Monday, January 2, 2012

go with the flow


Batman had Robin          --          The Lone Ranger had Tonto          --          Maverick had Goose

What do we have? LinkedIn. Yes, Constant Online Reader, I said LinkedIn. It's our pal, our support, our access to takin' care-o-business. We are once again looking at LinkedIn.

[come on, this is an online job search blog. how do we not talk about linkedin a zillion times?]

Lets combine the conversation about video webcasts and this months topic of LinkedIn. I recently found out that LinkedIn does a free webinar about maximizing your LinkedIn profile for job search purposes. In advance, I will say that I feel this webinar is offered to promote one of LinkedIn's products - Job Seeker Premium. Shameless promotion aside, there is still value to be had in this 60 minute shake down. Here's a few of my take aways (and no, once more, I do not work for LinkedIn):
  • There's 120 million professionals using LinkedIn.
  • There are 1 million company profiles. 
  • For employer and search engine purposes - your profile must contain key words, key words, key words. Can't say it enough - KEY WORDS! Your profile needs to be content rich with the language of your industry and desired position. You will be indexed and ranked accordingly.
  • Check out the competition. Search for your doppelgangers at other companies and see how they are positioning themselves. Strive to be the key word/content king of the castle.
  • The presenter shared that the standard for community engagement on LinkedIn is to comment and connect at least one to three times weekly. 
There's more to mention but really that's what the free webinar is for - so have at it.