LinkIn to Your Job Search

Posted: November 20, 2009

By: Stefanie

This week I attended an event sponsored by Paul Toomey and Wells Fargo Advisors called "LinkedIn for Business."

The presenter, Dave Gowel is the founder of Clearly Creative, a Cambridge-based marketing firm that provides online and traditional marketing services.

Dave talked about ways to use LinkedIn to enhance your personal and company profile, grow your network and lead generate while maintaining your privacy and security.

The discussion provided some great insight to using LinkedIn as a powerful networking tool. Your LinkedIn profile is one of the first things that people usually find when “Googling” you. Listening to Dave speak was a great reminder of the importance of updating your LinkedIn profile as you do your resume.

Some of the great tips I took away from the presentation for Launch into Boston readers are:

1) Prioritize your work history

Make the most significant points in your history first and don’t leave gaps in the past section. You have a few areas to really explain who you are, what you’ve done and what you’re looking to do. Connect your background, past experience and education to be as relatable to your career goals as possible.

2) Use the search tools to navigate LinkedIn

A lot of people fill in the obvious areas, hit save and then walk away from LinkedIn for months. Don’t underestimate the power of LinkedIn to actively search for hiring companies. On the top of the tool bar click on "Companies." From here you can select the industry you’re interested in and find out which companies on LinkedIn are hiring.

3) Pay attention to your status

Try to make updates to your status weekly and include something interesting. If you take a seminar on marketing, post that up there so anyone who views your profile will see that you are taking initiative to learn more about that career. It might open dialogue between you and other professionals in that industry.

If you don’t have a LinkedIn profile or have neglected one you started, look at it as your first online impression to potential employers. You’d want to have your best foot forward when it comes across that hiring manager’s computer screen, right?

For more information about your LinkedIn profile, please contact us at info@launchintoboston.com.