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Spring Cleaning Your Network
Set yourself up for success and keep your network warm so during rainy days, you will be able to reach out for support. From current and past colleagues, to individuals in associations, you have a ton of people in your network, you may just not have thought about them until you needed to. We can find ourselves in situations we never imagined, so building and organizing your network will have positive benefits allowing you to leverage a sea of warm and cool connections to potentially lead to new, exciting opportunities.
{ LinkedIn + Facebook }
Since we cannot attend networking events in-person with the current social distancing guidelines, then social platforms like LinkedIn and Facebook are useful tools for you to use to build and maintain your networks. When on LinkedIn, you can click “My Network” to view people you may know from the companies you listed you worked for, the schools you attended, places you volunteered, as well as people in your same industry and similar roles. You can also create a group and add people to it that share similar interests and roles. This is a great way to keep your networks engaged and organized.
{ Warm + Cool Connections }
Another opportunity for organizing your network is to list connections as warm or cool prospects by looking at the strength of each connection in order to determine which they are. This is a great way to see who your low-hanging fruit is, and then continue strengthening those relationships. It also gives insight as to who you need to a build a stronger connection with depending on your needs and wants at the time. By organizing your network, you may begin to see a lack of needed associates that you can then focus on building strong and collaborative connections, so set solid goals for what you wish to attain.
{ Consolidate + Label }
We have an umpteen amount of contacts stored in our phone, email (many of us have multiple email addresses), Rolodex of business cards, and all the social platforms we’re connected with. It is super helpful to consolidate all your contacts into one document and organize them into categories in the document for when you need to do some outreach to your network. You will know who the best is to contact for what if things are labeled correctly. It’s time consuming and unproductive to search through all your tools to find someone’s contact information, when you can save time and have everything stored safely and neatly in one place. And lastly, save as you go! Set yourself up to achieve and turn on “auto-save” so that you never lose any work, or even better, connect it to your Cloud so you can access the information from anywhere and on any device that has Internet capabilities.
Maximize Your LinkedIn Profile and Get Noticed
We are in a candidate-driven market, yet some job seekers are experiencing challenges landing a job… or even getting a response. In the age of online career portals and applicant tracking systems, enhancing your LinkedIn profile may increase your digital visibility.
Taking these 5 simple steps will have recruiters reaching out to you, and hey, you may land your dream job:
Maximize your Headline real estate.
The Headline on LinkedIn appears right under your profile pic. It is prime real estate for your career focus, job title or skills. Here is where it’s fully acceptable to call yourself a “Creative Ninja”.
Your Headline gives a quick snapshot of who you are on LinkedIn via a few well-chosen keywords. It is also how recruiters and companies search for you. It is very important to have the job title that you are interested in somewhere in your Headline so that recruiters can find you when they source candidates.
There are numerous ways to format your LinkedIn Headline. While some people put their exact job title and the company they work for as theirs, others list their key skills or traits. For example, a basic Headline could read, “Designer at XYZ” versus a skills-based Headline could read, “Pattern maker, Flat sketcher, and Fashion Disruptor who is passionate about Innovation and Design”. Both examples work; but if you want to stand out of the crowd, use a unique Headline that draws people in and makes them want to click your page and read more about you.
Set Your Industry and Career Interests.
In addition to recruiters using keywords, job titles and headlines to search for qualified candidates, they also source using the Industry and Career Interests filters. Setting these filters, is often a one-time task.
Whichever industry you are looking to work in, set that as your Industry so the right recruiter can find your profile. This will not only save yourself time, but also save the recruiter time as well. It is a win-win for both.
Another section to review is Career Interests. Are you looking for a full or part time role? Remote or onsite? Permanent or temporary? Let your preferences be known. Recruiters often search for candidates based on Career Interests. So, set yourself up for success in the job search by telling recruiters what your skills are and what type of work you want.
Turning on the Open to Opportunities function will allow people searching LinkedIn to find, recruit, and ultimately, hire you.
To learn more about setting your LinkedIn Career Interests and turning on the Open to Opportunities function, visit; https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/67405?lang=en_US
Add Relevant Jobs, Education, and Volunteer Experience.
Now that you have created a unique Headline that explains to people who you are professionally, and have set your Industry and Career Interests, now it is time to add all relevant roles, education and volunteer experiences. Recruiters will often search LinkedIn by specific job title. They will narrow their search for candidates who currently, or in the past, have the same job title. Therefore, if you are applying for a job, make sure that job titles can be found on your profile. Recruiters may also search for specific degrees, schools or higher education. So, if you have a degree, list it. If you have certifications, list those, too.
Check your LinkedIn Inbox daily.
If you are a current job seeker and actively applying for open roles, then it is important to check your inbox for replies from recruiters. There are times when we have received a reply from a candidate asking to set up an interview months after we emailed them about the job. Time is an important factor in the field of recruiting and job seeking, so if you are on the job hunt then act with a sense of urgency and have open and fast communication.
Your LinkedIn profile should reflect your professional brand.
Your LinkedIn profile is about your career history and your experiences which brought you to where you are now. Perhaps you are a growing Designer or a powerhouse Creative Director. Your LinkedIn Profile is a great place to broadcast your professional brand and when an employer or recruiter visits your LinkedIn profile, your professional brand should stand out. For example, if you are looking for a job as Creative Director, your page should showcase the titles, skills, dates and experiences you have had in that capacity. As always, the information on LinkedIn should closely match the information on your current resume.
The five bits of advice above are a great starting point for getting yourself more noticed on LinkedIn, and in hope, have recruiter’s and companies reach out to you about jobs. Should you continue to apply for jobs that you’re interested in? Definitely! The advice we provided are great ways to add to your job search and garnish greater visibility on LinkedIn so that you do not exhaust yourself with submitting application after application with no results.
About Emerging Blue:
Emerging Blue is a creative talent resource partner that represents freelance, temp-to-perm, and full-time talent in Fashion, Home and Beauty. We fill jobs from San Francisco to New York, and everywhere in-between. We represent top candidates, the hottest brands and innovative companies of all shapes and sizes. If you need recruitment and hiring support, we would love to partner with you. Our talent is your strength.