The chances are that if you’ve looked for work at any point in the last five years, you’ll have used LinkedIn in some way or another.
With 810 million users worldwide, 57 million companies listed and 24 million jobs open at any one time, LinkedIn is a must-have for jobseekers. 87% of recruiters say that they use LinkedIn regularly, opening doors for jobseekers the world over.
Here in Australia, a whopping 65% of Australia’s work-age population (16-64 year olds) have a LinkedIn profile, and within white-collar work especially, LinkedIn is extensively used.
With so many users it can be difficult to stand out from the crowd. Sure, you’ve got a professional head shot as your profile photo, have filled out your employment history and have listed all your qualifications and achievements. But what else can you do to make prospective employers notice you?
LinkedIn is constantly bringing out new features that make the platform more tailored and easier to use. Here’s a run down of how to supercharge your LinkedIn profile using these features.
Open to Opportunities
If you are open to new job opportunities, LinkedIn provides a feature to let others know that. If you select ‘Open to finding a new job’, a banner gets added to your profile photo and other users will be able to identify you as actively job seeking.
You get the option to specify the job roles that you are interested in, and which locations and job types (permanent or contract, remote etc.) work best for you.
You’ll also have the option to either only allow recruiters to see that you are open to work, or to allow your whole LinkedIn network to see. This is a good way to show recruiters that you are open to conversations about new work options whilst you are still employed.
Featured Posts
This section of your LinkedIn profile allows you to highlight examples of your work that you are most proud of.
Any posts that you have authored, shared, articles you have authored on LinkedIn, or external media, documents and links can be added to the featured post section of your profile.
This is an excellent way of showing a bit of your professional identity on the platform, to tell other users what you represent and what is important to you.
Recommendations
Having recommendations on your LinkedIn profile is an excellent way of showing other users the wonderful traits you have as an employee without having to tell them yourself. With a few good recommendations on your profile, a prospective employer will feel that they know and trust you.
Ask for recommendations from a previous manager or person of influence who has benefitted from your hard work. If you’re searching for roles with a particular skill set, ask the referee to mention those skills in the recommendation. You can use colleague-to-colleague recommendations too, although they’ll have less clout. Aim for three recommendations.
Reactions
One of the best ways to get noticed on LinkedIn is by being an active user. That is – you comment, like and share other user’s posts, and publish your own.
LinkedIn has made engaging with posts more personal by bringing in a range of ‘like’ options. If you hover over the like button, you’ll see that you also have the option to express the emotions ‘celebrate’, ‘support’, ‘love’, ‘insightful’ or ‘curious’.
Depending on your privacy settings, these reactions can be visible to second and third degree connections (definitions here) which means that the more you engage with others, the higher the likelihood that your profile will appear in a recruiter’s feed.
So there you have it! A host of new features to supercharge the noticeability of your LinkedIn profile.
If you don’t have a LinkedIn profile and are creating one from scratch, check out our 2016 blog which will take you through the basic steps to creating a great LinkedIn profile.
About Kinexus
Kinexus supports defence industry nationally, both through permanent and contract recruitment, and through providing workforce insights, market mapping and other HR services. Looking for work and interested in exploring opportunities in defence industry? Get in touch with our team or take a look at our open vacancies.
Kinexus Melbourne has moved!
We’ve left our long term office on Collins St and have moved to Level 2, 8 Market St, Melbourne VIC 3000. To get in touch with our Melbourne team call 03 9982 0300.
Photo by mostafa meraji on Unsplash
