Location Month ##, 201#smei.us/Free_Products/Linkedin_Tips_And_Tricks.pdf · More than searching for particular firms/people Search groups and discussions for info & jobs When you

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� LocationMonth ##, 201#

SMEI Social Media Emotional Intelligencehttp://www.smei.us

LinkedIn Tips and Tricks Agenda

� Building Your Profile – Slides 4 - 15� Common Mistakes� Create Your Brand

� Meeting People – Slides 16 - 24� Rekindle Relationships� Rekindle Relationships� Building Your LinkedIn Contact List� Recommendations� Joining the Right Groups� Events

2SMEI Social Media Emotional Intelligencehttp://www.smei.us

LinkedIn Tips and Tricks Agenda(Cont’d)

� Leveraging Your Presence – Slides 25 - 28� Become an Expert� Searching for Information� Be Careful

� Finding Employment – Slides 29 - 39� Searching for Jobs� Getting Your Self Easier To Find on The Internet� Company Buzz � Gage the Health of a Company or Industry� Interview Preparation and Reference Checks

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� Avoid typos or inaccuracies (especially related to your resume). Inconsistency weeds you out. � Not focusing on keywords related to recent applications � Don’t blindly link to anyone/everyone � Not showing your contacts to 1st level

Common Mistakes

� Not showing your contacts to 1 level connections� Only connecting to people within your profession, in transition, out of transition, or other limiting group thought processes

4Building Your ProfileSMEI

Social Media Emotional Intelligencehttp://www.smei.us

� Not using external email and mobile phone number for your known contacts to increase odds of speedy response � Do not use social or casual photos for profile � Do not comment negatively to anyone ever � Do not be sedentary---need to change and

Common Mistakes (Cont’d)

� Do not be sedentary---need to change and develop your profile daily/weekly� Not listing recent volunteer, training, certifications, or temporary (contract) work on your profile� Not using the status field periodically even for activity updates



� No recommendations. People may wonder why nobody has recommended you. Let friends, co-workers, clients, and employers have the opportunity to praise your work, values and your uniqueness. Recommendations are extremely valuable insights for anyone considering you for any


valuable insights for anyone considering you for any reason. And you control the content and whether it’s published. Make “can you recommend me” part of your valuable conversations.



� Add your LinkedIn profile address to your email signature. Move email traffic to your web presence – your LinkedIn Profile (remember this is your profile not your resume). Let everybody you email have easy access to the most complete and self directed information they could possibly find


self directed information they could possibly find about you.

� Not monitoring the “Answers” and “Groups” features. Answering and asking business questions provides opportunity to raise awareness and thought leadership.



� Not using a custom URL. You can change your URL where it says Public Profile/edit. Use your name, because this is a public link that you can use in marketing materials. Do this before somebody else takes it.


� Not listing your specific URLs. Don't be satisfied with the default, "My Company," or "My Blog." You can customize these links to read your company's name.



� Incomplete career history or education. Your employment and education history is a powerful tool for people to find you. It is common for people to search employees of companies, businesses, as well as schools they have bought from, or heard of. This is the way they connect/re-connect with old


This is the way they connect/re-connect with old friends, associates and vendors/partners. If you personally are not there, and/or your business is not there, you can't be found. Dates are not required for education.



� Record all your active email addresses in “Accounts & Settings”. LinkedIn requires a primary email address as the single email point where LinkedIn activity is routed. This is the email address that is immediately visible to your 1st Degree connections. Email systems sometimes fail.


Degree connections. Email systems sometimes fail. Consider putting another email address in your profile to encourage people to connect with you (who may not be in your network, yet). When initial LinkedIn users upload email addresses to invite connections you want to be part of that upcoming network.



� Neglecting your connections. A critical key to your network is a robust and diverse list of connections. LinkedIn is built around establishing connections, so you are of little value if you don't actively and consistently data mine for connections. This is not something that just happens. “If you build


This is not something that just happens. “If you build it, they will come” is a half-truth.

� Leaving your profile update flag turned on too frequently. This ties into changing your profile to reflect key words associated with jobs.



Create Your Brand� Make it real� Make it complete � Don’t oversell, and don’t exaggerate� Make it warm and inviting� Make an impact with figures and � Make an impact with figures and percentages

� Keep it consistent with your resume



Create Your Brand (Cont’d)�Include groups, associations, networks

� Display only top 10� Keep contacts confidential to only your 1st level contacts

� Have a consistent way of how you � Have a consistent way of how you expect your contacts get introduced to one another

� Build a network of diverse people (not just your profession)



Create Your Brand (Cont’d)� Create an attractive profile and fill in every field on LinkedIn. Your profile is your virtual résumé and should complement your document resume. Key words to jobs is vital.

� Include a headline line (the line just below your � Include a headline line (the line just below your name) with a maximum of 7 words related to what you are going to do for that targeted employer and/or person. Use this headline in your elevator speech . Example: I Find People Jobs The Best



Create Your Brand (Cont’d)� The no-brainer: List and describe all the relevant professional and academic experiences you've had. Be accurate with regard to the dates you worked or studied, because they are how people from your past and present find you and help you expand your network.

� Upload a professional photo of yourself. If you don't have � Upload a professional photo of yourself. If you don't have one, put on your interview attire, ask a friend to take your picture, upload it and you're done. Not everyone on professional networking sites completes this step, but a confident, professional picture of yourself can be very useful for anyone who can't quite recall you. Putting a face to your name increases people's willingness to connect with you.



� Academic institutions

� Prior places of employment

� Charitable organizations

Rekindle Relationships

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� User groups

� Associations

� Non-profit associations

Meeting PeopleSMEI Social Media Emotional Intelligencehttp://www.smei.us

� Low numbers, tight ties� High numbers, loose ties� Optimizing between tight and loose� Your network is a community◦ Build with purpose and vision

Building Your LinkedIn Contact List

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◦ Build with purpose and vision◦ Responsiveness, courtesy, consideration


� Key tactics◦ Pre-qualifying people◦ Uninviting people – be cautious◦ Recommendations

� Remember to use soft introductions and remember the three types of contacts (A (hiring managers), B (people at companies), and C (people who can get you leads in

Building Your LinkedIn Contact List (Cont’d)

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at companies), and C (people who can get you leads in companies).

� Use notes related to how you met this person, what they are looking for, and how they can help you.

It’s yours forever: you are beholden to no employe r, client


Recommendations� You need to have at least ten – 20 is better� Recommendations need to be from people who are:

� Customers regarding your work content� Senior to you in the food chain and/or from heads of business units including prior supervisors� Team members� Team members� Peers that knew of your work� Can come from volunteer or temporary work

19Meeting PeopleSMEI


Recommendations (Cont’d)

� You should not write recommendations for everyone who writes one for you� They need to have substance� They need to be more than 1-2 sentences and be able to relate to your accomplishments and be able to relate to your accomplishments on your resume� Don’t be afraid to ask for them



Recommendations (Cont’d)� Have them edited if need be (say by e-mail before submission)� Not all your recommendations need to be displayed� See the slide notes related to this presentation for more contentpresentation for more content� Go to http://www.aside.in/blog/networking/2006/10/02/linkedin-recommendation-examples/ for an excellent article regarding effective content

Remember recommendations can come from volunteer groups too.



� Joining the right groups is critical◦ Create a group if one does not exist that is

needed.� Regularly search for new groups� Join in discussion and contribute positive info

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� Join in discussion and contribute positive info◦ Keep an eye out for others sending messages

through groups you are connected to, and determine if either they can help you from a networking perspective, or you can help them.


� Avoid negative topics. Never share negative info even if it is true

� Avoid connections from limited profile people (Picture, content, recommendations, connections)

� Become known as an SME (Subject Matter Expert)

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� Become known as an SME (Subject Matter Expert)◦ Publish content (presentations, white papers,

documents, etc) related to your field and indicate collaboration

� Gain respect, give respect, be nice


� Under "More..." choose "Events". � Here you can view events (including webinars)

that your connections are attending, search popular events and find ones to attend.

� Search for a person you admire and look through the events he or she is attending.

Events

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through the events he or she is attending. � This will give you a good sense of which

conferences or events are worth attending, and will help you. See http://www.cio.com/article/453116/LinkedIn_The_Network_Effect_Revisited_ .


� Attend webinars on how to best use the tool� Attend physical events on how to use the tool� Share experiences with others� Learn from others� Become known as “a giver” as opposed to “a taker”

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Become known as “a giver” as opposed to “a taker”� Put PowerPoint presentations on your profile with purpose

and consider your audience(s) response ◦ Be cautious topics don’t give potential employers the wrong idea.

� Offer guidance and support to others based on your knowledge and experience

Leveraging Your PresenceSMEI Social Media Emotional Intelligencehttp://www.smei.us

� More than searching for particular firms/people� Search groups and discussions for info & jobs◦ When you get e-mails from groups on discussions,

look up the person who sent the message. They may be able to help you in your job search.

� Search on job titles and companies to see where people have gone to work (very useful)

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have gone to work (very useful)� Job search on firms you have worked to see where

people from those firms have gone to work� Use LinkedIn in conjunction with doing a campaign

based search to learn useful information to include in search Campaign.


� Set up automated people search agents◦ Use LinkedIn’s Advanced Search Feature

� Use key words such as “Director” or “President”� Focus words in the title field related to your profession

� Examples: Technology, Quality, Process, Talent Acquisition, Finance, and Project

� Limit your search to your 2nd Level� People barely out of your reach you can reach through your 1st level

connections

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connections

� Keep the search within 35 miles of your zip code� You want to be able to meet people you search for.

◦ Once you have found a valuable search, save it to run weekly and have the output sent to your e-mail.� The key advantage to this is that as your LinkedIn network

grows, these weekly alerts will send you links to those folks who you believe can best help you in your job search.


� No one wants to hear that you woke up, went to the bathroom, brushed your teeth, are sitting at the airport…. DO NOT SHARE MEANINGLESS INFO WITH OTHERS

� Be careful when using Tripit (My Travel) or the

Be Careful

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Be careful when using Tripit (My Travel) or the Events application on LinkedIn

� Don’t recommend others to people unless they want you to---causes major irritation and obligates people to speak to them


� Under "More..." choose "Application Directory". This will bring you to a page with a number of applications that you can add to your homepage and profile.

� The "Company Buzz" tool aggregates mentions of a company from Twitter, allowing you to discover relevant trends and comments about your

Company Buzz

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relevant trends and comments about your company.

� The tool lets you customize and modify the topics to watch and displays charts to track activity. A lot of people who use Twitter don't know where they can see what's trending.

Finding EmploymentSMEI Social Media Emotional Intelligencehttp://www.smei.us

� Jobs can be searched for using an interface on LinkedIn with SimplyHired.com .

� To view all jobs, you must have a complete profile including:◦ A picture

Searching for Jobs

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◦ A picture◦ At least three (3) recommendations◦ At least ten (10) connections◦ At least one job and education entry


� Results will reflect who in your network three levels deep is associated with the company related to each job listed

� NOTE: Job alerts need to be setup on

Searching for Jobs (Cont’d)

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� NOTE: Job alerts need to be setup on the SimplyHired.com website.


� Improve your Google Page Rank.

◦ LinkedIn allows you to make your profile information available for search engines to index. Since LinkedIn profiles receive a fairly high PageRank in Google, this is a good way to influence what people see when they search for you.

◦ To do this, create a public profile and select “Full View.”

Getting Yourself Easier To Find On The Internet

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◦ To do this, create a public profile and select “Full View.” Also, instead of using the default URL, customize your public profile’s URL to be your actual name. To strengthen the visibility of this page in search engines, use this link in various places on the web. For example, when you comment in a blog, include a link to your profile in your signature.


� Enhance your search engine results.

◦ In addition to your name, you can also promote your blog or website to search engines like Google and Yahoo! Your LinkedIn profile allows you to publicize websites. There are a few pre-selected categories like “My Website,” “My Company,” etc.

Getting Yourself Easier To Find On The Internet(Cont’d)

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like “My Website,” “My Company,” etc.

◦ If you select “Other” you can modify the name of the link. If you’re linking to your personal blog, include your name or descriptive terms in the link, and voila! instant search-engine optimization for your site. To make this work, be sure your public profile setting is set to “Full View.”


� Gauge the health of a company.◦ Perform an advanced people search for company name

and select the “Past not current” company drop down selection. This will enable you to scrutinize the rate of turnover and whether key people are abandoning ship. Former employees usually give more candid opinions

Gage the Health of a Company or Industry

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Former employees usually give more candid opinions about a company’s prospects than someone who’s still on board.


� Gauge the health of an industry.◦ If you’re thinking of investing or working in a sector,

use LinkedIn to find people who worked for competitors—or even better, companies who failed. For example, suppose you wanted to build a next

Gage the Health of a Company or Industry (Cont’d)

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For example, suppose you wanted to build a next generation online pet store, you’d probably learn a lot from speaking with former Pets.com or WebVanemployees.


� Track startups.◦ You can see people in your network who are initiating

new startups by doing an advanced search for a range of keywords such as “stealth” or “new startup.” Apply the “Sort By” filter to “Degrees away from you” in order to see the people closest to you first.

Gage the Health of a Company or Industry (Cont’d)

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to see the people closest to you first.


� Make your interview go smoother.◦ You can use LinkedIn to find the people that you’re

meeting. Knowing that you went to the same school, plays hockey, or shares acquaintances is a lot better than an awkward silence after, “I’m doing fine, thank you.”

Interview Preparation and Reference Checks

37Finding EmploymentSMEI


� Perform blind, “reverse,” and company reference checks.◦ LinkedIn’s reference check tool to input a company name

and the years the person worked at the company to search for references. Your search will find the people who worked at the company during the same time period. Since references provided by a candidate will generally be glowing, this is a good way to get more balanced data.

Interview Preparation and Reference Checks(Cont’d)

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glowing, this is a good way to get more balanced data.◦ Companies will typically check your references before hiring

you, but have you ever thought of checking your prospective manager’s references? Most interviewees don’t have the audacity to ask a potential boss for references, but with LinkedIn you have a way to scope him/her out.

� NOTE: Requires a paid LinkedIn account to use this feature in LinkedIn but can be cancelled at anytime.


� Perform blind, “reverse,” and company reference checks. (Cont’d)◦ You can also check up on the company itself by finding the

person who used to have the job that you’re interviewing for. Do this by searching for job title and company, but be sure to leave the default value “Current or past.” By contacting people who

Interview Preparation and Reference Checks(Cont’d)

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the default value “Current or past.” By contacting people who used to hold the position, you can get the inside scoop on the job, manager and growth potential.◦ By the way, if using LinkedIn in these ways becomes a common

practice, we’re apt to see more truthful resumes. There’s nothing more amusing than to find out that the candidate who claims to have caused some huge success was a total bozo who was just along for the ride.


40LinkedIn Tips and TricksSMEI


Documents

Location Month ##, 201#smei.us/Free_Products/Linkedin_Tips_And_Tricks.pdf · More than searching for particular firms/people Search groups and discussions for info & jobs When you