This post originally ran over on my blog in April, but I think it is one that is important for our Discovering Social community to read. Enjoy!
One of the greatest advantages of using Linkedin in a job search is the ability to be found by recruiters. Linkedin offers a perfect place for job seekers to do both outbound and inbound marketing. It offers a free webpage for job seekers to display their skills and expertise. I believe it is a no-brainer these days for job seekers to be active on Linkedin.
In order for recruiters to contact a job seeker through Linkedin, they have to do one of the following things.
Send them a connection request and wait for the job seeker to accept.
Send them an inmail of which many recruiters have limited amounts of and wait for the individual to respond.
Send them a direct email or call them immediately because the job seeker had their contact info listed in their profile.
I’ll give you three guesses on which we prefer.
When recruiters want candidates, they want them now. When recruiters are direct sourcing for open roles, they want to get viable candidates in front of the hiring manager as soon as possible. If I search Linkedin and find a candidate whose background looks to be a fit and they have their email, or better yet, a phone number listed on their profile for even their non-connections to see, I will reach out immediately. This gets the entire ball rolling much faster for both me and them.
So where do you put it? LinkedIn is getting tougher with it’s user agreements and cracking down on those who seem to be using the system outside of what LinkedIn intended it to be used for so you do have to be careful. Putting it in your name field is no longer allowed and putting it in your headline is strongly discouraged. LinkedIn has started suspending accounts who are doing these things.
There are two great places I suggest putting it. The first is in your summary. After you describe who you are and what you can do put a simple line in their about how to contact you. The other is in the Additional Info section. Here it gives you a place where you can leave “advice for getting in touch with you”. You can put your preferred method of contact and then give the information people need to contact you. If you are uncomfortable putting out your real information, you can use a dummy email that you only use for your job search or a Google voice number that is only used for your job search.
In addition to adding your contact info, if you are a job seeker who is actively searching and want people to know it, your resume should be attached to your LinkedIn profile. This obviously gives recruiters an easy way of contacting you, but it also gives them the chance to find out more detail about your job history before they even pick up the phone.
Recruiters are searching social media for candidates. Candidates should absolutely have online presences geared towards their job search. You can have the best profile in the world, rich with keywords and a great picture, but if you make it hard to be contacted then you could be missing out on great opportunities.