Our 20 best tips ever…and here are 10-15

Tip #10: Optimize your LinkedIn profile. Typically, only about 20% of positions will get advertised or posted somewhere, yet 90% of job seekers are pretty much only applying to those job ads.  The other 80% are getting filled through networks, and LinkedIn is by far the biggest one.

If you think about you needing to buy a new pair of shoes, you can now log onto Amazon.com, type in your size, heel height, color, style, etc. It’ll pull up options, you can then read reviews, and you can decide, “Do I want to take a chance on trying these on?” That’s very much the same process for how recruiters and hiring managers are finding candidates using LinkedIn. They type in the criteria they’re seeking, geography, industry, etc., and then it’s pulling up candidates where they can quickly read profiles, read reviews from others in the recommendation section, and then they can contact the potential candidate very easily through LinkedIn to say, “Hey, I want to interview you.”

So, given that, you want to have your profile optimized so that you are getting found for the kind of positions your target, your focus, that you want to be found for. I’ve had so many conversations with people who say, “You know, I’m not really getting this LinkedIn thing. I just keep getting contacted for stuff that doesn’t interest me.” When I go look at their profile, it’s like, “Yeah, no wonder. You haven’t optimized your profile to be found for what you DO have interest in!”

Two considerations you really want to pay attention to:

• The size of your network. There are ~ 25 million people using LinkedIn now. So for the system to find you, you need to have a network of a significant size, and there is a gate within LinkedIn that if you have at least 500 connections, then you’re more likely to get caught in those searches.
• Optimize your content. When I was talking about buying shoes on Amazon, if I’m looking for a 2.5″ heel height and I want black shoes and I want them to be Mary Janes and I want them to be a certain brand, those are all keywords I can type in. Same thing with optimizing your content on LinkedIn. What are the keywords that those recruiters and hiring managers are seeking so that your profile pops up? We do provide LinkedIn support services, so if you wanted something more customized just for you, let us know.

Tip #11: Create a target list of organizations that are of high interest to you based on your career focus. If we know that there are a few industries that are especially interesting to you, we can then create a list of target businesses within those industries. Being focused helps you know how to steer yourself to find what you’re looking for.

My hope and wish is that you will create a list of at least 20 organizations. When we create target lists for clients (a service we offer) usually includes at least 20 companies and typically at least 50 decision makers, hiring managers, recruiters. If we go back to this tip I was talking about with optimizing your LinkedIn profile, and if you have a list of decision makers, then you know who to connect with on LinkedIn. Being proactive in connecting with hiring managers lets them know you’re out there, so that when they do a keyword search you’re more likely to pop up for them.

Tip #12: Connect to recruiters. I was just talking about that target list and hiring managers, and go ahead and connect to recruiters at your target companies, also. Recruiters are generally very open networkers, meaning that they will connect with you because they want to have in their stable of potential candidates, they want to have people who are in line with what they’re looking for. And if you have targeted the company and you’ve aligned your resume and LinkedIn toward a particular target, you’re going to look attractive to them and they’ll want to connect to you. This step will increase your probability for being found, especially through a resource like LinkedIn.

Tip #13: Analyze and prioritize your terminology. These are the keyword terms I’m talking about. Find a word cloud generator your like. Google it, and it will pull up a number of resources. I’ve had good luck in the past with Wordle.com, but there are others out there.

What you can do with this resource is, let’s say you take a job description, something that looks appealing to you, you found it on Indeed. Copy the content and paste it into a word cloud generator. It will then generate a picture of the words that are used most. Once you know the top keywords, you can prioritize those, and if possible, repeat them a number of times in your document and in your LinkedIn profile because if they’re repeated more than once, you get more points for being found. That’s just a way to work through the system more successfully.

Tip #14: Follow application directions carefully. I have heard from multiple sources over the years that usually only about 20% of applicants will follow the directions completely when applying for a job. For the people who don’t, they’re often kicked out of consideration. I know it feels like a pain in the butt sometimes to have to do all of their requirements, but from their perspective they’re doing it for a reason, and one is maybe just to see if you can follow directions. As an example, I’ve had many people say, “Well, they didn’t ask for references. Should I send them?” No. If they don’t ask for references, don’t send them.

Tip #15: Track your results. As you’re applying for positions, on average you can expect one interview for every 10 attempts. One in 10 is average. So track how many positions that you’ve applied for and how many interviews you’ve gotten. I promise you that over 90% of you will discover that you’re getting an average response to your applications, and there’s a little bit of peace of mind to that.

But I know you would like an even better response because it’s frustrating to go through all that effort and to not get a higher rate of interviews. The things we’ve talked about in terms of having a focus, pulling things out of your career closet that are relevant, including the search terms that are prioritized and repeat them multiple times, all of that will help. If you’re in a profession that’s in low demand, for example such as chemists,  they have to be more proactive in being found. And, by the way, we have been very successful in helping those chemists. But if they’re applying to 20 positions, they might only get one interview because there are just not that many opportunities out there. So for those reasons, you want to be more strategic.