Many of our career coaching clients are making the mistake of a) not using the internet to find a job or b) using the internet inappropriately to find a job.
Some clients don’t have LinkedIn profiles; others have weak ones that don’t show potential employers their skills and what they might be able to offer. A lot of new clients talk to us about all the job searching they’ve done on the internet, and how all these hours have lead to nothing. Most of the time, those people are doing it all wrong.
I saw this great article on Harvard Business Review’s website – “How to Curate Your Own Personal Job Feed” that gives specific advice on how to use the internet effectively. It’s an article part of the series “The New Rules for Getting a Job”.
Read more here: http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/03/how_to_curate_your_own_persona.html
I encourage you to follow through with everything discussed in this article. These are the same tips we give to our clients, specifically her advice on using LinkedIn:
LinkedIn, unlike Twitter, is entirely focused on professional networking so there is no need to separate your job hunting activity. Your starting point for finding listings on LinkedIn is under the “Jobs” tab in the top navigation. At first glance, LinkedIn’s Jobs feature appears similar to other job boards in your ability to search by various criteria, but it offers another important element: the ability to search jobs based on how connected you are to the employer. After filling out your criteria on LinkedIn’s Advanced Search page, you’ll receive a list of results along with, on the left side of your screen, a list of ways to refine your search. When you refine by “relationship,” you can see job postings based on whether you have first, second, or third degree LinkedIn connections into that organization. This is crucial information for determining whether you might be able to ask someone in your network to personally introduce you to the hiring manager or recruiter at that organization.
In addition to searching LinkedIn’s job listings, check out LinkedIn Groups, which also feature job posting areas. Go to LinkedIn’s Group Directory and seek out groups for your industry or other niches. Then, for each group you join, click on the “Jobs” tab within that group. If the group is private, these postings won’t appear in a general Google search, so you may find opportunities that aren’t posted elsewhere.
To add these LinkedIn opportunities to your daily “rounds,” opt in to receive daily job alerts (available from LinkedIn’s main Jobs page) and to receive daily group digest emails from each group to which you belong.
Source: http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/03/how_to_curate_your_own_persona.html
One last important note: While networking online is a good idea, nothing beats networking in-person. Make sure to get out from behind your computer and network!
Hallie Crawford
Certified Career Coach
P.S. Is your dissatisfaction a passing phase or a sign it’s time to move on? Find out if you’re in the right career. Take our free Ideal Career Quiz today!
