How to Help Recruiters Find You on LinkedIn

More and more job recruiters and HR managers are going directly to LinkedIn to browse for potential candidates for open jobs. They may even go to LinkeIn to look around before they post on other job boards. If you are looking for a job, there are a few steps you should take to make sure that your profile shows up when someone is looking for someone with your qualifications.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• A LinkedIn Free Account
• A list of keywords that describe your skills and experience
• Your resume

1. Open a LinkedIn Free Account at www.linkedin.com, and choose the Edit Profile option.

2. Do some research--go onto job boards and research jobs similar to the ones you have had and the ones you are targeting. Write down the words that people most frequently use to describe these jobs. The more research you do, the more confident you can be that you have collected the most searchable keywords.

3. Now on the Summary section of your profile, write a description of what you are looking for and how it fits into your experience and career goals. Be sure to incorporate as many of the keywords you identified into your text. In the Specialties section, enter the keywords again, either as part of a narrative or a comma-separated list or a bulleted list.
   
   When someone searches on LinkedIn for the keywords you used, your profile will be returned to them as a match. The more keywords on your profile match they keywords they used to search, the higher up your profile will be among all the matches.

4. Now, take your resume and fill in the information about your work history and education. Again, rewrite your text to include the keywords that you identified in Step 2.

Tips & Warnings

• Another place recruiters and HR managers look on LinkedIn is within industry-specific groups. For example, if you are an accountant with extensive experience in using MAS90, search LinkedIn groups and you will find the MAS90 and MAS200 Users and Consultants Group. Recruiters often search in these groups if they have a specific job to fill, and they may even post job openings exclusively within the group.
• The more keywords you can integrate into your text, the better, up to a point. If you overuse keywords, it's considered "stuffing," and your profile may be tossed out of the search results.
• Same thing applies to recommendations--do have some, but avoid "exchanging" recommendations with friends, and don't have so many that it looks like you've been soliciting them.

Resources

• One-on-One LinkedIn Consulting: $39