Building a network of like-minded professionals in your dream job field can be quite a challenge. Between differences in approach and general stiffness around forming connections in the workplace, it’s no wonder most job-seekers stick to close friends and family when gathering referrals, recommendations, and references. What if I told you there is a better, easier way to expand your connections while protecting your privacy and professionalism? LinkedIn is a fantastic way to supplement your standard friends and family network. With a few simple tweaks and a little bit of effort, LinkedIn can help grow your network, reference pool, and–most importantly– job opportunities.
Maximize Your LinkedIn Profile
LinkedIn is organically designed to connect you with professionals at all levels of organizational hierarchy in whichever job industry you choose. The key to tapping into LinkedIn’s streamlined networking process is maximizing your individual profile. You want to put your best foot forward, showcase your strengths, attract connections in your preferred job field, and highlight your training and education.
First, tend to the basics. Choose a professional, well-lit, uncropped photo of yourself from the shoulders up for your profile image. A good profile photo can make the difference between forming connections, receiving responses, or being ignored. Craft a unique, work-related headline with applicable, naturally-placed keywords and follow it up with a concise, yet encompassing summary of your professional story, career history, and goals. Fill out your work history completely, taking care to emphasize the measurable impact you had in each role you held. LinkedIn will carefully guide you through the completion of your profile – listen to their suggestions and ensure the progress bar fills to 100% before you start requesting connections.
Strategize Your LinkedIn Connections
Out of all the social media accounts we use every day to connect with friends and family all over the world, LinkedIn is not (and should not be) one of them. LinkedIn isn’t like Instagram or Facebook, where vacation photos and dinner recipes reign over all the newsfeeds and connections are based on personal interests over professional goals. To make the most of your LinkedIn account, you need to strategize your connections. This means instead of following your Great Aunt Tilly, you’re connecting to leaders and potential coworkers in your dream job industry. Instead of publicly “liking” an article that talks about how to grow the best tomatoes, you’re engaging with articles that focus on your career path and individual goals as a rising expert in your field.
Try strategizing your connections search by filtering on job titles, workplaces, and departments. Focus on people you’ve worked with before or want to work with in the future. Play into LinkedIn’s algorithm by engaging with like-minded articles, content, and people within your career target. You want to devote most of your attention to connections and resources that will further your career and allow you to progress through your goals and ideal job roles. Save the personal connections and interests for your personal social media accounts. LinkedIn is intended to be an extension of your own, self-encompassing workplace; brand yourself by strictly engaging with the people, places, and topics that best pertain to your professional goals.
Optimize Your LinkedIn Communication Style
Once you’ve formed some good connections in the job field of your choice, it’s time to level up your networking skills with some creative, well-placed conversation. LinkedIn is a great place to find mentors, job shadowing opportunities, internships, informational interview opportunities, and training suggestions. By clearly and strategically communicating your goals with other professionals in your field, you’ll increase your chances of capitalizing on unique growth opportunities.
Start by educating yourself about the role or goal you’re hoping to attain. Approaching professionals on LinkedIn about mentorships and shadowing can be intimidating, but by arming yourself with a library of organization-specific knowledge, you’ll have a solid base of information to pull from while reaching out. This helps your cause two-fold, first by giving you a series of conversation starters, and second by showing your potential mentor you’ve done your homework. There’s nothing busy professionals hate more than wasting time answering easy questions!
Once you have good foundational knowledge about the person, place, and role you wish to elicit support from, outline your request on LinkedIn using simple, polite, accommodating terms. Highlight your flexibility, offer to fulfill any requests they may have, and above all, show respect and gratuity for their time. Stay concise and to the point, focusing as much as you can on how the time you spend together will ultimately benefit their job or organization.
Sometimes LinkedIn connections simply don’t have the bandwidth for shadowing, mentoring, or conducting informational interviews. Don’t take rejections to heart! LinkedIn is a wide, vast world that provides access to nearly 800 million workplace professionals. Pivot your communication from, “Can you help me?” to“How can I better help you?” Inquire about training suggestions, educational opportunities, and ways to better position and align yourself with their needs. Ask for referrals to other connections or organizations they recommend. Declinations don’t mean the doors of opportunity are permanently closed, they simply mean you need to try another room.
LinkedIn is a simple, low-risk way of building your network and connecting to the people and organizations that mean the most to your professional goals. Seize the opportunities within your LinkedIn platform by building out your profile, staying strategic with your connections, and optimizing your communication style. Unsure where to begin or how to make the most of your LinkedIn profile’s features? Zoetic Resume and Writing Services specializes in transforming your LinkedIn account into a standout element of your career marketing campaign. By building out your profile with keywords and perfectly-worded content, Zoetic aligns your profile to recruiter searches, connection opportunities, and job offers. Reach out to Zoetic Resume and Writing Services here and let’s chat about building your network with a clean, professionally-built LinkedIn profile.