Out of the last 30 candidates who's CVs I've sent to a client
- 3 Came from job boards
- 4 Came from Word of Mouth / Referrals
- 8 Came from a LinekdIn job ad
- 15 were headhunted
100% of those 15 headhunted candidates came from LinkedIn, 2/4 of the referrals were made through LinkedIn. As a result - 25/30 of the latest candidates that have been referred to my clients were because of LinkedIn.
In order to get discovered you need to make your profile discoverable. Here is a Do, Don't & Don't Forget list as a basic starting point.
DO:
- Use the "skills" feature
- Include technologies you've sold in your summary and for each company you've worked for
- Include the industry verticals you operate in in your summary and company descriptions
- Set your current location
- If you have a vanity title in your 'headline' put a real comparable title in your summary and company description. E.g. instead of "Client Director" put BDM/New Business Development in there, or for "Associate Director of Client Engagement" put BDM/New Business Development.
- Ask people for recommendations
- Join groups related to the products you sell
- Include more than 1 job you've worked so I can find you by 'past employer' as well as current
- Include contact information (e-mail & phone number)
- Show your full name
- Specify a relevant industry ("Computer Software" as opposed to "Information Technology Services")
- Put more than 2 roles in "current", 3 AT MOST if you run multiple businesses, even then I would advise against
- Crowd your profile with keywords repeated so many times that you jump to the top of search results - I skip past these profiles
- Put only your current job on your profile
- Hide your name or put only your last initial, and certainly don't be an 'anonymous' user
- Set your current location to just "Australia", make sure you set your CITY as well otherwise I will certainly miss you in searches
- Set your industry as your client's industry (although if your objective is using linked in for new business development in a very specific vertical I could see good reasons for doing this)
- Crowd your profile with every industry you've sold in and every technology you've ever sold. Put the skill you have the most recent experience in
- To change your profile's "headline" when you change companies
- To change your "Company Website" when you change companies
- To include your contact information
- To include 'details' about the role you had at each company, including which technology you sold
- To add skills
- To re-arrange the order of your profile to put the most relevant information at the top (in my case, my contact details)
Are you trying to change your specialisation? how about your location? what about a complete career change? LinkedIn is a great tool for doing that. Recruiters on the other hand are not. I'm in the job of headhunting - finding people who sell the same product to the same industry but are looking for more money, a bigger territory, a better product, a smaller (or bigger) company, a better boss, etc.
I can't help you become a sales person, I can't help you change industry, I can't help you change specialisation, and I can't help you do anything other than what you have experience doing. And most of the time I can't even help someone move city, let alone move country.
With that said your LinkedIn profile won't "trick" me into interviewing you. If it does I'll quickly find out I can't help you and you'll have wasted both my time and yours. It's fine to put "looking to make a move into sales", or "looking to move to the IT industry", there might be someone out there who can help you. There might even be a recruiter who's specific brief was to find someone out of the industry or not in sales. But this falls outside the realm of most headhunters. In my case I can help you make a small step up, but not a step sideways.
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