Your LinkedIn profile is one of your most powerful assets for career growth and professional development. When used properly, you can keep a flow of intriguing marketing job opportunities coming past your radar–even if you’re not actively in need of work. Given that, it’s amazing how many professionals don’t take advantage of some LinkedIn features that dramatically increase their visibility to top marketing recruiters:
Let Recruiters Know You’re Interested (Discreetly)
LinkedIn recently released a new feature that flew under the radar of many of its users, marketers included. Using your LinkedIn jobs setting, you can now alert recruiters and potential employers that you’re open to learning about new opportunities and seeing job offers.
The best part? Your signal “should” be invisible to recruiters for your employer.
In order to activate your signal, you actually need to head to the Preferences section of LinkedIn Jobs. Of course, you need a LinkedIn account for this and you’ll have to be logged in. From there, you can turn it on with just a single click. However, you’ll want to give some extra information to improve the quality and relevance of job opportunities that come your way.
One particularly useful aspect of this function is that is doesn’t just feature the job you currently have; it displays the kind of position you’re looking for.
That’s especially valuable for marketers who are looking for vertical career growth; for instance, a brand strategy consultant who’s looking to be considered in their first marketing executive recruitment.
It also lets you indicate where you want to work, so recruiters in other cities can encounter your profile if you’re interested in relocation. That’s powerful; otherwise recruiters might only consider you for positions near your current geographical location.
Make Sure Your SEO is On Point
SEO isn’t just for ranking on Google. Career and professional networking sites like LinkedIn also have robust search engines that you can use to your advantage. And no, you don’t have to be an SEO consultant or guru to get a lot of value from some basic profile optimization.
Marketing recruiters often look for potential candidates on LinkedIn via the social network’s own search engine. LinkedIn allows you to search by keyword and include a variety of filters like location and company; check it out yourself to get a feel for how it might be used to find someone with your skills.
Much like you’d include certain keywords and content on your web site to attract more visitors, you can optimize your LinkedIn profile to maximize its visibility to recruiters seeking your skills and experience.
Start by making sure your profile is complete and up-to-date. Add images, articles, media, and Featured Skills when available.
LinkedIn offers a handy Profile Strength meter that will change as you improve your profile and let you know when it’s in tip-top shape. Do as much as you can to keep the meter happy, and periodically update your profile with relevant information. LinkedIn favors displaying complete, active profiles!
Consider what marketing skills and experience you have are most marketable, and feature them prominently in job titles and personal descriptions. Try to be specific: general terms like “Marketing” aren’t very helpful. Look at your current job description (or a description for a job you really want) for words that jump out.
For instance, if you’re a brand strategy consultant you’ll certainly want to focus on that as much as possible. But you’ll also want to add related skills and keywords like Branding, Brand Management, or Reputation Management depending on your experience and specialty.
Keep in mind that, at the end of the day, LinkedIn is still a social network first and foremost. Furthermore, LinkedIn’s search engine prioritizes showing profiles that have a connection to the searcher. So you’ll find the most SEO success if you’re also active in cultivating valuable connections, posting updates, and participating in groups to extend your network.
Write an Authoritative Post (Or Two) on Your Area of Expertise
One of LinkedIn’s greatest features, LinkedIn Publishing, goes tragically underused.
Anyone with an account has the ability to write an article or blog post and host it on LinkedIn at any time. You can write about anything you want (as long as it’s appropriate) and publish it at your discretion, with no external approvals needed.
This is an excellent way to enhance your LinkedIn presence and give visitors to your profile an additional avenue to learn about your expertise. Writing a post that comments on a big trend in your field, or serves as a comprehensive guide for your peers, or explains something confusing about your work provides multiple benefits:
- You get to show off the true extent of your expertise. By writing an authoritative piece on your specialization, whatever it might be (project management, marketing technology, social media strategy, analytics, etc.) you show that you have a big-picture understanding of what you do every day and consider your work from a strategic standpoint.
- It puts your creativity and communications skills on display. At any level, in any field, marketers must be effective communicators. Strong writing skills and the ability to put together a coherent, compelling message are highly valued and sought after.
- It can generate discussion; readers have the opportunity to weigh in on your thoughts in a comments section, and you can respond to their inquiries and ideas.
You don’t have to have Shakespearean cleverness or sharply-honed copywriting experience to make a powerful post, either. Even a relatively straightforward post with no frills but plenty of meaty insights and commentary will help you stand far above the crowd.
Source: B2C
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