Increase your chances to be spotted on LinkedIn

Please keep in mind that this article is addressed to readers who have already well defined their professional project and the organizations they are targeting for their job search.  Ideally skills and profile strengths are known and a powerful personal branding is already in place.

I will develop here bellow two approaches you can use to increase your chances to be spotted on LinkedIn (LI)

One is more passive and consists in utilizing the LinkedIn search algorithm feature to your advantage and let others find you.

The second one requires a more proactive attitude on LinkedIn

Let’s get started and kick-off this blog with a few questions:

• In which type of search would like to be spotted?  Perform by whom? Recruiters, hiring managers, potential clients?

• What are the key words a recruiter is going to use when performing a search to find the professionals he is looking for on LinkedIn?

• What could make people click on my LI profile?

Approach number 1:

You can make the LinkedIn algorithm works in your benefit in two ways:

1. by appearing in the right search through the repetitive usage of keywords
2. by increasing  the "relevance" ranking   

1. Here you’ll find what is the official LinkedIn recommendation for optimizing chances in searches

“More keywords aren't always better. Our advice would be to only include the keywords (including repeated keywords) in your Profile that best reflect your expertise and experience. If you integrate an extended list of keywords into your Profile, you are likely showing up in a high number of searches. The question you need to ask yourself, however, is whether members consider your Profile relevant to their search. If not, their behavior as a collective group may be influencing the algorithm used to rank you in search results.

Readmore

2. Increasing the search relevance sounds interesting: How does it work?

You have probably noticed that LinkedIn set an order when presenting profiles to answer to your search, this ranking is not set randomly and follow the following rules:

  

    Profile who come first are:

1. 1st level connections with profiles that are 100% complete (or close to it) and have the most in-common connections / shared groups, ranked in descending order.
2. 1st level connections with the fewest in-common connections / shared groups, ranked in descending order by profile completeness.
3. 2nd level connections ranked in descending order by profile completeness.
4. 3nd level connections ranked in descending order by profile completeness.
5. Shared group members (outside of your network), ranked in descending order by profile completeness.
6. Everyone else (those outside your network), ranked in descending order by profile completeness.

Therefore, to appear on the top of the list, here are the concrete actions you can take now:

• Complete your profile, Read more

• Increase your LinkedIn Profile Strength up to “all star”. The meter is on the right side of your profile and gauges how robust your profile is. The strength will increase as you add more content. ( my profile is all star, feel free to check what I included to reach that LI status) ch.linkedin.com/in/sandrinevandenoudenhoven

• Increase the size of your network but please ALWAYS customize your invitation to connect and only invite people with who you have some form of common ground.

• Join groups.

Approach number 2

The purpose of the second and more proactive approach is to get attention of a targeted audience:

I listed here bellow actions you can take to develop your LI visibility at your targeted audience:

• Visit hiring manager profiles, they will see you checked their profiles and may check yours too.

•  “Like” the LI discussions or posts of your potential hiring managers.

•  “Like”discussion topics which add positively on your branding

•  Deploy an active, positive and smart participation on LI group discussion topics.

•  React to people’s invitations by asking them to elaborate on their interest.

•  If you notice that someone in your field of interests or a recruiter has looked at your profile, send him/her a message/invitation saying you saw they looked at your profile and include something nice about shared interests and/or explain why you are interested initiating a contact without asking for a job.

•  Post on your own activity broadcast: share news and information with your network

•  Start your own LinkedIn group or offer to co-animate an existing LI groAlways introduce yourself (without referring to your job search) when joining a new group, thank the group owner/managers for providing the exchange place

Why not giving these 2 approaches a chance?

Write down your today number of appearance in LI Search result and views and monitor the progress after each implementation of the initiatives listed above so that you can understand what has the most impact and set your own activity priorities. 

If you liked this blog, please share this article with your network and register on the blog for email alerts. 

Sandrine van den Oudenhoven
job4U2, "relocation is a project for both"



Related posts:  

How to use LinkedIn for your job search in Switzerland?
Social Media for your job search: Expert interview with Sarah Santacroce from Simplicity

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