Job-hunting on Linkedin: Recruiters, Groups and Networking, oh my!

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HiroProtagonist: May 7, 2007

Hi goons! This thread is intended to be a resource for help and guidance for all things related to job hunting on Linkedin. I'll start off with an effortpost with as much informative content as I can, and in addition, I'll try and periodically update the OP with additional good posting as I see it. If you'd like to see something added to the OP, just ask!

Intro

Are you:

A recent grad from college or grad school, looking for a career change, or simply trying to make a change of scenery job-wise?
Interested in finding out what that whole "Linkedin thing" is all about?
Frustrated with the lack of leads from Monster, Dice, CareerBuilder, USAJobs or other sites?
Already on Linkedin but hopelessly bewildered by the site and have no idea how to leverage it to get you (not just help you, but actually get you) a job?

Then, this thread is for you.

Linkedin is arguably the best professional development tool at your disposal when it comes to job-hunting today. Leveraging it correctly, you can have recruiters and employers cold-calling you to secure your candidacy for open positions.

Although there's a not-insignificant amount of initial effort required to get to the point where you have people recruiting you instead of the other way around, once you put in that time, you'll find that the reach of your resume almost takes on a life of its own, doing the majority of the work to market you, your skills, and your experience through sheer momentum.

So Who's This Guy?

I'm in my late twenties and have been exclusively using Linkedin for job hunting since shortly after I graduated from college. Before that, I had about a half dozen different profiles on as many job websites, and despite having a polished up resume posted on every single one, the only emails I ever got were from the websites themselves, telling me about new jobs being posted. Very early on in my career, I was lucky enough to work with a guy twenty years older who told me about Linkedin and what I could do there that would guarantee a ton of interest in having me as a candidate, and probably more than a few job offers.

Prior to that point in my life, while I had a Linkedin profile already, it was almost bare-bones; Linkedin was sort of a professional tchotchke to me, with little real practical use. At first I was a little skeptical--how could what amounted to a myspace for professionals actually help me? Did that many people really have a Linkedin profile anyway?

Well, as it happened, I was ready to move on from that job anyway, so I took my coworker's advice and spent about a week's worth of work laying the necessary groundwork on Linkedin. By the end of that week, I had over fifteen email exchanges going with recruiters, most of whom had contacted me first. A week after that, I had three interviews for my top choices of the available opportunities. In another two weeks, I had a conditional offer on the table for the position that I liked the most out of the bunch.

Although it took another three weeks for me to be hired there due to internal pressures not related to me, my experience using Linkedin to find a job thoroughly sold me on it as a much more successful avenue for job-hunting among the available alternatives.

Since then, I've had a lot of time to figure out what works on Linkedin, what doesn't, and why. I've successfully applied the techniques in this OP to help a number of close friends and relatives boost their success in finding a job through Linkedin. And now, I sincerely hope that I can help to launch hundreds of goons into shiny new jobs while empowering them to make their own career choices, rather than having the choice of hunting for a new job largely influenced by their employer whims or workplace pressures.

The TL;DR Bulletpoints of Linkedin Job Hunting
(followed by more informative explanations)

Finding a job on Linkedin WILL require you to put in effort.

You must be willing to put in the time required to establish connections, join and participate in groups, and fill out your profile/professional experience, at least in the beginning, or you will not have the desired success. There are no shortcuts here. The good news is that I believe wholeheartedly that putting in this effort on Linkedin will have a far greater return on that investment than any other jobs website.
Fill out your profile to the maximum extent possible to get that 100% completion mark.

This might be one that many people would ignore, because it seems trivial and meaningless. Linkedin actually has your profile completion %-age factor into your visibility in search results. At one point, it would tell you that up front--I'm not sure if it does any more. Regardless, fill it all out completely and to a professional degree of quality. It's your online face--make sure you don't do the equivalent of wearing jorts to an interview. This includes having a good and professional picture: don't upload a picture of you doing a keg stand at that party last Saturday or hanging out on a beach somewhere.

Recruiters and employers will judge you, sometimes harshly, on how they perceive your profile picture. I have heard anecdotal accounts of conditional job offers being withdrawn when the prospective employee's picture communicated an unprofessional tone. It may not be fair, but it can definitely happen, and we all pre-judge people to a certain extent anyway.

The other usual tips for general picture-taking also apply: higher quality cameras take higher quality (i.e. all around better) pictures, etc. One partial exception to taking "casual" pictures that I've found on Linkedin is that candid-looking pictures get a more positive reception than posed pictures. To get a sense of what I mean, instead of simply posing for a picture in an office for example, it'd be better to get a more candid-looking picture that looks like you just happened to have a picture taken while standing in an office. Smile, be friendly and engaging in your picture and look professional.

Pictures are the first and potentially the most significant impression, but I'll try and give more profile tips that I've found to be useful and informative later in the OP. For now, it's enough to say that your profile should be complete, accurate, of professional quality, and include a good, professional-looking picture.
Linkedin is not Facebook, and the people who use it are not your friends--when in doubt, send connection requests.

Linkedin is all about professional networking and human interaction, not making friends and socializing. Like real life, getting a job is all about who you know. Linkedin facilitates that to an incredible degree by making it easy and quick to both find and accept useful professional connections. The key individuals who are sponsoring and recruiting for those job openings are often so busy that they would never in a million years have the time to do that networking if it were done face-to-face. With Linkedin though, all you have to do is click, click, click.

When in doubt, send a connection request (if it's possible). You never know who just might someday happen to be working at the company you want to apply to, or heading up the division that's expanding its team and needs a new member. At an absolute minimum, you will expand your reach and visibility with every new contact you make.

Since this comes up occasionally, I should mention that nobody will think it's weird to receive an unsolicited connection request. In fact, that's the way Linkedin usually works. In the vast majority of cases, it's not required nor necessary to explain to someone why you'd like to connect. Send requests, send them often.
Groups are your friend, join them.

Linkedin has thousands and thousands of professional groups, in a huge variety of fields and disciplines. Join the ones that are relevant to the type of job you want to get, starting with the largest groups. You can find these groups by searching every key word you can think of in the search bar that is associated with your desired job title (Google around if you need ideas, or are less familiar with the field).

When searching for groups, don't use jargon unless you only want to find jobs in a highly specialized area of expertise. Also be aware of differences in regional and national dialects. A very basic example: in the field of government contracting, a "bid" in the UK is a formal submission to a government contracting officer in response to a "tender." In the US, the same thing would be referred to as a "proposal" in response to a government-issued "solicitation," while bid is a term used more informally. A British expat looking to find a job in the US doing similar work might run into a few stumbling blocks unless they're aware of the differences in dialect.

Note about groups: most Linkedin groups' discussion areas are full of poo poo posting and/or resemble an echo chamber for industry marketing types. Don't worry about it, and join those groups anyway. There will certainly be interesting or informative postings in the more active and better moderated groups, but unless you care about socializing more than finding a job (and that's legitimate, too), don't feel the need to participate. It can help you to make intelligent, thoughtful posts in the more visible groups, but it's by no means required and joining the group is all that's necessary to get access to the Jobs board, which is what you really care about.

The reason that groups are Very Important is because they are the initial avenue to reaching your target audience while job-hunting. Recruiters will be members of the more active groups because those groups tend to have many more postings on their Jobs board, ensuring steady demand and constant eyes on any listing they post. Besides the obvious benefits for you as a prospective candidate, the other huge advantage of being in the same group as recruiters is somewhat less obvious. Without getting too much into how or why, Linkedin facilitates making new connections if you share the same group. More profile information is generally available to group peers, and on top of that, any keyword searches (a recruiter searching for potential candidates by required skills or experience, for example) will return the most "relevant" Linkedin profiles closer to the top of the results. "Most relevant" in this case meaning the results with the most complete set of information available, which due to most peoples' visibility settings will either be their 1st (direct) or 2nd (shared group or connection) degree connections. This is a prime reason that having connections is a prerequisite for effective job searching.

Connections are required if you want the jobs to come to you.

Although ideally you will (eventually) be a 1st degree connection of a good number of recruiters, there will always be others circulating about out there and the number one way they will happen across your profile is through being listed in their search results because you have a group in common.

The Jobs board of a group is what gets most of the attention, and will also most likely require the most maintenance on your part while you're actively searching for a job. The simplest method is posting a short and to the point message on the board with a one sentence description of your experience with a note mentioning that you're looking for new opportunities and encouraging readers to check out your profile. Don't post an email yet, that will just invite spam.

If you're concerned about potentially alerting a present employer that you're looking elsewhere, you may only be comfortable with perusing the currently available job postings. This is a perfectly productive method as well, but you'll want to take the additional step of sending Linkedin connection requests to all of the people posting job listings, even if you aren't interested in the particular job they've posted. That way, you'll accomplish getting into their pool of potential candidates, in the hopes of receiving future opportunities that are potentially much more interesting as they pop up without having to monitor every single Jobs board necessarily.

Make sure new connections you make with recruiters know that the lines of communication are open by sending an introductory message. You can include this message in the connection request, but I don't necessarily recommend that, as it can be missed; instead, send a follow up message after your contact accepts.

As far as content is concerned, I recommend just using a copy and paste form letter to save time, it need not be more elaborate than "Hi [NAME], I just wanted to send you a quick note to let you know that I'm current looking for a new position and if you would please contact me at [EMAIL], I would be happy to email you my resume and review any positions you currently need filled. Thanks, [YOURNAME]" or some variation on that. In general, follow the guidelines of keeping it short (no more than 3-4 sentences) and professional.
Get recommendations from friends, past or present co-workers or supervisors, and especially other recruiters.

The last part of that sentence is the most important, but I'll get to that in a moment. On Linkedin, "Recommendations" are actual written professional references that are displayed on your profile. Unless it's changed since I created my profile, Linkedin initially requests you to get 3 different recommendations in order to reach 100% profile completion. This is the first and most immediate reason to get them, however it could never hurt to get more.** You'll probably find that it's easiest and quickest to get a couple friends or close coworkers to do this, initially. In general, the more recently given it is, the better. Eventually however, you'll want to get at least one recommendation from a recruiter, which brings us to the most important point here.
** Removed as a requirement by LinkedIn at some point in 2012/2013

Because it is vitally important to their professional success, recruiters tend to be the best networkers in the class. You can leverage that existing network to increase your own visibility with a little help. After a period of time, you'll likely form some decent working relationships with recruiters, whether or not you receive any offers of employment in the process.

Ask one or two of your favorite recruiters to write you a quick recommendation on Linkedin. Most would be happy to do so, and you should return the favor in kind as well. This helps you tap into their existing network of connections, which is a boon for job-hunters through dramatically increasing the visibility of their profile.

The way this works is, on Linkedin, a connection's recommendations of others are visible on the profile of the recommending user. It doesn't matter if you are connected to the recommended individual. When a recruiter recommends you, every single person who visits that recruiter's Linkedin profile has a chance to see your name and click on your profile. Recruiters are the most popular people on Linkedin in terms of traffic and activity, so getting a recommendation from a recruiter is exponentially more effective than others through simple numbers. Playing that numbers game long enough will pay dividends in the form of job opportunities. Essentially, it's free self-promotion without any further effort required.

In my opinion, getting at least one recommendation from a recruiter is absolutely essential.

As a brief side note, Linkedin recently added another feature called "Endorsements" which is mostly useless and dumb, so don't confuse it with recommendations. I encourage you to bury the Endorsements feature on your profile as much as you can. If someone can explain to me how it's useful beyond simply playing a version of Pokemon on Linkedin ("Liked-in?"), I'd love to hear it.
Add your contacts from Outlook, Gmail, and any other services that you use.

I can understand some people's reluctance to link their personal email to their professional presence on Linkedin, but there's no reason not to import your corporate email contacts. The reasoning for adding corporate email contacts is fairly straightforward and doesn't require any elaboration.

While concern about importing personal email contacts is understandable, in the absence of an overriding reason not to, I would highly encourage everyone to do it. Personal references and relationships are the smoothest and least difficult path to find and be offered jobs. Merging your personal and professional contacts in order to centralize your professional life in one place, i.e. Linkedin, also makes sense for many reasons.

A centralized online professional presence allows you to maintain a single set of information that is as up to date as you'd like, rather than updating the same information in many different profiles maintained independently around the internet. Any of your friends or relatives who use Linkedin on a regular basis will also see your updates and changes, potentially alerting them to consider you for an upcoming or currently open opportunity.

I can't speak for the iPhone, but the Android app for Linkedin essentially makes it a virtual Rolodex for the new age, with connections accessible through Google's phone search, which I find convenient when needed.

As far as any potential consequences of associating Linkedin with your Google account, I can only give my personal impressions; but, by all appearances, it doesn't seem that Linkedin gets associated with your Google account any more than is absolutely necessary to import your Gmail contacts and nothing further. There are quite a few privacy options available through Linkedin if that kind of thing makes you skittish. You also have the option to revoke Linkedin's access at any time, even immediately after importing your contacts from Gmail.

The Practical Stuff

So how do you go about putting all this stuff into practice? For someone new to Linkedin, there is a fairly definitive sequence of steps to take initially. The bullets above largely follow that order, and ideally you would want to complete each step before moving on. If that's not your style though, or if you're already halfway through them coming in to the thread, then feel free to ignore the order.

However, in simple terms, those steps are as follows:

1. Complete your profile to 100%. Linkedin will tell you when you get there. Although they are not required for profile completion, get recommendations at this point as well if you have people you can ask (coworkers, former bosses, college professors, etc.).

2. Search for groups relevant to the field(s) you're interested in.

3. As you join groups, send connection requests to people who seem to be relatively active in each one, as well as every single recruiter who is a member of each group.

4. Review the Jobs board for each group, sending connection requests to every person posting a listing, and applying for any open listings that seem attractive to you.

5. Post a short notice in each group explaining that you're interested in open opportunities and inviting them to connect with you.

6. Get your resume to every recruiter connection that you have. Don't spam them with Linkedin messages, all that's required is a short note inviting them to email you for it and offering to discuss any open opportunities they have.

7. Once you've established a good working relationship with a recruiter, politely request that they write you a recommendation on your Linkedin profile. Be sure to reciprocate.

8. Get hired! Remember that, all other considerations aside, you dictate the terms of each offer. Don't feel the need to rush through the process with one position if you're currently engaged in several others--you might get a better offer from one of them.

9. Enjoy getting cold calls every week from recruiters even after you've been hired on.

10. When you'd like to move on, repeat steps 4-6 one to two months before you anticipate giving your notice.

That's it.

Linkedin Tools

<obligatory joke about inane social media marketing types on Linkedin>

Linkedin provides several tools to assist you with a job search. Many of them were added recently, even within the last year, when the entire site was overhauled in a major redesign.

With very few exceptions, I think these additions are a massive improvement. The job search function is ridiculously easy to use, and will by default show jobs from the groups you're a member of in the Home view. This is automatic, and will occasionally even find job postings you might have missed.

The profile organizer allows you to customize and redesign your profile to flow more smoothly or logically. Or, if you're so inclined, or just like pressing butans, you can stuff every category of irrelevant bullshit into it that your heart desires, as some people have don't do this holy poo poo.

Parting Words

I'm aware this is a very wordy OP--I tried to condense it as much as I could, but it's still an infodump, at best. Ask any questions you'd like, and I (or a helpful goon) will probably be able to give you a coherent answer.

:siren:

Remember: do not post your Linkedin profile unless you want to have your SA name attached to it. :siren:

If there's enough interest, I may start a Google group or Facebook group to share individual profiles for feedback. Please PM me if you're interested, or email me: hiro.protagonist.sa@gmail.com

Note: I don't subscribe to any of the Linkedin "premium" features, so I can't offer any real comment on them. If you have had positive experiences with them (or otherwise), please weigh in.

------------

Additional Information

zmcnulty is the admin of an SA-related group on Linkedin called Stairmasters. 87 members at the moment and counting. Join to connect with other goons!

When applying to the group, include the words "I am protected" in the comment box.

This is so that we know everyone applying to the group is a goon, and not innocent bystanders who think it's a professional group for stair-manufacturing professionals.

------------

Azuth0667 has some detailed feedback on the "Linkedin Premium" features:

Azuth0667 posted:

It's not worth the money. I was given premium when I graduated from college as a parting gift from career services. It was convenient but I didn't notice an improvement in my job search from before when I had premium and now that I do not have premium. For recruiters its definitely useful because of the messaging but for seekers not so much.

E: The breakdown.

Who's viewed my profile: This is interesting but not very useful. Its nice to see who viewed your profile to gauge who it is attracting but the non-premium view is fine. You don't need to see the entirety of who looked at it to tell if its attracting who you want.

Full Profiles: I thought this was awesome because I could see all of those people who I was barely connected to but it really isn't needed you can always ask for an introduction from one of your higher connections.

Full Name Visibility: Useless, no one gives a poo poo what my common full name is.

Premium Search: It makes searching more convenient but you can make up for it by putting in more time to your searching and picking through companies/jobs.

Profiles Per Search: Pointless I'm trying to find a job not a person/profile, good for a recruiter.

Search Alerts: Also pointless if you are serious about finding a job you search every day. You don't need any more spam than you already get.

Reference Search: Also pointless, merely talking to people and asking them to introduce you to someone else is enough.

InMail Messages: Very nice for a recruiter, I found them to be useless as recruiters were already happy to respond to me.

Company Introductions: Again pointless, you want a connection with someone working for the company who can recommend you for a job not just "the company".

OpenLink: I turned this one once and immediately got messaged by someone trying to run an MLM so I turned it off right away.

Profile Organizer: Handy for organization but nothing you can't do yourself with simple files on your HD.

Priority Customer Service: Yeah this is BS you get the same customer service no matter what and its mediocre.

------------

Sarcasmatron linked a very helpful article from Forbes that primarily deals with what to do with your Linkedin profile when you get laid off, but also includes many other tips for what to do with it in general.

Some additional thoughts:

Sarcasmatron posted:

My experience has been that it's more a question of of making my profile more parse-able for recruiters. That and making my network as big as possible. The more people in my network, the greater the likelihood that they will be able to see something that compels them to message you, based on whatever requisitions they're trying to fill.

To see what I'm talking about, look at a 3rd degree connection, then look at a 2nd degree connection. You can see a lot more about a 2nd degree connection. Now pretend you're a recruiter. You're more likely to reach out to someone who you have more information on, as it going to be a more accurate "cold call": 3rd degree recruiters ask me if I'm a mobile developer (NO), while 2nd degree recruiters ask me if I'm interested in managing mobile projects (YES).

I realize anecdotes are... anecdotal. Having said that, I've hired for 3 positions out of LI, and they've all worked out - my current direct report was out of LI.

Yesterday I had a nice 2nd round interview with the VP of Technology and VP of Product for a media company I'd really like to work at, and I have a phone screen next week for a mobile PM position: we've already established a base salary of 15% above my current base, so now I just need to show up for interviews.

TL;DR: LI is not a vending machine. Build a compelling profile, maximize the size of your network, and recruiters will come to you.

I've already had messages from a couple of people in this thread and had profile discussions - feel free to message me, either here or on LI.

HiroProtagonist fucked around with this message at 17:56 on Apr 21, 2016

# ¿ Feb 1, 2013 05:35

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 07:19

HiroProtagonist: May 7, 2007

zmcnulty posted:

I'm the admin of the (only?) SA-related group on Linkedin, Stairmasters. Would be great to throw it in the already-awesome OP if you can! 87 members at the moment.

Added! Thanks. I'll join the group too.

shodanjr_gr posted:

Linked in is an amazing thing. One day I decided I wanted to intern for a certain big company this summer. Found a recruiter on LinkedIn, sent a polite message, next week I was being interviewed and got an offer.

I was always wondering though, is that self agrandizing description of one's professional self crucial on a LinkedIn profile? I have a strong r�sum� already (2 internships with another big company, pursuing PhD, publications) but I don't want to be missing out,

It's not self-aggrandizing to self-promote. You should be proud of your accomplishments, and nobody will fault you for it. Boasting or bragging is a different matter, but it should be evident where the line is, and as long as you don't cross it you're perfectly okay.

It's much better to get close to that line than it is to under-sell yourself or downplay your accomplishments in any case. That's always a bad choice in any circumstances compared to the alternative.

jeeves posted:

When does Linkedin tell you that your profile is at 100%? I take it when no longer has the "Improve your profile" button by your picture when you view your own profile?

I ask because some of the questions they ask I can't answer: like what is my current job (unemployed and looking), what courses I have taken (I filled out a bunch already), or what publications I have done (have none).

Otherwise, this seems like a good tool. I basically copy/pasted my resume onto the experience/school portions, however edited the experience descriptions a bit in case any of my old bosses read them/care.

Linkedin now has this bubble-like thing on the side that shows your "profile strength" percentage. You can click on it I think to see what will increase it. Mine is 100% complete and it says that my profile strength is "All-Star," so use that as a yardstick I'd say.

antavila posted:

Thanks for creating this!

Quick question, though: should I essentially be copy/pasting my resume into my profile?

I see some profiles with bulleted lists under their past and present jobs giving details that I'm assuming are already on their resume, and some profiles that just list the job with their start/end date, so I'm not really sure what's okay protocol.

You can copy and paste your resume, but it's better to distill your experience and position responsibilities into narrative form. No more than a short paragraph or so; about 5-6 sentences should do it. In other words, just enough to give people a good idea of your previous experience without being overly wordy. Bullets don't really scan as well on a website profile, and putting in paragraph form condenses it a bit so that people are more likely to read it all too.

If you want to cut corners a little bit, you can even just take the text from your resume bullets and add periods to the end of every sentence. That'll be serviceable, at least. Just try and come back to it sometime soon afterwards to massage it into a more coherent form.

The whole reason for putting effort into including complete and coherently written position descriptions and past experience on your profile is that you want to essentially have the gist of your resume up there and stand out from the crowd. In all likelihood, people sourcing potential candidates won't have your resume already if they come across your profile on Linkedin. Hence, you want to give them a reason to reach out to you first and ask for it to get more information. Other people will do what they do, but if your objective is to use Linkedin to find a job, you'll want to do a better job than they do anyway. All other people's laziness does is make it easier for you to stand out as a strong candidate.

HiroProtagonist fucked around with this message at 21:42 on Feb 1, 2013

# ¿ Feb 1, 2013 21:09

HiroProtagonist: May 7, 2007

Omgbees posted:

A million times this, the recruiters that pick you up on here often have no idea of either the requirements of the jobs they put you up for or how your skills line up against the requirements.

The amount of times I have ended an interview early because the applicant served up by a recruitment agency was woefully under qualified for the role we advertised for is staggering.

There's some good advice here. After you're initially contacted by a recruiter and they get you on the phone, it's absolutely worth asking if their recruiting agency is under contract to a client. Usually, a company sourcing for high-value or a large number of positions will contract one or more recruiting agencies to help fill the opening(s).

If a recruiter is contracted, it's a more reliable possibility to pursue; but by no means is it a given. Non-contract recruiters (aka "headhunters") will often throw everything against the wall and hope it sticks. This means that headhunters will not hesitate to throw you under the bus in favor of another candidate if it gets them a commission.

It should be said that headhunters can, and will, source for high-value positions, and I'm sure that more than one person has a story where they landed an amazing job because of a headhunter. However, treat that as the exception, rather than the rule. When dealing with non-contract recruiters, cover your own rear end first.

# ¿ Feb 3, 2013 06:47

HiroProtagonist: May 7, 2007

Econosaurus posted:

How do I know if somebody is a recruiter, especially for a field I'm interested in?

They tend to make themselves visible. Almost always it's in their listed title on Linkedin.

Mango Polo posted:

Could you (or anyone for that matter) link some profiles that you think are well-written? I'm looking at rewriting my own page, so it'd be nice to have examples of what works/what doesn't work.

I'm not sure if it's kosher to do that--to see most profiles' information, you have to be logged in to Linkedin, and even at the most anonymous settings, Linkedin still tells people the general industry and geographic location of their visitors, as well as tracking #s per week.

I don't want to freak out any innocent people with a goonrush.

Anonymizing a profile as an example might be an option, but it'd still be accessible through easy Googling.

Any middle ground suggestions?

Kudaros posted:

In any case, is it worth it to pay for the upgraded version of Linkedin?

Edit: one additional question - Should my profile be 'specialized', as in restricted to my area of primary concern when it comes to jobs? For example, say I'm interested and somewhat involved in the craft brewing community - would it be a poor idea to network with people associated with that industry and join groups and such?

No idea about the premium features myself, as I said in the OP. Hopefully someone else has paid for them and can give feedback.

Re: networking, it's absolutely not at all a bad idea. Just don't go overboard unless you earn a living off of craft brewing, I'd say.

Another one of the benefits of Linkedin as I see it really is the ability to treat your profile as a "resume, but not-resume," or in other words, putting information and detail that would be considered irrelevant or inappropriate on a formal resume.

Networking is never a bad thing, and if something helps you network more, it's automatically good. Like I said though, keep in mind that you come off as a crackpot if your profile reads like a resume but is 75% about totally unrelated poo poo to what you do for a living.

# ¿ Feb 5, 2013 16:36

HiroProtagonist: May 7, 2007

Kafka Esq. posted:

A relative of mine is a high level executive recruiter, would it be okay to get a recommendation from her?

Absolutely. Get it yesterday, especially if you're currently job-hunting. I'm assuming you have different last names, but it might be worth asking her to not make it obvious you're related. She should know that already, but you know her and I don't so it's worth saying.

totalnewbie posted:

Redacted screenshots?

I considered that, but see above about Googling phrases from the profile making it pointless as an anonymizing method.

Someone could offer up their profile for critique if they're brave and create an example that way, but as I'd prefer not to link SA with my profile directly I assume many people probably feel similarly.

vvvvv no problem! good luck!

HiroProtagonist fucked around with this message at 23:26 on Feb 5, 2013

# ¿ Feb 5, 2013 22:17

HiroProtagonist: May 7, 2007

Azuth0667 posted:

E: The breakdown.

Thanks for posting this! I'll add it to the OP.

# ¿ Feb 6, 2013 21:17

HiroProtagonist: May 7, 2007

Defenestration posted:

HiroProtagonist would you be open for doing private critiques if I send a PM?

Please do! PM me whenever you want.

close to toast posted:

Should I send him a request and/or a message expressing interest? I suspect the answer is yes, so my real question is how do I position it? Thanks!

You guessed it.

As far as positioning goes, it's likely you're overthinking it. A simple message such as "Hi, I'm interested in [JOB TITLE] at your company. I have/am [QUALIFICATION 1], [QUALIFICATION 2] and [QUALIFICATION 3]. If you are interested in reviewing my full resume, I would be happy to send it to you. Please let me know via email at [YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS] at your earliest convenience. I appreciate your time, and look forward to corresponding with you in the future. Sincerely, [YOUR NAME]" is really all that's required.

Good luck!

Azuth0667 posted:

I would make contact, make sure you research and understand what the senior manager has contributed to the company. Use that information to start a dialogue and state your interest in working with them.

Personally, I would see this as a little weird. By all means, research the company and pepper any solicitations with relevant information that you find, but researching someone specific is probably both more than a little difficult and may potentially come off as inappropriate to the person you're contacting. (read: easy to come off as creepy.)

They're representing the company, not themselves. I would suggest focusing your interest accordingly.

# ¿ Feb 10, 2013 03:56

HiroProtagonist: May 7, 2007

Fame Throwa posted:

I have two stupid questions:

Do you have to put a picture up? I'm not totally comfortable putting a picture of myself online, especially on a site where anyone can view it. It doesn't help that I don't have any professional looking pictures of myself, and I really don't photograph well at all.

Yes, absolutely. If you don't photograph well as you say, you need to either get a photographer friend to help out, or take head shots. You absolutely need a professional, attractive picture on Linkedin.

Fame Throwa posted:

I've got a small network in the city I live in right now. That would be nice if I was going to stay here, but I plan on moving to another city where I have no contacts and nobody in my network has relevant ones in that city. Any suggestions?

It depends on the industry you're in. Can you elaborate?

# ¿ Feb 12, 2013 08:16

HiroProtagonist: May 7, 2007

Temascos posted:

Got my profile sitting at a lovely 90% complete, gunning for the 50 contacts. I'm tracking down my friends, school mates, teachers, pretty much anyone I've talked to in my life but its frustrating waiting for the responses. A lot of the recommendations for companies seems to be a bit skewed for me, I've worked in a variety of different sectors like museums and children's activities but just getting the museum stuff, any pointers to get a more even selection?

Don't limit yourself only to your personal contacts. Just start sending connection requests to anyone that pops up in the "you may know" box.

As far as recommendations go--are you searching for "museum" or "museums" in the Jobs section of the site? I'm a little unclear where it is you're seeing these recommendations.

# ¿ Feb 12, 2013 20:05

HiroProtagonist: May 7, 2007

ObsidianBeast posted:

I think it was mentioned earlier in the thread, but make a connection with pretty much anyone.

Absolutely. I put it in the OP for a reason.

# ¿ Feb 13, 2013 07:43

HiroProtagonist: May 7, 2007

zmcnulty posted:

I have just approved 68 outstanding requests for Stairmasters, sorry for the delay. I also made GTGatsby another admin because I know him irl, but if anyone else is interested let me know.

Thanks! I'd be happy to admin as well.

JohnnyPalace posted:

I added 7 contacts yesterday alone just from searching for friends.

You're absolutely right. If it doesn't stretch outside of your comfort zone, do use Linkedin's features for finding connections through your personal email and other accounts.

Stultus Maximus posted:

A lot of people have just their job titles listed under "experience" while others have full r�sum�-style descriptions. Is more information always better here?

No. You should list your experience in each position, but limit it to the most eye-catching and impressive bullets (for the field you're in). If you need help figuring out what those bullets are or should be, feel free to post here, or take it to the Resumes and CVs thread and ask there.

hitension posted:

Yeah, I agree with this poster. There doesn't seem to be much point in adding people you don't know.
Maybe it varies based on your field?
I have ~100 contacts but they're all people I've done business or gone to school (close classmates, not any random alumni) with, plus a very few (less than 5) people I know from social settings or through my partner. I'd feel comfortable asking any of them for an introduction to a company and at least half of them for a more personalized referral.

I have found in most cases that this isn't the case.

You have nothing to lose by adding connections, whether related or unrelated to your field. And you never know when one of those seemingly unrelated connections might get in touch with you about a job in your field. Based on how many disparate relationships (professional and personal) that everyone develops over the course of their life, it's really not worth judging connections on Linkedin in terms of potential value to you.

# ¿ Feb 18, 2013 03:34

HiroProtagonist: May 7, 2007

Approved everyone for Stairmasters who's applied in the last day or so.

Just as an alternative or option for people who really don't want to connect their professional identity with SA: echoing zmcnulty, feel free to ask questions-slash-be goony as gently caress in the discussions section. Nobody outside of the group will see it.

# ¿ Feb 20, 2013 05:47

HiroProtagonist: May 7, 2007

ProFootballGuy posted:

Yes, but to expand a bit more: make connections with other people in your industry, with similar jobs or the job you want to have. Figure out what keywords appear a lot. You can also look at some job descriptions/openings on company websites and include the keywords listed in the job descriptions. Once you have a critical mass of 2nd and 3rd degree connections, the recruiter spam floodgates will open.

This guy read the OP.

Stultus Maximus posted:

Couple questions: How do you find recruiters?
Second, how do you handle making 3rd degree connections, what's the best way to phrase the request?

You should read the OP.

No seriously, there's a ton of info in there and my suggestions for doing just that. Most connections you'll be making are going to be 3rd degree, it's the nature of how exponential growth works.

kathmandu posted:

I forget where I saw the thread, but I read something on here a couple months ago about unscrupulous headhunters taking the .doc resumes of programmers and putting languages and qualifications the candidate in no way had into their resume. It had something to do with the headhunter getting paid by the referral/interview as opposed to getting paid for actually sending qualified candidates. From what I gather, it's not a common problem, but it does happen.

Haven't heard about this myself, but I wouldn't put it past anyone.

However, this is probably more likely in a bullish (i.e. growth) economy, and if I had to guess I'd suspect that this idea comes from the late 90's. In the current economic climate, I don't think you'll have to worry about that sort of thing. Recruiters are happy enough to fill the jobs that are available. Outside of any specific circumstances, they don't need to deal with placing an oversupply of underqualified people.

Note that my experience comes from a major metropolitan area. It's quite possible for that not to be the case elsewhere (at least within the continental US).

Point is though, don't assume any malicious intent if you don't have any obvious reason to.

SaltLick posted:

I wouldn't worry about sending it in word format. Pretty much what they do is delete your personal information and replace it wit their agencies info. Depending on the position you are gunning for If you get hired you are technically an employee of the agency that's contracted out to whomever. Right now I'm more or less a full time permanent temp worker.

Absolutely right; this is in my experience the only real reason any recruiter wants your resume in .doc.

This is a Good Thing (tm). It means they're putting their corporate header on your resume to send to a client.

KariOhki posted:

I've got a question about recruitment agencies, basically how shady can they be? I had one contact me off of my profile on LinkedIn, set up an appointment to meet with them, and they want my resume in Word format. I don't like that format since it's more easily editable than other formats. My gut feeling says to cancel the appointment, but my gut gets me into trouble more often than not. Does anyone else have experience with the shadier recruiters, or tips they can share?

See the above; wrote it for you primarily.

zmcnulty posted:

I can tell you how, because there was no verification on my part that the requests were actually coming from goons. Just figured that if you make a request you're a goon since SA is the only place I've ever posted the link.

Hell I thought I had it set to not even show in searches, so unless those stairmaking professionals click on the link in some goon's profile, or got the link by some other means, I don't think they could find it

Matlock posted:

I'm not sure how, but two people that actually work in the stairmaking industry (in a factory right right down the road from me) and are not from SA are in the group now. That's kind of hilarious.

Edit: three.

I was going to clear out the group of these few people, because it doesn't benefit SA or these innocent professionals to be in this group.

Just to clarify:

:siren:

If anyone is an SA member and legitimately involved in the stair(-manufacturing) industry, please PM or email me some time this weekend (contact info in the OP)and let me know. If you get purged accidentally, just re-apply and I'll re-add you. :siren:

Sorry in advance to anyone affected; making sure groups are relevant is a big part of what makes Linkedin a successful job-hunting method. Also, the longer they bystanders are in the group, the less effective the group visibility settings are, and the more likely we're going to see more of that happening. This is because any 1st degree connection can see all of the groups that connection is in, which bypasses the search restrictions.

# ¿ Feb 23, 2013 05:44

HiroProtagonist: May 7, 2007

econdroidbot posted:

I've taken some of the great advice in this thread and am starting to see results. Over the past week I have added ~40 new connections, and now I'm starting to build momentum. A few recruiters have contacted me, and I am in the early stages of interviewing for a new job. One of the best things for exposure was joining new groups and actually participating in them. Got a lot of profile views/connections that way.

Thanks again for making this thread!

I'm glad to see posts like this. Would you mind if I added this testimonial to the OP? I'm planning on having a section devoted to them, much like similar threads.

Crazyweasel posted:

I found a position that is really up my alley.

With no connections there, I found a contract recruiter for the company and just sent them an invitation noting I was interested in the company and current opportunities. The job was initially posted on 12/15 but is still up and I'm getting antsy. Should I directly apply while waiting for the recruiter? I feel like the recruiter may not like that because they might not be able to say they discovered me. Cool my jets and wait a couple days, if no response then apply direct?

Get in touch with the recruiter personally via email about this specific opportunity; if they don't respond within a week, tops, then go ahead and apply directly.

It's better if you call the recruiter too. You might get caught in a call screen, but it's better than hanging around for an email reply.

The attitude you should have is "it's the recruiter's job to propose me for this position; if they're not getting the job done, then it's my responsibility to do what I can in my own best interests."

Crazyweasel posted:

The company is small enough to be a direct e-mail application procedure, so if the only bonus is being seen then I'm not sure if I using a recruiter would be worthwhile.

Honestly, direct email applications are worthless. The best way to get a job offer is always going to be to make personal connections. You need to speak to real people, whether via email or phone, or you might as well be throwing darts blindfolded. You'll have no way to get feedback otherwise.

# ¿ Feb 25, 2013 05:06

HiroProtagonist: May 7, 2007

Dead Pressed posted:

One question I do have---I applied for ONE job through LinkedIn rather than through the company's website. My wife, who works (loosely defined) as a 3rd party employment expert believes that was a bad move. I didn't think much of it, myself. Any thoughts here?

Not sure what you mean here. The only job applications available through Linkedin go directly to a corporate site for those types of things. Do you mean as opposed to going through a recruiter?

# ¿ Feb 25, 2013 05:08

HiroProtagonist: May 7, 2007

I wouldn't be worried. Applying via one automated method often works out to be the same as if you applied via another automated method.

Try and get in touch directly with someone who works at that company and see if you can get them to forward you to an in-house recruitment professional. Best way to do that would probably be via Linkedin messaging.

e: and SimplyHired is definitely a legit job posting site if you were concerned about that too.

# ¿ Feb 25, 2013 05:36

HiroProtagonist: May 7, 2007

Parker Lewis posted:

I thought this was an interesting read comparing recruiters on LinkedIn to guys trying to pick up girls on online dating sites:

http://www.nczonline.net/blog/2013/02/05/what-technical-recruiters-can-learn-from-online-dating/

My main takeaway was that "too many people trying to recruit me" is a problem I would like to have. I'm still at the point where I am reaching out to recruiters and trying to build up my network following the blueprint in the OP.

Funny thing, when I was writing up the OP, I had a lot of the same techniques and attitudes in mind that also applied to my experience on OKC. A lot of them resulted from the discussions in the (now defunct) Online Dating thread. Much of it definitely does also apply to getting jobs on Linkedin; particularly in regards to crafting the format of your profile (quality of content and delivery over exacting and/or irrelevant or generic information), emphasis on efficiency of output and sprinklings of personalized details over careful and time consuming crafting of words, etc.

Get good at Linkedin, and you'd probably be good at online dating, in other words. At least if you're male; women don't really generally have to worry about getting people's attention.

zmcnulty posted:

I'm not looking to get connected with every single goon, though. I think if you can just add a comment to the group request, it'll be fine.

We'll do this until the end of March. Hiro can you add it to the OP? I've added it to my post on p1.

I'll put it in now.

Slig posted:

So is it kosher to just blind invite tons of people from the group? Otherwise there is maybe 1 person in my industry.

I was going to do this at some point myself. If it freaks one or two people out, it won't bother me if they don't accept it. I have a poo poo ton of connections so for most people it'd probably help them out a great deal. If they disagree, that's their choice and I'm not going to take it personally.

Rad R. posted:

But the problem I often face on LinkedIn, and I hope to resolve that thanks to places like SA, is that I always get invites from people I know, who aren't in the same line of business as I am, or are working in a business I want to get away from. I'm in Croatia and want to travel, expand my horizons, find decent business opportunities, but LinkedIn keeps pushing me back into that same circle, based on the 'people you might know' formula.

I'd just do member searches using keywords relevant to the business you want to be in. You can restrict it by location and then just send mass connection requests with the pre-written text in it. I doubt anyone active or semi-active on the site is going to refuse you.

The other option is to do searches for local chapters of larger professional organizations/associations or just local versions of groups involved in the industry you want to break into.

I wrote a lot of guidance regarding groups in the OP, because groups are so integral and necessary to success on Linkedin. Check it out and I'm sure you'll find some useful info.

# ¿ Feb 28, 2013 23:00

HiroProtagonist: May 7, 2007

So I just sent connection requests to a bunch of people in the group, but doing it one by one got tedious after a bit so I'll send more later. I'm the handsome guy in the tux.

After a while, it stopped letting select "Group" as how I knew people. Not sure if that was a consequence of sending out a lot of requests at the same time or individual contact preferences. I just started selecting "Friend" though, so if that piques anyone's curiosity, that's why.

# ¿ Feb 28, 2013 23:15

HiroProtagonist: May 7, 2007

kansas posted:

Just curious - what does connecting with someone you don't know (e.g. random person, someone in Stairmasters, etc.) actually get you? I would feel awkward asking a random person for support when they have no idea if I am a capable person or a corporate slacker. Conversely if someone I didn't know asked me for help I would be worried because I wouldn't feel comfortable effectively vouching for someone when I've never worked with them.

From the OP:

HiroProtagonist posted:

Linkedin is not Facebook, and the people who use it are not your friends--when in doubt, send connection requests.

Linkedin is all about professional networking and human interaction, not making friends and socializing. Like real life, getting a job is all about who you know. Linkedin facilitates that to an incredible degree by making it easy and quick to both find and accept useful professional connections. The key individuals who are sponsoring and recruiting for those job openings are often so busy that they would never in a million years have the time to do that networking if it were done face-to-face. With Linkedin though, all you have to do is click, click, click.

When in doubt, send a connection request (if it's possible). You never know who just might someday happen to be working at the company you want to apply to, or heading up the division that's expanding its team and needs a new member. At an absolute minimum, you will expand your reach and visibility with every new contact you make.

Since this comes up occasionally, I should mention that nobody will think it's weird to receive an unsolicited connection request. In fact, that's the way Linkedin usually works. In the vast majority of cases, it's not required nor necessary to explain to someone why you'd like to connect. Send requests, send them often.

...

Without getting too much into how or why, Linkedin facilitates making new connections if you share the same group. More profile information is generally available to group peers, and on top of that, any keyword searches (a recruiter searching for potential candidates by required skills or experience, for example) will return the most "relevant" Linkedin profiles closer to the top of the results. "Most relevant" in this case meaning the results with the most complete set of information available, which due to most peoples' visibility settings will either be their 1st (direct) or 2nd (shared group or connection) degree connections. This is a prime reason that having connections is a prerequisite for effective job searching.

Connections are required if you want the jobs to come to you.

In short, connections facilitate your personal visibility. The more visible you are, the more likely someone searching for someone to fill a role is to see enough of you to interest them.

If you're the proactive sort (and you should really cultivate that mentality whether it comes naturally to you or not), having connections also facilitates, or in some cases, is the only possible way to get to the point of being able to message the people that you really need to get access to.

There is never a downside to having more connections.

# ¿ Mar 3, 2013 22:20

HiroProtagonist: May 7, 2007

The approach I would probably most recommend is to simply list your last full-time position as continuing to the present. Once you get hired somewhere else, you can change it back if you so desire. Nobody will care or most likely even notice the date switch. The most anyone will see is "StarSiren has a new job title!" on their news feed, or whatever the exact post looks like.

I think the stigma against being unemployed is slowly fading, but it is definitely still around and it's good to be mindful of it as far as employment history goes.

Resumes are a different story entirely (and yes, that should be accurate). Check with the resume thread if that's an issue as well.

# ¿ Mar 4, 2013 06:42

HiroProtagonist: May 7, 2007

Sarcasmatron posted:

Absolutely do not do this.

Your last position should show the actual dates of employment.

The solution is to have your own business on the side, and keep at least a couple of clients/customers active, then you show an uninterrupted employment history and make a couple hundred bucks a month on the side.

Your Linkedin profile is not your resume.

The purpose of a Linkedin profile is to attract jobs; the purpose of your resume is to give potential employers a representative snapshot of your experience.

Don't confuse the two.

hitension posted:

Whoa, seriously? It's pretty dishonest to say you are still working at your last job when you're not. What happens when your potential new employer calls to check references and the cat comes out of the bag?

Any new potential employer, if they bother to check references at all before you interview with them (or you at least have an opportunity to interact with them in some way) will always ask first, and will be going off of your resume information, not your Linkedin profile.

If a potential employer ~~checks~~contacts your Linkedin references before you hear from them in the first place, generally speaking, you don't want to be working for them.

StarSiren posted:

This seems more accurate.

I use to do freelance photography/videography for weddings, events and short films, but it's something I haven't touched for almost 3 years now (moved across the country and never re-established myself). Would it make sense to maybe list that as my "current" position even though technically I haven't done anything with it recently?

Yes, concerning Linkedin profiles, part-time employment is a great way to fill any perceived gaps in employment. If you can insert anything part-time in order to fill a gap in employment history, my advice is to try and do so.

HiroProtagonist fucked around with this message at 18:22 on Mar 5, 2013

# ¿ Mar 5, 2013 07:22

HiroProtagonist: May 7, 2007

I got an email the other day from Linkedin that said my profile was one of the "top ten percent viewed in 2012" or something of the sort. I imagine it has to do a lot with geographics (given the amount of government contracting that goes on in DC and my profession being heavily involved with business development concerns in that area), but I suppose it still says something.

# ¿ Mar 6, 2013 04:18

HiroProtagonist: May 7, 2007

Defenestration posted:

If anyone is curious the character limit on connection request messages is about 300. I tried to send one to the director at another publishing company and I was ~400 characters over the limit on a 115 word message

So I guess the question is should I super pare this down hardcore or just send a generic invite and message her later if she accepts? Background: I interviewed with her for a job last year, but I did not have the qualifications she wanted. Now I do and I want to explain them a bit and ask her if she'll please keep me in mind for future openings.

Sorry if this is late, but if you have a message you want to send that is in any way more in-depth than "Hey, I'd like to add you to my professional network, please check out my profile" or the like, then definitely make the connection before sending the message.

Even just from what a couple other posters have said, depending on the app/OS that someone uses to access Linkedin, they may not even see any message attached to a connection request.

kansas posted:

Any suggestions for dealing with an impersonal/mostly unknown connection that is asking for me to give their resume to our HR department? I don't want to hand it to HR and either say 'I have no idea if this guy is good' nor vouch for someone I do not know. This person I literally met once at meeting a year ago. Guess I could just say I barely know them and don't feel comfortable giving their info to HR which would be a semi-implicit recommendation.

What do you have to lose? Go ahead and forward their resume, just don't "vouch" for them if you don't feel comfortable doing so. The worst that can happen is that the person doesn't get hired. Who knows, you might luck out and get a nice referral bonus out of the deal if HR decides they want to extend an offer. Forwarding a resume isn't an implicit recommendation, at least to sane people. It's merely a "hey, this person is interested and check out their resume to see if they're qualified for anything we have available."

kansas posted:

Second question, has anyone ever been asked to provide an endorsement (the real kind, not the skill kind) for someone who is really terrible and most certainly does not deserve one?

You owe it to the person requesting it to reply negatively, just to let them know if nothing else. For example, say you were in the reverse position, and a potential job came down to asking for an endorsement from someone who thought you were terrible, just never told you so?

It's possible to phrase a rejection like this in very diplomatic terms; for instance, "I'm comfortable with being listed as a reference, but please make sure it's specific to a certain area," or, "thank you, I appreciate you asking me to be a reference, but I'd prefer if the request was limited to a particular area of expertise."

That'd be the best advice I could give.

koolkal posted:

My favorite part of LinkedIn is getting multiple messages from different recruiters for the same exact position (the description is identical down to spaces) at the same company at different salary ranges that sometimes don't even overlap each other.

I'm very tempted to message the guy at the bottom and point this out to him.

Recruiters working for the same company are always competing, especially when it comes to the same or similar positions (ex: junior level versus senior level positions).

Don't pay it any mind. You're the one in charge of requesting the salary you expect, don't rely on their given ranges as gospel.

Some attention should be paid to the given salary ranges, but you'd be surprised how many hiring managers and recruiters are simply ignorant of the industry that they're recruiting for, and have no idea what a fair salary range is going to be. Rather than waiting for it to self-correct, if you're interested in a job but think the salary is too low, apply anyway and request a 'fair' salary when that time comes. The worst that can happen is the same result as if you never applied in the first place.

e:
Check out the "Growth" tab of Stairmasters. :siren:

NETWORKING :siren:

HiroProtagonist fucked around with this message at 05:09 on Mar 6, 2013

# ¿ Mar 6, 2013 04:54

HiroProtagonist: May 7, 2007

Sarcasmatron posted:

The purpose of my LI profile is to give potential employers a representative snapshot of my experience, so by your definition it most certainly is my resume.

Forbes agrees with me.

There are a number of suggestions for how to deal with this issue. I have yet to see one that suggests saying you are currently employed when you're not. If you've got a link to one, I'd love to see it.

Sorry, I think Forbes is wrong. Based solely on my own experience, a Linkedin profile is not a resume, and being unemployed definitely still carries a stigma to varying degrees. You're free to disagree though. As I said in the OP, everything I've written is based on my own experiences and those whom I've spoken to and advised about their Linkedin profiles.

If nothing else, it simplifies the question considerably to simply leave things as-is until you find a new job.

This is a great article though, I'm going to add it to the OP.

e: I think this is a difference in semantics. By "representative snapshot of your experience," I meant that your profile gives a lesser version of the information in your resume. This is to include "less detail" as well as "less relevant experience." Sorry if that was unclear and caused a miscommunication.

Your resume should always be the definitive and most polished (for the job you're applying for) representation of your professional persona. Linkedin might overtake that some day, but that's not the case yet.

HiroProtagonist fucked around with this message at 06:14 on Mar 6, 2013

# ¿ Mar 6, 2013 05:56

HiroProtagonist: May 7, 2007

hitension posted:

LinkedIn as a website does not encourage adding people you don't know. I'm not sure what industry the OP is in where it's common to do so.

It's not common to a specific industry, it's common to using Linkedin for the purpose of finding a job.

# ¿ Mar 6, 2013 18:52

HiroProtagonist: May 7, 2007

GTGastby posted:

I've got to agree with this guy. No offense to the OP or others in this thread, but I don't see the benefit of adding anyone and everyone you can get to accept your invite. I only accept people I recognize, and only send invitations to people I personally know (although that could just be someone I've emailed with a lot at work).

If everyone was connecting with everyone else indiscriminately, it defeats the whole point of linkedin, and it might as well just be any other job search board. If you don't know the person, are they going to give you a recommendation? As we just saw, it's not likely. So really all it is doing is getting visibility to random recruiters, which from my point of view is more annoying than useful.

There's a marginal benefit to adding other people who use the same message board as you, but I wouldn't recommend adding someone you don't have any connection to at all.

Also, as mentioned, Linkedin also states you should only accept connections if you know the person.

I wrote out in the OP why connections and having more of them is always a good thing. You're looking for visibility to recruiters, and combined with the other activities mentioned in the OP, adding more connections will cause your profile views to balloon.

If you aren't looking to be more visible to recruiters, then this might be the wrong thread for you.

C-Euro posted:

I've had a couple of recruiters that I didn't know accept connections from me, but to be fair we had groups in common between the two of us. Maybe that's the trick.

That absolutely is the trick! See the section about Groups in the OP.

# ¿ Mar 7, 2013 15:04

HiroProtagonist: May 7, 2007

This is turning into a huge derail. Can we end it please? If you don't like the advice given in the op, then don't follow it.

# ¿ Mar 9, 2013 03:50

HiroProtagonist: May 7, 2007

Sarcasmatron posted:

TL;DR: LI is not a vending machine. Build a compelling profile, maximize the size of your network, and recruiters will come to you.

Well said. Going to add this post to the op later.

Perfect summary of the advice I'd give someone myself.

# ¿ Mar 16, 2013 23:01

HiroProtagonist: May 7, 2007

Hughlander posted:

This isn't PYF, so I hope we can't.

Yeah, pretty much. Please don't do mockery here, if you really find a horrible person on Linkedin (and they exist), just take it to PYF instead. I, and others, will see it there and enjoy the hell out of it.

Let's just keep this thread to a more constructive tone.

HiroProtagonist fucked around with this message at 04:23 on Mar 18, 2013

# ¿ Mar 18, 2013 04:21

HiroProtagonist: May 7, 2007

As far as not being able to message admins is concerned, I have no clue, I'm sorry. Does Linkedin show you anything that might give a clue why? I'm having trouble visualizing what you're seeing and it's tough to figure out what the problem might be on my end. It's one of the problems that being the type of person who needs to do hands-on troubleshooting has. :/

But as far as messaging to join the group goes, I think we need a new system, with all of the people who've had trouble with it. Would sending an email verification-type thing, for example, with your SA name and linking your Linkedin profile in the same email, be excessive?

Maybe we should just do away with it entirely. When I approve members, I check to see what industry they're in. So far, nobody in the furniture manufacturing business has popped up, so I assume they're actual goons. It seems like a lot of effort for something that doesn't seem to have been much of an issue so far.

The only other thing that I can think of to be concerned about is marketing shills sniffing out the sweet aroma of a captive audience from a large but insulated community and then joining the group to try and post garbage about their products and services. But if that happens, it's easy enough to fix the immediate problem, and then we could tackle the issue at that point.

And lastly, there's nothing on Linkedin that would directly link anyone there with a specific SA handle anyway. Unless you use the same username or something I guess, but in that case you probably weren't very concerned about it to begin with.

What do you all think? Change the verification method, or nix it entirely?

# ¿ Mar 20, 2013 22:46

HiroProtagonist: May 7, 2007

zmcnulty posted:

Went ahead and made the group open, since I wasn't really screening anyone anyway. And the message/comment thing appears broken. If anyone has issue with this please let me know.

And when I say "open" I just mean that new joiners no longer need approval from a moderator. The group itself remains hidden unless you want to add it to your profile.

Sounds okay to me.

In unrelated news, I have a job again now, and again, thanks to Linkedin!

I applied through the site directly (i.e. no third party job site was linked through the "Apply Now" button). Two rounds of interviews and three rounds of negotiations later and I have a decent salary and a fat incentive package. :toot:

I'm really just saying this because now that my job search is over, if anyone asked for me to critique their profile or asked a question and I never got back to them, please remind me. Odds are that if you feel ignored, I may have just been prioritizing and didn't mean to leave you hanging.

Good luck goons!

# ¿ Mar 22, 2013 06:41

HiroProtagonist: May 7, 2007

What am I missing? It's not clear what we're looking at in the screenshot, to me.

# ¿ Mar 22, 2013 20:30

HiroProtagonist: May 7, 2007

PrivateEyeball posted:

Is there any way to make the "JOBS YOU MAY BE INTERESTED IN" section show jobs that I'm interested in?

I would like to know those specifics too. My job suggestions are fairly targeted, but I also have only joined (a great many) groups that are very relevant to my profession. Even so, I still get suggested jobs that are way outside my level of experience and geographic area from time to time.

I don't know if there's a way to customize it further, but it does serve a purpose of suggesting jobs that you might be interested in but hadn't thought to look for.

I am hoping there is a goon that works as an SEO-type and/or developer for Linkedin somewhere who sees this thread and can offer some insight. I'm not displeased with the way it works right now, but it could really be better, and I'd love to know more specifics about how that particular algorithm works.

My best suspicions are that it primarily looks at the most active groups you're a member of, the geographics of their membership, as well as the keywords hits in your profile. I would also bet that the keywords it prioritizes are those listed as your "specialities" as well as the skills you've been endorsed for. Mainly because I can't think of another more useful purpose for that feature (endorsements).

HiroProtagonist fucked around with this message at 23:21 on Mar 24, 2013

# ¿ Mar 24, 2013 23:17

HiroProtagonist: May 7, 2007

I also ~~edited~~strikeouted it from the OP. Thought I did that already, sorry.

# ¿ Mar 29, 2013 06:31

HiroProtagonist: May 7, 2007

Brian Fellows posted:

I've got a couple of issues that always pop up when using Monster or any of the other job sites, maybe someone here can help me avoid getting the issues on LI. Or at least give me tips in general I guess?

1. I live far away from where I want to work. I've got a degree from the area I want to work in, but whenever I put my resume online tons of recruiters from the area I'm CURRENTLY in and have no interest in staying in email me. My resume and skills sell themselves, but is there any way (short of a blurb in my description, which I don't want my current employers to see) to give an "I'M ONLY INTERESTED IN OPPORTUNITIES IN THIS GEOGRAPHICAL AREA" vibe? Because up to this point 90% of my recruiter traffic I can rule out within 2 seconds.

2. I make more money than someone my age in my field typically does. That gives me two problems... first I'll get into discussions with a recruiter only to find out after talking for half an hour that they're talking about a job with a laughably lower salary, and second I'll get recruiters that'll instantly give up on me when they hear what I'm making now. I'm willing to take a pay cut to move back to where I want to be, but for some reason, throwing out my salary has been a deal-breaker to recruiters up to this point. So what would you guys suggest is the right time to bring up at least my salary range that won't waste anyone's time and won't scare recruiters off immediately?

I might have some advice here, but I need more specifics (where you live, where you want to be, etc.). Feel free to pm me or email.

# ¿ Mar 30, 2013 01:36

HiroProtagonist: May 7, 2007

Doghouse posted:

How do I let it be known that I am looking for a job despite the fact that I am currently employed? The project I am working on is projected to end in a few months.

Don't sweat this. If you're a contract worker, nobody will fault you for it.

DukAmok posted:

Why I mention it, is that I saw a massive spike in profile visits following that. From existing connections, as well as from random people from all over the country. It seemed like common sense that LinkedIn would weight recent profile activity in search results and things like that, but I think I can say pretty conclusively that some quality references on your profile are worth chasing down if you're looking to increase your profile visibility.

Again, apparently like how OKCupid works, Linkedin boosts your visibility depending on how active you are. If you update your profile, it'll push you upwards in search results and activity feeds compared to the baseline (whatever that is).

Brian Fellows posted:

I've got a couple of issues that always pop up when using Monster or any of the other job sites, maybe someone here can help me avoid getting the issues on LI. Or at least give me tips in general I guess?

1. I live far away from where I want to work. I've got a degree from the area I want to work in, but whenever I put my resume online tons of recruiters from the area I'm CURRENTLY in and have no interest in staying in email me. My resume and skills sell themselves, but is there any way (short of a blurb in my description, which I don't want my current employers to see) to give an "I'M ONLY INTERESTED IN OPPORTUNITIES IN THIS GEOGRAPHICAL AREA" vibe? Because up to this point 90% of my recruiter traffic I can rule out within 2 seconds.

2. I make more money than someone my age in my field typically does. That gives me two problems... first I'll get into discussions with a recruiter only to find out after talking for half an hour that they're talking about a job with a laughably lower salary, and second I'll get recruiters that'll instantly give up on me when they hear what I'm making now. I'm willing to take a pay cut to move back to where I want to be, but for some reason, throwing out my salary has been a deal-breaker to recruiters up to this point. So what would you guys suggest is the right time to bring up at least my salary range that won't waste anyone's time and won't scare recruiters off immediately?

I'm still planning to get back to you on this, just so you know. Still gathering info.

# ¿ Apr 4, 2013 05:22

HiroProtagonist: May 7, 2007

Omgbees posted:

And this is another reason I hate recruiters. They BS the candidates into thinking the job is easy, they BS the employer into thinking the candidate is highly skilled.
This works until the two parties meet and they both realize at about the same that the recruiter has taken them both for a ride.

this is a generalization based on my personal experience interviewing recruitment company identified candidates.

I'm sorry for picking on you, but this is such an over-generalized, counter-intuitive and counter-factual statement that there's very little merit to it. I realize you're basing these statements on personal experiences, but in reality, the recruiter has really nothing to gain by lying to either party in any situation.

Actually, I've been meaning to speak up about this issue for a while now, given the bias evident in this thread towards non-contract recruiters. There is absolutely nothing wrong with doing exactly what contingency recruiters (aka "headhunters") are implicated of doing on their end on your end as well; that is, your end as the prospective candidate. The fact is, a recruiter wants to place a candidate in a position. No matter what their angle is, that recruiter doesn't make a dime over any (minimal) salary they're paid for the time they spend trying to get a candidate placed with a company. They are incentivized to use their time to place the best candidates available in the most suitable jobs, whether the agency that employs them are on retainer or are independent.

Your job as the prospective candidate is to throw your resume against the wall, so to speak, towards every recruiter within (digital) earshot, because the more opportunities and choices you have, the more empowered you are as a job-seeker.

A recruiter lying to a candidate about the nature of a job is one thing. If you, as a candidate, can't parse how challenging a job may or may not be, when a recruiter is describing a position to you, directly, you have two options: decline the opportunity, or proceed, and seek more information in an interview with the potential employer.

This is your choice. It's your responsibility to make it. I will always advise job-seekers to schedule either a phone interview or an in-person interview whenever it is feasible, with the in-person interview taking precedence for obvious reasons. You never lose anything from taking an interview request; worst case scenario is that you don't get the job, which is exactly the same as if you declined to interview for it in the first place, or were declined for a interview yourself.

It's as or more likely that if you were sourced as a candidate for a job that you weren't qualified for, it's the fault of the hiring manager(s) or HR department that wrote the job specs for being vague and/or misleading about the qualifications or duties entailed. Don't assume malice when negligence or mere ignorance would suffice for an explanation, in other words.

Secondly, lying to a client is a ludicrous practice, and no recruiting agency or agent would do so because of how incestuous the recruiting community is. The best networkers pass the word around the most efficiently. If a recruiter intentionally misrepresented a candidate hoping to earn a commission, they would quickly be found out, at least by the interview stage if not sooner, and would shortly thereafter end up discredited within the recruiting community, among both individual recruiters, as well as both recruiting agencies and their clients. Word of mouth spreads quickly.

If such a disingenuous recruiter worked for a mid- or large-sized recruiting firm, they'd almost certainly be fired as a result of all the ill-will that would have engendered with the client company, and with the collective pool of potential client agencies as well.

Finally, I want to say that contingency recruiting as a practice isn't inherently malicious, but it is definitely the subjectively speaking "worst case scenario" for any job seekers. That being said, it's generally far better of a situation than the horror stories I'm sure are being taken as "business as usual" for many readers of the thread.

The quality of recruiting agencies in any area will always be dictated by the demand for jobs to be filled. In an area with a constant mixing of the supply of talent, recruiting agencies will always be more professional and more trustworthy, simply because the amount of competition from their peers in that area will ensure that any lapses in judgment will translate into lost revenue and a poor reputation. In areas that are more stagnant and/or in which jobs are more scarce, risky behavior on the part of sourcing consultants will have a lower cost to potential benefit ratio; or, in other words, they have much less to lose. Recruiters are quite mobile, especially from areas with fewer jobs available into areas with more jobs available.

The bottom line is that you, you as the candidate, need to take the job that best suits your wants and needs at any one time, based on your own best judgment. There is no worthwhile reason to value a relationship with a recruiter that takes you outside your comfort zone as far as potential job-seeking goes, but at the same time, it's also your job to make them aware of when they're doing that. Don't ever turn down any opportunities without asking questions.

# ¿ Apr 6, 2013 03:45

HiroProtagonist: May 7, 2007

Doghouse posted:

Man, I am finding it hard to build up connections. I am at 38, and I have some 20 or 30 other invites sent, but at this point I am having a hard time finding anyone else to invite. I am not a recluse or anything, I wonder what I am doing wrong.

A good first step is to join Stairmasters if you haven't already, and send connection requests to everyone in the group. That'll get you pretty well started as the group has ~~close to a thousand~~oops no, more like a bit over 300 members now, if I recall correctly.

HiroProtagonist fucked around with this message at 20:34 on Apr 9, 2013

# ¿ Apr 9, 2013 17:47

HiroProtagonist: May 7, 2007

Doghouse posted:

Really? Goons are cool with this? Wow. That's super useful.

If they're joining Stairmasters, they must be.

It sounds like you're trying to be snarky, so just in case that's not what you intended, it actually is quite difficult for goons unfamiliar with LinkedIn to network effectively. Trying to build a network without any common ground is quite difficult.

# ¿ Apr 10, 2013 06:27

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 07:19

HiroProtagonist: May 7, 2007

OneThousandMonkeys posted:

I'm a little confused at who is taking the piss in this thread now, because IIRC you or someone else did not recommend goon networking.

I recommended not posting your LinkedIn account on the forums or SA user name on LinkedIn unless you wanted the two to be publicly associated. Currently nobody knows who anyone else on LinkedIn is on SA and vice versa unless they did that. It's not a terrible thing but most people probably wouldn't want to do that. I never said anything about networking with goons in general, unless I'm horribly mistaken.

Doghouse posted:

I was not being snarky

No problem, I was just aware of the possibility and it's tough to tell sometimes.

HiroProtagonist fucked around with this message at 20:34 on Apr 10, 2013

# ¿ Apr 10, 2013 20:32

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Business, Finance, and Careers > Job-hunting on Linkedin: Recruiters, Groups and Networking, oh my!

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