It is no doubt that personal brand is very important to job seekers. One of the most effective ways to sell YOU to potential employees is to build an impressive online personal brand on a social network. However, each social media tool has different targets; for example, Facebook may be great for graduate students, and Twitter is good for media recruitment. In contrast, LinkedIn generally is the best choice for anyone who is searching for a job. Currently, most recruiters and HR departments are searching their candidates through 225 million LinkedIn accounts.
“LinkedIn is not just a virtual resume that should be tucked away for a rainy day. Instead, it acts as a resume, cover letter, references document, database of your contacts throughout your life and a place where you can learn, share and interact in a professional manner.”
Following are 2 very first steps to build an impressive brand on LinkedIn.
1. BRAND YOUR PROFILE
Let think that LinkedIn is an incredible asset to your entire career, so we have to make it perfectly errors free. The more you keep your LinkedIn profile professional, the more you can sell YOU to all people in the network. A professional profile is likely to attract all potential employees.
Below are some important things to brand a profile:
- Custom URL: A "http://linkedin.com/in/yourfullname” is an easy way to find you in the network.
- Picture: Your picture should be professional to reflect your brand. In fact, you get 30% more clicks if your file has a picture.
- Headline: It should display your desired job or the last job.
- Summary: A brief summary, which is about your work experiences, unique abilities, awards and career aspirations is most important in the profile
- Keywords: It is good to add as much as you can to get found easily.
- Applications: You put your blog here because it is good if people know more about you.
- Recommendations: Significant recommendations that are from people in your trusted the network is a plus for the profile.
2. DEVELOP YOUR NETWORK
Your career opportunities depend on how big your professional trusted network. Because LinkedIn is a network of people, any contact you add will help you link to their contacts. So, you should add all your friends as contacts in order to link to their contacts.
Below are things you should do to develop your network:
- Be open and available: It helps on accepting the contact requests.
- Leave an email address: It is the only way to communicate with other friends.
- Promote your URL: You should let people know your works, experiences, or even your thoughts, feelings and emotions.
As long as you keep your LinkedIn profile updated, you will have a great chance to get hired.
References:
1. How To Build Your Personal Brand on LinkedIn [21 Useful Tips]
http://theundercoverrecruiter.com/how-build-your-personal-brand-linkedin-21-useful-tips/
2. HOW TO: Build Your Personal Brand on LinkedIn
http://mashable.com/2009/07/27/linkedin-personal-brand/
Hi Quang!
ReplyDeleteYour whole blog is so amazing. But this post itself was very informative yet easy to read (in addition to it being well-written).
I don't really have much to say about it other than to keep up the great work. You explained the purpose and use for LinkedIn well, and you had good image selection. It was also a good idea to provide an image of what a typical LinkedIn profile might look like.
Good work!
Hi Kim,
DeleteFirst I would like to thank for visiting my blog.
I figured out that the way I numbered all the topic in a post will make people read easily the whole blog without skipping any details. As LinkedIn is more important for graduating students nowadays, I see that the point of being found by a recruiter in LinkedIn depend on how the network we are in. By joining a interactive groups also help a lot in making friends and sharing information.
I am really appreciated to your review. I will try to make more good posts in the future, so you don't want to miss them!!
Hi Quang!
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your blog; it is very interested for what people should know about LinkedIn, especially for student like us. I can see that LinkedIn has the potential to be extremely helpful and people are outraged that LinkedIn is opening the doors to us to choose a career and begin a resume. Having a LinkedIn profile is always a good way to boost professional credentials.
Aside from job searching, endorsing colleagues, joining interactive groups and contributing to posts, the professional social networking site has evolved into much more. LinkedIn has become a term that many well-seasoned professionals use while networking.
We can hope that we can take advantage of this to pursue college ambitions and not get too ahead of ourselves.
Hi Le Hong,
DeleteThanks for visiting my blog.
I agree with you that if we keep living in a good network of people in LinkedIn, the rate of being found by recruiters will be high. Also, joining an interactive group will help a lot in making friends and sharing information. Since LinkedIn now is very important for most people finding a job, by keeping updated our profile is the best way to get hired. In short, I would suggest all people update their LinkedIn profile in every 6 months. Spending a little time might be a good things all people should do to their LinkedIn account.
I am really appreciated to your review. Please come back again to see more coming posts.