LinkedIn – Your Online Resume is Worthless
Not having an effective LinkedIn Profile for your job search is the same as having an ineffective resume that gets tossed into the trash can all the time. STOP letting your online resume (LinkedIn Profile) be thrown in the trash!
LinkedIn provides an extraordinary online tool – your profile – a virtual resume and portfolio for you to do personal branding, self-promotion, and lay out a portfolio of your abilities, skills, and accomplishments.
The entry level account is FREE. This is the proverbial “no-brainer”. So, why are most profiles WORTHLESS? Why don’t professional job search candidates at managerial and executive levels consider this an important part of their job search?
TEST OF LINKEDIN PROFILES FOR JOB SEARCH
I’m in the middle of conducting a retained executive search for a Sales Executive. Like most recruiters, I’m using the search function in LinkedIn to find executives in specific industries and geographic areas. Everyone knows that LinkedIn is a significant tool for sourcing in the hands of recruiters, human resource professionals and hiring managers. I’m only searching for candidates that have flagged their account that they are open to career opportunities. I’ve now reviewed over 400 profiles.
Less than 20% have anything beyond a “skeleton” set of information.
Less than 2% have a decent profile fully completed with extensive descriptions of their accomplishments, an outstanding summary, lots of recommendations, and have their contact information (such as phone number and email address) available.
Less than 1% have taken the time to really leverage all the tools LinkedIn provides on your profile – slide presentations, attaching documents, reading lists, linking your blog and twitter accounts, and on the list goes. It’s absolutely amazing the value LinkedIn provides to job seekers.
As a recruiter reviewing profiles, it takes me about 5 seconds to look at a profile and make a first impression of whether I want to continue looking at it. If the profile is not complete, I will not bother to spend any more time with that potential candidate. You’ve just missed an opportunity which could have been the ideal job to move your career forward after you’ve been out of work for 9 months.
CONFUSION – WORTHLESS LINKEDIN PROFILES
I DON’T GET IT!
WHY DO THE VAST MAJORITY OF JOB SEEKERS HAVE A WORTHLESS ONLINE RESUME (LINKEDIN PROFILE)?
IS IT NOT TIME TO FIX THIS OBVIOUS OVERSIGHT?
HOW MANY JOB OPPORTUNITIES HAVE SLIPPED BY YOU BECAUSE RECRUITERS LIKE ME HAVE SKIPPED OVER YOUR WORTHLESS ONLINE RESUME (LINKEDIN PROFILE)?
IMPROVE YOUR LINKEDIN PROFILE NOW
Brad and I have spoken extensively about the need to fully flush out your LinkedIn Profile as one of the tactics in an effective job search. We’ve talked about it in our weekly Internet Radio Talk Show. You can download the specific episodes about LinkedIn from our broadcast archive.
We even put together a FREE one-page LinkedIn Profile Self-Assessment Scorecard to determine if your LinkedIn Profile is effective in being found by recruiters, HR professionals, and hiring managers. You can download the Scorecard right now and frighten yourself on your inadequate profile. You might want to also bang your head on the wall a few times over the potential job opportunities for which you’ve been ignored.
Take action right now and fix this simple element of your job search. STOP being ignored. Create a profile that allows you to instantly capture the attention of recruiters, HR professionals, and hiring managers that are looking for someone JUST LIKE YOU.
Barry Deutsch
Tags: FREE Job Search Audio, Job Search LinkedIn Discussion Group, Job Search Mistakes, LinkedIn Job Search, LinkedIn Profile, Personal Branding Mistakes, Personal Branding Techniques, Resume Mistakes
Job Search Mistakes, Personal Branding, Resume | Barry Deutsch January 15, 2010
About the Author
Barry Deutsch is a founding Partner of IMPACT Hiring Solutions, co-author of "You're NOT the Person I Hired", and "This is NOT the Position I Accepted". Barry is an award-winning international speaker, retained executive recruiter, and expert on hiring and retaining top talent, and executive job search.
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By Bill Davis | IT Expert, January 15, 2010 @ 12:35 pm
Thanks for the really useful information!
By Burk, January 15, 2010 @ 1:19 pm
Barry,
That’s a mouth full! I’m a social networking novice in a way. Because of my role in my company (and my role being eliminated) I’ve had to learn social networking at a rapid pace.
It’s blogs like this that make my learning efforts much more worth while. I like your direct form of writing and the little “freebies” you give away to help “Joe” like me evolve in to a more refined participant.
I’m going to send you an invite. Accept or decline as you choose. I’d like to follow you a bit and see where your travels take you.
Regards…
Burk
By Barry Deutsch, January 15, 2010 @ 3:54 pm
Bill – I’m glad your finding our blog content useful. Brad and I are amazed at the candidates we work with in our private job search coaching practice that use the 5 simple steps of our Career Success Methodology – and find themselves reducing the length of time in their job search 30/40% – even 50% in some cases.
In our blog, we try to take all the various elements of this Career Success Methodology and break them down into a little more detail.
By Barry Deutsch, January 15, 2010 @ 3:57 pm
Burk,
Thanks for your kind words. Brad and I think we’ve assembled one of the greatest sets of FREE content available to job seekers on the Internet (no bias of course). I’m glad you’ve found the tools, samples, and templates useful.
Keep an eye for more great FREE tools, samples, and templates as Brad and I gear up our content generation for 2010.
By Ryan Leary, January 17, 2010 @ 1:32 pm
Barry – nice article but I do have to question this statement: “As a recruiter reviewing profiles, it takes me about 5 seconds to look at a profile and make a first impression of whether I want to continue looking at it.”
I know that most recruiters say they give 30 seconds to review a resume. However it’s important to understand that job seekers are not professional resume writers nor should they be considered one.
Make no mistake, I am 1000% in agreements that it is silly not to have a complete online profile in multiple places for employers to find you, however it’s vitally important for recruiters to take those profiles for what they are.
An incomplete profile shouldn’t validate a qualified candidate. As “experts” in the industry one is recruiting the recruiter should have the ability to make educated inferences based on certain criteria provided in the resume, even without any details of projects skills etc.
Purely based on previous companies, titles and career progression one should be able to read beyond the text and understand the career path, skill sets obtained and what the candidate should in reality have knowledge of based on just that information.
Overlooking this creates a gap in talent pools that too often go uncovered; In turn, creating the perception that the recruiter has exhausted all databases within reach of the recruiter.
Very nice article. Thanks!
Ryan Leary
By Tereza Byrne, January 27, 2010 @ 4:09 am
Barry: I’ve just entered the world of “job-seeker” and the few tips you’ve included in your article have been of tremendous help to me. I intend to complete my profile and have an outstanding summary in the coming weeks.
Question: When sending out a resume by email, is there value to embedding links to LinkedIn recommendations that speak specifically to certain aspects of performance? Or, would that be too distracting for the reviewer?
Any advice welcome.
Tereza Byrne