How Can a LinkedIn Profile Help My Job Search Strategy?

By Larry French

It’s all about networking. Last week you were introduced to LinkedIn the professional www application being used by millions of people and businesses to network. To use LinkedIn as a tool in your job search strategy you need to get started by building yourself a Profile.

Image provided by LinkedIn Learning Center Resources, Site Features, Profiles

Your Profile on LinkedIn is the platform from which the world will become aware of who you are and what you do. The Profile you create will be your advertisement and self-marketing tool. This is where you will want to have everything that you normally can not fit onto a one page resume about how great you are. In my own personal experience, I found the LinkedIn Profile to be very useful because I have a widely varied work background. Using the parts of my Profile, I’m able to make known all of those ‘other’ things that I wanted potential employers to know about my capabilities and talents. A LinkedIn Profile will add a reach to your job search strategy that you never had before. With so many more people and businesses today using online media venues to interact with other professionals and search for employees, your Profile will get you back into the game. How you get noticed depends upon what you put into your Profile and then use it.

You Have Options

If you’re rusty or hesitant about presenting yourself to the whole wide world you’re going to find that LinkedIn is a gentle guide. Once you establish your log-in to LinkedIn and begin the process to build your Profile, user-friendly tutorials are available to prompt you along. What’s nice about these prompts is they allow you options to ‘skip’ something if you’re not comfortable or ready to do a particular part of your Profile. This feature allows you control and the time to explore and make yourself more knowledgeable of the features LinkedIn provides. Take time to do that because it will help you become more at ease. It took me a couple of weeks before I really got into building my own Profile and I’m still working on it.

That’s another nice thing about a LinkedIn Profile; you can edit and revise it when ever you want. This is also necessary as you learn more about how to use the tools of LinkedIn while building your Profile. Like life, your Profile is something that should reflect you’re alive and active. You can learn about this once you’re registered with LinkedIn and go to the LinkedIn Learning Center, http://learn.linkedin.com/ . Once there, study the listings under Resources. Of particular interest to you are the Training Resources under the Overview section and Profiles under the Site Features section. These are two of several tutorials LinkedIn provides.

Use the Tutorials

Use the tutorials to make yourself more aware. LinkedIn offers users an array of informative self-study tutorials in the Resources part of its Learning Center to help you as you build your Profile. If you’re using LinkedIn or building yourself a Profile, you should check the Training Resources portion of the Learning Center, http://learn.linkedin.com/training/. There you can find a free webinar that will talk more about setting up your Profile, LinkedIn 101: The basics of LinkedIn. This should also help you get started.

Image provided by LinkedIn Learning Center Resources, Site Features, Homepage

Once LinkedIn, you’ll have your own homepage which will be your professional dashboard. You can then go to the Groups tab on the tool bar and use the search mode to look up the ProNet Groups. The ProNet Central Florida and its subgroup, ProNet Central Florida Job Vacancies are two discussion groups you’ll want to join. Follow the LinkedIn prompts to request acceptance into these Groups. Once included you’ll have access to more shared LinkedIn information and postings about area jobs.

Larry French is a novelist, speaker, editorial writer, and content provider of Science, Social Studies, Language Arts, and Mathematics curriculum. He is now seeking a publisher for his first novel, Time Will Tell, The Awakening which blends his love of history and science and is set during the American Civil War.

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/larry-french/12/213/534