Saturday, August 4, 2012

Job Seekers and LinkedIn

by Mary Salvino

There is a rumour being bantered about that says that LinkedIn is fast replacing the traditional résumé as the tool you need to be using to if you want to impress hiring managers.  

Fast Facts about LinkedIn [as of March 12, 2012]:
  • LinkedIn boasts a membership of 161M professionals around the world
  • LinkedIn is currently available in seventeen languages
  • Sixty-one percent of LinkedIn members are located outside of the United States
  • LinkedIn members include executives from all 2011 Fortune 500 companies
  • Both Fortune 100 and Fortune 500 companies use LinkedIn as part of their corporate hiring solutions
  • LinkedIn members share insights and knowledge in more than one million LinkedIn Groups
  • More than 2 million companies have LinkedIn Company Pages
  • Companies are taking advantage of the platform via the hundreds of thousands of job applications that have been submitted using Apply With LinkedIn

Fast Facts for Job Seekers:
  • Your competition is likely to be one of the hundreds of thousands of job applications have been submitted using Apply With LinkedIn
  • People use LinkedIn, as well as other social media platforms, to discover pertinent information about their peers, their competition, industry trends, and potential employees
  • A profile on LinkedIn is on the cusp of becoming a social convention akin to having a ‘professional’ e-mail address i.e. one that incorporates your name
  • The formatting of the LinkedIn profile allows hiring managers to compare ‘apples to apples’ almost on a line-by-line basis
  • LinkedIn profiles provides a venue for people to find out useful or interesting facts about people and potential candidates that may not appear on their résumé
  • A profile on LinkedIn provide can people with talking points they can use during both networking events and job interview situations - These talking points can include common interests, career paths, fellow alumni, current and/or former fellow employees and people whom both parties know.
A LinkedIn profile may not be a résumé, but it is certainly a proactive online persona and it lets job candidates say to the world, “Here are some things about me and my job history you might find interesting.”

Even though many recruiters now skip the job boards altogether and proactively search on LinkedIn for passive candidates, the traditional résumé is not dead.  Regardless of if you are actively or passively looking for a job, it behoves you to keep all of your marketing channels open and optimized.


Copyright © 2012, Career Matters. All Rights Reserved. Permission to Reprint: This article may be reprinted, provided it appears in its entirety with the following attribution: Copyright © 2012, Career Matters. Reprinted by permission of the author, Mary Salvino. “Career Matters” is a blog authored by Mary Salvino, Senior Consultant for SMART Career Planning.com that is dedicated to those who are seeking advice on managing their career and future job opportunities. We welcome readers to share their experiences, post their comments or ask questions about career related matters. This blog is also dedicated to those who stand a little taller each time they picked themselves up after failing and those who gained the wisdom and humility from those experiences to help others do the same. For any questions or comments that are better addressed privately, please feel free to e-mail Mary directly at Mary.Salvino@shaw.ca

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