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Make sure your LinkedIn profile is pristine
Work on your profile exactly as you would treat your CV. This means: Don’t stop at listing your work experience. Add a summary of your main responsibilities and achievements that were specific to each role.
Follow LinkedIn’s profile guidelines, as well. Whether or not your CV includes a personal bio (and we recommend that it does), you should include a well-wrought by-line to give recruiters a snapshot of how you see yourself.
Crosscheck your profile with your CV
Recruiters will read your profile as if they were reading your CV – even if you have the option to attach a resume, your profile is most likely seen first. If the profile doesn’t match your attached resume, we might be left wondering which one is the most up-to-date!
Use LinkedIn as a reflection of your business personality
Look at who and what you follow on LinkedIn – do these represent you as a businessperson or do they rather represent your personal interests? Follow organisations that are relevant to your professional interests as well as companies of general interest. Include recruiters as well. This will complete the picture of who you are and what you stand for and will also help the platform to show you content relevant to your fields of interest.
We also recommend following relevant hashtags. These can ensure your “news feed” on LinkedIn will show interesting job posts, thus saving you from manually searching for them each time you use the platform.
Make use of LinkedIn’s features
Consider listing your LinkedIn profile as “Open to Work” if you can be open about it. This feature lets employers, recruiters and your network know that you are looking for a new job.
Complete the Skills & Endorsements section, and encourage your colleagues to rate you (a nice way to do this is to rate them for the skills you feel they are good at). People who fill out their profile, including skills, are likely to get more profile views from recruiters looking for the same keywords. (Which reminds us: Have you set your profile to public?
So many candidates forget about this but we just can’t see you if you’re invisible!)
Show an interest in the recruitment agency
If you’re direct messaging a recruitment agency or company recruiter on LinkedIn, add a human touch! Have you looked at their website? Do you know what they do? What do you like about their approach? What other jobs are they advertising for? How about their LinkedIn profile – do you find their message interesting?
And please, please, tailor your message to them so that they can tell you haven’t just shot a templated message over that has gone to 50 other recruiters!
Be patient – reading applications takes a long time
At Aldrich & Co, we can’t always reply to LinkedIn applicants unless they appear to be the correct fit for a role. It can take up to a month for recruiters to go through applications, so we recommend extending your job search if you haven’t heard back in four weeks. Never wait around to hear about a job – in the time you wait, you might miss a new opportunity!
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If you see a role you like, by all means apply for it on LinkedIn, but remember you have options that could get you noticed faster! To increase your chances of being seen, we recommend visiting the recruiter’s website or even calling them to learn more about the position. You might be able to apply directly to the consultant in charge of that particular role.