Thursday, 8 August 2013

Branding and Positioning Yourself in LinkedIn to Land Yourself a Job



LinkedIn is a great tool for branding and positioning to land yourself a job… Here is what you need to do:

Be Personal 

This keyword today guides the strategies of anyone who wants to optimize his CV, improve his contacts, increase visibility, and let him be recognized for his expertise. Thanks to the new features, and millions of users, LinkedIn is a perfect tool for PersonalBranding and meets exactly this specific need, allowing you to manage more proactively through 360-degree career development. The profile now resembles mini-site staffs, which orchestrates actions that are more contemporary and let you choose how to promote yourself in a better way, to tell your stories and engage readers of the professional profile.

It is Your Brand!

Take full responsibility to promote yourself! Since you are communicating with yourself, so speak in the first person, maintain such consistency in all sections of the profile, and enter an E-mail or a telephone number in order for people to get in touch with you. 

Rather than highlighting, what is written in your Curriculum Vitae, Instead use LinkedIn to tell your professional story, choose words that express the passion and enthusiasm you put into what you care for. Take advantage of the Headlines, which is the most important section that most frequently appear in search results and market your brand in a positive way.

Furthermore, it clarifies your professionalism, even in different facets. The impact is certainly much more interesting if you add a short phrase guide that clarifies your job, your career goal, and what benefits you will provide to those who will work with you (e.g. Employer Branding Specialist, Marketing Specialist, Speaker, Trainer, Consultant, etc.)

Photos, Videos and Slides

Insert a professional photo that identifies you well and make you recognizable. Also note that the photo in headline combine one of those elements that will let you achieve 100% completion of the profile, letting you track down more frequently in searches!

Today it is possible to be even more proactive

In the section reserved for the professional experience, you can add more pictures that represent the highlights of your career (e.g., awards) or clarifying your activities (e.g. moments of classroom lectures), Slides (to present a couple of examples or projects that you have followed), and even videos. Personally, you can find video medium as a wonderful opportunity to introduce you to everyone who has the curiosity to read your profile. Why not then exploit them to be welcomed to your page "in your way" to tell your very own professional story.

Make others speak of you

The "endorser" you find in the section "Skills & expertise" and "recommendations "are two different options that are both useful to let others speak for you! The first is much faster and with a simple click of your contacts can validate some of the skills that you yourself have decided to include in the profile. 

It is a section of visual impact and quantity but the recommendations are more interesting. Why? Why would someone spend some time to write words for you? Why would someone take the time to tell a story of their professional relationship with you and the work experience he had with you? 

These are people who have known you professionally, and whose testimony is to operate on a qualitative dimension.  Among the functions with which you can search the profiles, one special function, filters only those people that contain recommendations.

Be consistent in ‘use of keywords’

The recruiter filters keywords when looking for a candidate.  Therefore, it is important to identify those that best represent you as a person and as a professional. Get the "Top Search Keywords" and refine your strategy, therefore, for your Personal Branding, choose the best synonyms that are more common in your industry or bookmarks to describe certain skills. 

Do not limit yourself and also include your keywords in the "Skills & expertise", and use them consistently to make your profile look credible especially in headlines (the section that appears most frequently in searches), in the Table of Contents, and between the Professional Experience.

Consider Keywords that are not just focused on the hard skills but also on the soft skills.
Everything can become a valuable source to help in finding you!

Appropriate use of the URL

Be personal in every detail! Edit with your first and last name the URL of the profile, by default it appears as a string of numeric characters. So you can insert into your documents, your business card and your resume.

Make your profile “live” and Active

The profile should not include a static picture only. It should be fed, promoted, and changed often. Make it an important medium to express the person behind it, i-e you. Think of it as a sweet quality, carefully prepared, beautifully packaged and displayed in the window. Keep your profile up to date and hijack traffic and valuable contacts.
Complete your profile 100% 

What is your current position? What were you doing before? What you are training? When you enter information in your profile, gauge shows you the score filling percentage. The LinkedIn profile is an online resume, which describe your career in a clear and concise manner. It should be explicit, using the right keywords. 


LinkedIn allows you to write a short summary about yourself. So its best to keep it short by saying the basics and brand yourself online through LinkedIn. 

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