How to Get the Most Out of LinkedIn

The LinkedIn tips and tricks you need to know from the experts at LinkedIn.

What's going on? I'm Rich Zemiro.

This is Rich on Tech. Today's podcast is all about LinkedIn and this is one of those social networks that everyone is familiar with, but there's a lot of mystery surrounding it. We feel like we should be on there, but we're not really sure how to use it. We're not really sure if it could help us land our next job. I'm always getting questions about this social network. This one's different because it's all about your career, and people always ask me is it worth it to have

Profile picture makes all the difference in the world.

In fact, you're twenty one times more likely to be reached out to by recruiter if you have a great profile photo, and also.

You'll get thirty six times more.

Messages if you have a great profile photo. So yes, a great profile photo makes all the difference in the world.

That's Robin Daniels, Senior director of Product Marketing at LinkedIn. He explains what makes a good LinkedIn profile photo.

A good LinkedIn profile photo should represent your professional self. It shouldn't be a picture of you and your dog or your best friend. It should be about how you want to show up at work, and so make sure that it represents who you really are. But also, you know, with modern technology, you don't even need a great camera or a great photographer, You can just use a smartphone. Most smartphones have awesome technology that will take a great profile photo for you.

Daniel says his favorite backgrounds are nature and brick walls. You can usually find one of those around town. Just use the portrait mode setting on your phone to make the background nice and blurry, and you're going to have a great pick.

Make sure that the lighting is optimal, make sure that you're in a black sense, make sure that the background is something that is not too distracting from your main profile foldo, and also make sure that the photo is from your shoulders and up.

It shouldn't be from you far away because then you can't really see who you are. All right.

Once you have your picture, now it's time to spruce up the headline and summary on your profile.

Your headline on your profile is what recruiters will see first of all, so making sure that's reflective of who you are and your capabilities is really important. So you could say I'm passionate about digital transformation. That gives a recruiters some insight into who you.

Are and what you're passionate about.

And then in your summary that's kind of like your cover letter. You can paraphrase or summarize all your achievements in your life and give recruiters a signal of who you are and what you're capable of.

Spruiter's looking to see, is you know who are you? What are you interested in? What are you curious about? What experience and skills do you bring? And so that's what they're looking for when they come and look at your LinkedIn profile.

That's Jennifer Shapley, Senior director of Talent Acquisition at LinkedIn. She says, the most important thing you can do is kind of what I said earlier, keep your profile up to date and add new skills as you learn them, plus fill in all the details that recruiters might be looking for when they search location.

For example, you are twenty three times more likely to be found by recruiter if you have your location listed on your profile.

So keep it up to date.

Shapley also recommends staying active on the site, and I understand where she's coming from. This is sort of like an investment. The more you're on there, the more people start to notice you, and this could pay off in the long run.

It's a community, so jump in and be a part of that. Share content, like content, ask people questions, leverage the power of the community. And what that does is if one shows recruiters that likely, if you're active on LinkedIn, your profile's probably up to date because you're investing in that and two, it gives recruiters a sense that you're probably likely to respond to their outreach if you're engaging with the platform on a regular basis.

Another tool to know about there's a little toggle that lets recruiters know that you're interested or at least open to new gigs.

Some members don't know that they can actually put on their settings and open candidate setting that lets recruiter see that you're open to new opportunities. So when you're deciding that you are actively in the marketplace, go into your personal settings and turn that on. It will not display to your current company, which is important to know that it will show to outside recruiters that you are available and interested in new opportunities.

You can find that by going to your LinkedIn profile, then scrolling down to the section that says your dashboard, then click career interests, then toggle the switch next to let recruiters know you're open. Now LinkedIn is going to do their best not to show this to your current company. But it is the web and nothing is truly private, so just be aware of that possibility. And Shapley's final tip, don't forget to virtually work the room.

Network. Network network. Like I said, it's the community. Be a part of it. The more you can increase your first degree networks, the better chance you're going to have of finding that next opportunity.

What we see is that.

Seventy percent of professionals get hired at a company where they have a connection. So increasing your first degree networks is going to greatly increase your chances of getting that job.

Finally, one more place to help you out on LinkedIn LinkedIn Learning. This is a special section of the site filled with videos, courses, and more, all to help you further your goals. Here's LinkedIn's Emily Polk.

We've done a lot of research talking to talent professionals, executives, managers, and what universally they all are saying is what is most critical to them are people who have strong soft skills. So those there's things like collaboration, communication, and leadership, and so those are great places for employees and people who are looking to develop in their career to invest time because those soft skills.

Are so in demand.

Now.

I've watched a few of these videos and they can be useful, like a professional version of YouTube. But keep in mind this is a premium subscription. I think it runs about thirty dollars a month. You can buy it separately, or it's also included in LinkedIn's premium subscription, which I also highly recommend checking out if you're currently in the job market. LinkedIn gave me a preview account to see what it's all about, and the insights are very impressive.

There you have it, Good luck.

Hopefully you now have a better understanding of how to use LinkedIn. And by the way, one more thing before I go, I personally don't accept any LinkedIn connections unless I've met the person in real life. This is just a personal choice. I know other people might have different

Thanks so much for listening.

If you want links to anything I talked about here, just go to the website rich on tech dot tv or check the show notes.

I'm Rich Tomiro.

I'll talk to you real soon.