills into their skills engine. Not everyone will put the little things in their skillsets and often times its the little things that seperate one canddiate from the next. If you are a .net developer you may say you have .net for 8 years, nevertheless if someone is looking for a .net developer with PAM experience (Portfolio Asset Management) it is not likely they will put PAM on their skills because it isnt an essential skillset. (By the way I am looking for that skillset now and it is a hard one to find)...
Overall I have to say they are just two totally different kind of sites. Similar to the fact that Emurse and Linkedin are both different. I would stick to the main technologies used to find candidates, if that doesnt work I would suggest working on your boolean skills... Boolean searching in resume search engines is a great thing to do, but a good recruiter could source candidates without careerbuilder or monster or any of those... we can find them in alternative locations. Which is what makes some recruiters stand out above the rest.
Linkedin is more of a personal and professional networking site.
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Stephen says: (5:15PM on Jul 14th 2009) Vote Up Vote DownReport2/5
Also, you can post jobs for free on linked.com and specifically target groups where the skillsets you need will be found. Free vs. Not free? I guess it just depends on your budget crunch at the time.
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Tag44 says: (3:43AM on Aug 20th 2009) Vote Up Vote DownReport2/5
Thanks for the post and for the very well written information shared here, nice info shared here for the job search.
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