Marketing Me: Using Linked In For Job Search

With the economy in the hopper, more job seekers are turning the Internet for their job search.

Now some will go to Monster or Dice, fill out a form, and start submitting their pared down resume to whoever is hiring and whatever company has an opening.

Against my past advice, sometimes this may work - but it is not that effective, especially when competing against thousands of other workers.

Web 2.0 social networks are one way to expand your personal network and employment visibility. The problem is job seekers are often reaching out to others online they have no prior relationship with.

Linked In is a great resource because it has thousands of members with thousands of companies. However, too many job seekers jump on the Linked In bandwagon after they have been let go or when they are desperate to leave their current company.

By using Linked In and other social networks, job seekers won't have to do the Linked In shuffle at the last minute.

Use Linked In for your job search, but use it wisely.

Unless you have an advanced membership, it is next to impossible to join networks with persons you do not know. However, there are ways to get to know others with whom you do not have a network connection.

Use Linked In Answers - If you find a contact on Linked In who is associated with an opportunity you are interested in, follow their profile and see if they are placing any answers in Linked In Answers. Do the same and attempt to build a relationship.

Use Linked In Groups - Regardless of contacts, job seekers should always join Linked In groups which focus on their specialty or professional interests. Join groups, communicate and reach out to fellow members.

Use Profile - Your Linked In Profile has features which helps others find you. Fill out the keywords related to your job search (i.e. top wireless sales executive, successful headhunter for the Java programmer, etc.). Complete your profile with pictures and comments. Publish your web profile and bookmark it with Delicious, Stumbler, etc. Build back links to your profile so search engines and searchers can find you.

Linked In can be a great resource, but be careful not to abuse it or use Linked In incorrectly.

May your job search be successful!

Marketing Me: The Linked In Activity Blur

You can always tell when someone is worried about their job at work.

You get the Linked In Activity Blur.

What happens is a flurry of activity on their Linked In account. Suddenly they are adding five or six new contacts a day. Their profile is updated and tweaked. You get updates on their Linked In account every day.

The same thing happens with their Facebook account as well. A bunch of happy "guess what I am up to messages" start flying across their profile. Anything to get the word out about what they are doing.

Your Linked In and Facebook and Plaxo accounts should always be updated all the time anyway.

Further, your social network profiles should have lots of keywords which are relevant to what you want to do as well as what you have done.

And your profiles should always include accomplishments which are in demand right now. Learning 10-key is not very lucrative this year, but busting revenue goals is.

Marketing Me! Tuesday marklets

Generally, short pithy posts are saved on blogs for Fridays. But with as busy as I have been lately, we are doing a Tuesday roll out.

LinkedIn Answers - Do you participate? Have you tried? I think Answers is a fine way to build your personal brand name. The more you answer, the higher your profile is ranked and exposed to your fellow LinkedIn'ers.

Another thing I have noticed on your LinkedIn home page the "Who has viewed my profile?" feature? I mentioned this last year as a "want" for my LinkedIn list. This feature, albeit much richer, is available on MyBlogLog and seems like an afterthought for LinkedIn.

But the profile view is a fun tool. Couple of things: I wish we could add photos to LinkedIn (can we? Paging LinkedIn expert Jason Alba at Jibber Jobber). It would also be nice if we could add more than three links to our profile or Answers.

Finally, LinkedIn overkill, do you tag your LI profile with del.icio.us? You should. And StumbleUpon as well.

Speaking of StumbleUpon, do you use it? If so, wouldn't it be nice if SU showed the popularity of channels. I bet Wiccan is not as popular as Business, but we wouldn't know would we? The reason I ask is when I submit my personal brand sites, I would like to know the best channels and keywords to optimize.

I set up a profile on FastPitch but have yet to update it. Besides the emails, what are your thoughts on this service? Is it as good as they say?

Article marketing (submitting self authored articles to directories and web sites for personal brand recognition) is one of my favorite guerrilla methods to Market Me.

Digg is always listed as one of the top submission sites, but take a look at the home page for Digg. Nearly everything is OS, Linux, Mac, IT or politics related. Even the submission channels are limited.

Want to get on the first page of Digg? Submit an article lambasting George Bush for cheating AdSense with a hacked Windows server. Betcha that will put you up front.

My but I had some interesting feedback about the 3 Hour Parent yesterday. If only people would comment instead of emailing. How about some comments on this stuff?

Let's get out and kick it today. Let's bring in that big sale, arrange that meeting or finish that project today. I don't know why it seems urgent today, but the clock is ticking and I want to take it up a notch.

Happy hunting!

Marketing Me! Friday snippets

A busy week with work has me struggling for blogging time, but Marketing Me! will not suffer!

LinkedIn - Have you seen Barack Obama question on LinkedIn?

1) It won't matter what your answer was - 1300+ the last time I checked! This was some skillful, but small scale political posturing. Expect to see more of this on other Web 2.0 sites.

2) Several complaints about politics on LinkedIn from users; "Isn't this site for networking and work, only and not politics?" is the general gripe. Haven't heard about anyone canceling their membership though.

Speaking of LinkedIn, check out Jason Alba's new book. Jason runs Jibber Jobber! which is also a neat site.

Things I have learned being in sales..

1) Silence is golden. Listen to your prospects, spouse, friends, etc when they are talking, nothing is more powerful. Also, when "debating" any subject, silence has more power than any argument. Make your point, shut up.

2) Persistence counts. Call, visit and write. Often. People reward persistence and hard work.

3) You don't get anything in life without asking first.

Have a great weekend, and happy hunting!

LinkedIn IPO - One problem..

Great article on Bloomberg about Web 2.0 companies, VC money, M&A and all the other hububbling W'Street loves.

What is not to love? W2.o companies are exploding and many actually have real revenue streams (Exceptions abound - Meebo $80M valuation vs 5M revenue? Zoiks!).

Allegedly, the article hints that LI may IP later this year...

" LinkedIn Corp., a networking site for more than 9 million business professionals, plans to keep expanding and eventually take a bow on Wall Street with an IPO -- a milestone for a Web 2.0 company. .."

Problems.

1) No customer support - I have sent an email a day to LinkedIn to remedy my email and Answer problem. One vague answer and then, nada.

2) Stagnant UI - W2.0 means changes and beta tests and test users and constantly experimenting with newer and groovier features. LI is essentially stagnant. Nothing new with the exception of Answers (which has been done already by Google and Yahoo and a bunch of others).

3) Revenue - YouTube had network TV and movie release deals. What is LinkedIn's revenue stream besides a) some users subs paying for advanced services and b) Google ads? Anything pending with Monster? Maybe an exec recruiting deal with F500 companies? How can one further monetize all those users in a recognizable and unique way.

I beat up on LinkedIn (because they won't answer my emails - sheesh) but I really like the service.

Make it better. And maybe that IPO will soar.





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LinkedIn Wish List

I was just looking at my cluttered LinkedIn homepage. Which actually is not a home page because I cannot modify it to my liking. I get what they give me. For free so who is complaining.

Which brings up my real quick LinkedIn Wish List for this afternoon.

1) I want to modify my landing page. Arrange the widgets, customize them, choose another background, font type.

2) I want an IM client with other people in my network.

3) I want pictures in my profile. A head shot for instance.

4) I want a blog space available in my profile.

5) I want down loadable business cards. Wait, I think that is available.

6) I want IM with customer support at LinkedIn.

7) I want to remove people from my network because their information is not longer current and they don't bother to login and update it.

8) I want some of the ad revenue from my profile page.

9) I would like to see some a reward program related to LinkedIn usage - like how come contacts are not like frequent flier miles? The more I use LinkedIn and add contacts the more valuable the application becomes and I become to the application.

10) I would like Customer Support to please answer my email and fix my ability to send emails and answer/ask questions!

Time: 7 minutes to post!

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