11 Ways to Use LinkedIn to Find a Job by Guy Kawasaki

Posted by David B. Wright

March 31, 2009

Thanks to Denise Griffitts for posting this on her blog, then posting a status update about it on Facebook!

Guy Kawasaki offers some great tips on using LinkedIn as part of your job search. For the post, go here to 11 Ways to Use LinkedIn to Find a Job by Guy Kawasaki

A few of my favorite points are to use LinkedIN to get the work out that you’re looking for a new opportunity, the various tips about getting information about a company, and to build your network before you need it.

I’d add a few things to this:

1) Help establish yourself as an expert by answering questions that others ask. It doesn’t have to be a long, drawn-out answer - use it to also show that you can clearly put together a coherent answer without taking 5000 words to do so if you can do it in 100. It’s a win-win-win: You help someone by answering a question they need answered.
Others benefit from seeing the answer.
You show that you know what you’re talking about by answering intelligently.

2) Don’t just ask for recommendations - give some as well. Go to the profiles of the contacts you respect and admire, and go ahead and write them an unsolicited recommendation. They’ll appreciate it, it can help them, and they may be more likely to help you in your job search.

3) Link to your other online social networks on your LinkedIn profile - this helps let your personality show through and make you appear more like a person and less like a faceless resume. A word of caution, though: Make sure your profile doesn’t have photos, posts, and videos you wouldn’t want your future boss to see. It would be a real shame to miss out on that dream job just because that college photo of you passed out on the couch with a moustache drawn on your face (or worse). How conservative should your profile be? That depends on your job, your industry, and other factors. For example, if you’re an elementary school teacher, your profile had better be really conservative (creative is fine, morally questionable is not), otherwise your boss might get so many calls from angry parents that your job is no longer yours. If you’re in a totally different industry, the “rules” may be very different.

To your success,

David B. Wright
Author, Get A Job! Your Guide to Making Successful Career Moves
www.thegetajobbook.com

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