Are You Difficult to Connect with on LinkedIn in Your Job Search?

Many candidates are obsessive about protecting the confidentiality of their contact information on LinkedIn when they are in a job search, even when they indicate on their LinkedIn Profile that they are open to career opportunities.

Why?

This doesn’t make any sense!

Here’s the sad part: Most recruiters, human resource professionals, and hiring managers will skip right by you on LinkedIn searches for candidates when recruiting if you make it too difficult to connect with you. When I do a search on LinkedIn for candidates in our Executive Search Practice, if you make it too hard to connect I’ll move on to the next candidate – I might sound a little harsh – regardless of how much you might be a perfect match – I just don’t have the time to play games or dig too deeply – particularly when there is lots of other great talent available.– I’ll define “too hard to connect” as the following:

• You have no phone number on your LinkedIn Profile
• You have no direct email on your LinkedIn Profile
• You have not checked the settings for “open to career opportunities”
• You have not checked the settings for “open networker”
• Your group settings prevent me from sending you a direct message if we are in the same group

You could be missing out on great opportunities because of inappropriate fears of confidentiality or security. What’s the risk that someone has your cell number or email address when you’re looking for a job. At a minimum, what’s the risk in adding to your account the “open networker” designation so that recruiters and others do not have to use up their precious allotment of inmails?

I’ve had my phone number and email address on my LinkedIn Profile for years. I can count on one hand the number of solicitor calls and inappropriate emails from that contact information. It’s irrational to think you’ll be bombarded with solicitors and crank calls/emails. Take a risk and make yourself available – you’ll be amazed at the increase in the number of calls and emails you get when recruiters, human resource professionals, and hiring managers reach out to you when they are recruiting to fill an open job.

Take a look at my profile on LinkedIn as an example. I would also recommend joining our Discussion Group on LinkedIn and participating in the discussion regarding LinkedIn Profiles for your Job Search.

Barry

3 Comments

• 

  By Job Seeker, March 10, 2010 @ 4:06 pm

  “# You have not checked the settings for “open to career opportunities”
  # You have not checked the settings for “open networker”

  I would love to do that and have looked all over the linked in website I have not found those options listed anywhere.
• 

  By bradremillard, March 10, 2010 @ 8:14 pm

  That is why you should join our webinar. We will show you how. The first 10 will also receive a complete profile assessment. Go to http://www.impacthiringsolutions.com to register
• 

  By Shanmugam, December 14, 2010 @ 9:52 pm

  You are right.. A lot of job seekers don’t realize the power of Linkedin but there is a big crowd of recruiters in Linkedin, trying to find candidates.. I know a lot of recruiters who use Corp-corp.com and use Linkedin as a secondary source.

  I myself didn’t put much of my information in Linkedin when I was searching for my first job. Now I know that Linkedin is a great resource for getting candidates.

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