How to Write a KILLER LinkedIn Profile...and 18 Mistakes to Avoid by Brenda Berstein

At work, we are currently updating our resources on using LinkedIn and shaping our LinkedIn policy. This is one of the books on my reading list on that topic. I originally read about this book in this article from Forbes and decided to pick it up for research, even though we can't use it in our library (available as Kindle book only).

How to Write a KILLER LinkedIn Profile describes eighteen steps, as well as some bonus tips, that you can use to build your LinkedIn profile and increase your likelihood of being found in LinkedIn searches--though the tips could also have an impact on your Google visibility, depending on your LinkedIn privacy settings. Overall, I thought the tips were useful and straightforward and contained enough screen captures that a LinkedIn newbie would be able to find where in the LinkedIn profile the author was directing them to update.

However, this is not a basic book so this is not LinkedIn from the Beginning--and it doesn't have to be. This is written for the LinkedIn user who has a profile but who hasn't made the most efficient use of their content or who hasn't thought about how best to profile their content on and select keywords for LinkedIn. And not everyone is going to agree with all of the tips, such as the recommendation to get more than 500 connections--I accept her reasoning, that the more connections you have, the more likely you are to appear in internal searches in LinkedIn--but I can see some of my hesitant colleagues or clients balk at that. And you don't have to use all of her suggestions to improve your profile overall--making better use of the Summary field and updating at least once a week so your contacts don't forget about you could make an improvement on what you get out of LinkedIn.

I would recommend this one to advisors who have been asked to comment on LinkedIn profiles, but who aren't sure how people make an impact on LinkedIn, coupled with Jason Alba's I'm on LinkedIn...Now What? if you have only cursory LinkedIn experience.

JobProx

I spied JobProx on Springwise. They are currently seeking investors through an Indiegogo campaign. 

JobProx relies on jobseekers downloading the apps onto their devices and then connecting with their LinkedIn profile.

I could see this working really well in controlled job seeking events such as information sessions, career fairs, conferences and mixers, since you are in a public place, thinking about work, not out in your pajama pants thinking about buying a quart of rocky road and wondering if you will have time to wash your hair today. I'm also not clear about how to turn the job seeking broadcast off and on. It might also need to remind you to update your LinkedIn profile and maybe suggest some keywords or skills to add to your profile.

I wonder how much tailoring employers can make for finding proximate, desirable job seekers. For example, at our career fairs, one employer might be looking for first and second year biology students for summer (temporary) employment and they have received specific funding that requires a candidate to be a returning student. On the other hand, a museum might be looking for summer workers and will take "any arts, any science, any education (as in elementary and secondary education)" and this second group of employers is also interested in those biology majors. How could you tailor your LinkedIn profile to bring you to the attention of both employers? The candidate has to provide an updated profile that includes this specific information, while an employer needs to be able to search by education and possibly specific year. However, based on this video, I would conclude that an employer can only search for candidates by app on, LinkedIn profile and breathing in the vicinity. Which I might be able to accomplish just as effectively with a T-shirt.

Still, this might be neat to test at an ALA placement event.

Maybe you should make yourself less anonymous on LinkedIn

This video from Business Insider, How to see who's viewed your profile on LinkedIn, explains how to make your profile anonymous to people whose profiles you have checked on LinkedIn. Personally, unless you are engaged in some sort of corporate intelligence investigation, I think you should be as open as possible (within the confines of LinkedIn).

Crowdsourcing Answers to Questions (article from CDAA Career Momentum January February 2012)

This article appeared in the January/February 2012 Career Momentum. Career Momentum is only available to CDAA members, but I have reproduced my article.

Career development specialists don’t always know the answer to every question their client asks, mainly because the world of occupations and education options is diverse and global. Some of the career information we are asked for is either too new, such as what is the employment outlook for an apps developer in Lethbridge, or too arcane, such as what kind of brain teaser questions can I expect at my interview for Palantir? A decade ago, career professionals might have turned to a search engine to find the information, knowing that the information their clients wanted may not have any documents available or be enclosed as proprietary information. In the past few years, however, answers to some of these questions have become available through the “wisdom of the crowd” or through crowdsourcing.

Most people will recognize Wikipedia which is a crowdsourced encyclopedia, which relies on volunteer writers, editors, fact checkers, bibliographers and image providers. However, crowdsourcing encompasses a broad range of services, from answering questions to fundraising. This article will focus on getting answers to questions by relying on the crowd for answers. Most of these crowdsourced Q&A services originated with a search engine in South Korea called Naver. Because there was little content written in Korean on the Internet, Naver allowed people to ask and answer questions, which generated content that could be searched and indexed by the engine. Most of the services also use a point system, which also originated on Naver, which the questioner could use to vote on the quality and usefulness of the answers they received.

Based on the Naver model, Yahoo! started Yahoo! Answers, which is a viable source for English language questions—though some readers will recognize it as a resource their children use to cheat on their homework. Anyone can see the questions posted on Yahoo! Answers, but only registered Yahoo! users can post answers. When a user poses a question, the question is open for 3 days to gather answers, though this period can be extended, and users can post their responses. The person who posed the question can vote on the best answer, which gives the both the questioner and the answerer points, which could improve an answerer’s credibility on the system. Yahoo! Answers also has several multilingual and country specific search channels which would be of use for looking for international information or for clients who can search in languages other than English. Currently, the amount of career information is fairly slight, though it is possible that a general Google search may turn up Yahoo! Answers contributions in your search results.

Many CDAA members are also members of LinkedIn, which has its own Answers service. You can see the questions and answers on LinkedIn Answers without a LinkedIn user account, but to post questions and respond to questions, you need a LinkedIn account. When asking a question on LinkedIn, the service tries to get the user to curate the questions by assigning it a topic within the LinkedIn directory. Users can also delete questions that they don’t think are useful, such as when a spammer posts a link to a service within their question, and they can also vote on the best answers received for the question. For the person who answers the question, this best answer designation is attached to their LinkedIn profile, which should encourage people to answer questions well and courteously. Supposedly, LinkedIn Answers results are indexed by Google, which is very handy, since the LinkedIn search engine within Answers is not very sophisticated.

In our office, we have used LinkedIn to find out about new trends in interviewing, salary surveys of college students and what is the etiquette involved with posting a question to Answers that you intend to use in an article. Responses have usually been helpful; however, though people are still asking questions, the number of people who are bothering to answer appears to be on the wane. LinkedIn users may be asking their questions on the forum within closed or professional groups that can offer specific expertise, which isn’t found in the free-for-all Answers forum. LinkedIn is very appropriate to business and career advice. It is also possible to close and hide questions that you have asked on the service, so as to remove them from Google search results.

Since 2006, Amazon has offered Askville. Users will need to sign in with Amazon.com credentials to ask and answer questions on the site. The amount of career information is slight, and some of the answers have a hectoring or sarcastic tone (example, search for “what can I do with an associates [sic] degree in science?” to get an idea). The best answer scoring system is still in place in this service, so a user can select the best answer. This service is not recommended at this time for finding answers to career-related questions.

Established in 2009, Quora appears to be the baby of the bunch of crowdsourced Q&A services, but it is the easiest to use and seems to have the most active community, at least for technology and business questions. Users may only register for an account with their full name, though you can post and ask questions anonymously on Quora. You can also connect and follow people within the Quora community, or connect with your “friends” on Twitter and Facebook who also use Quora. People do ask for career advice on Quora, such as “What are good part time jobs for college students?” or to look for salary information, so it is a legitimate source for career information.

Google Answers and a service called Aardvark, which was acquired by Google, have been shut down at this time. It is possible that Google will try again with social search and Q&A services through its Google + network.

At this point, LinkedIn Answers and Quora are probably the best services to turn to when asking a career-related question that is relatively new to the industry or is a semi-secret practice at a company, such as their case or brain teaser interview questions, which is information that may not be available through any print resource.

Apply with LinkedIn button

Since LinkedIn had it's IPO, the company has been rolling out several new tools. One of those tools is the Apply with LinkedIn button, which allows job applicants to for a position by submitting their LinkedIn profile

Follow Companies on LinkedIn

LinkedIn has had a Follow Companies feature for a while, and it means exactly that: follow companies and their updates within LinkedIn, without being connected to anyone in the company. Once you follow a company, you can see who in your network is employed at that company, and how distant your relationship is.

The image above shows a snapshot of the Harlequin company profile on LinkedIn. You can see a blurb about the company, information about anyone in your alumni group that is employed at the organization, as well as your LinkedIn connections to people in that company. Clicking on the Careers tab will also show any available jobs, as posted on Linkedin (though you are usually redirected to the company website for an application). If you explored the New Hires tab, you could see the profiles of new hires, as much as that user allows according to their privacy settings.

You can also see any employee traffic, such as position changes or promotions, that the user has recorded on LinkedIn, as well as links to mentions about the company in the news, as shown below.

For librarians, there are many libraries listed on LinkedIn, as well as publishing, software and tech companies, in addition to the universities and colleges, not to mention the many companies who may have a special library in your preferred industry, such as law, finance, manufacturing, or healthcare, just to name a few. It can't hurt to start monitoring their activity on LinkedIn.

However this is only the activity recorded within LinkedIn. For example, if a person does not update their profile when they move to a new company, you may not know if a company has made a new hire. The Follow Company feature still provides very useful information about organizations, their employee turnover, the number of hires that they are making, and indicates if you have anyone in your online network who could get you closer to a permanent or contract position or offer a recommendation.

Gender Battle on LinkedIn

LinkedIn asked the question, who is the better online networker, men or women? Apparently, this can vary by industry, and men come out ahead in some industries, cosmetics for example, and women come out ahead in some industries, such as ranching, where you might not expect them to be the better networker.

LinkedIn's definition of a savvy networker is:

A professional with a robust network of trusted business contacts who actively work toward creating new career opportunities for themselves and the people in their network

I am not sure how LinkedIn decided to measure this, based on the blip on their blog: is this by number of contacts (so LIONs win bonus points?), based on activity on Answers, or InMails (which you pay for)? Did they survey members and ask for best networker nominations and look at the gender of the nominees? If I overlooked this in the blog or you know more about the measures used, I would love to have that in the comments.

One other question: what if the best networkers are really on MeetUp?

For more on this topic:

• Is LinkedIn a Gender Equalizer? from FastCompany
• LinkedIn Data Reveals Men Are Savvier Online Professional Networkers Than Women from Yahoo! Finance

Librarian/Archivist at the Fight Network

This one was on the LinkedIn Job Board. Sign in to LinkedIn to get the contact information for where to apply.

Hello! The FIGHT NETWORK *grin*. Library technicians are also eligible for the absolute in cool job bragging rights.

Company Description


Fight Network is Canada’s only TV channel dedicated to complete coverage of combat sports, including fights, fighters, fight news and the fight lifestyle. It is carried nationally on all major cable, satellite and telco systems in Canada. Fight Network operates on multiple platforms including TV, Web, Mobile and Events. www.thefightnetwork.com

Job Description

• Establishes and maintains a cataloguing system to manage library material and the circulation of materials.
• Prepares detailed summaries of the content of programs and/or library holdings.
• Provides program material and/or research information on demand and assists Producers, Researchers, on-air personnel and others in the selection of material and the use of the library.
• Selects and purchases material for retention in the library; prepares appropriate documentation to ensure payment.
• Advises program production personnel on the availability of broadcast materials and assists them in obtaining items not available in the library.
• Researches information using local resources.
• Ensures the safety, security, preservation, maintenance and availability of broadcast materials and related documents or photographs; recommends replacement and/or new purchases.
• Manages the disposition and removal of broadcast materials when authorized to do so.
• Operates equipment required to perform library tasks.

Desired Skills & Experience

• Must be able to do shift work or weekends.
• Experience and/or post secondary education in the field of journalism would be an asset.
• Strong understanding of computer/information technology, including databases as they relate to libraries.
• Experience with Google Docs and Excel
• Experience in with NLE Systems
• Knowledge of television production including the medium of storage would be an asset.
• Knowledge of MMA and general sports
• Experience with a broad range of information resources for consultation and verification.
• Visual acuity and an understanding of the vocabulary of images.
• Strong attention to detail.
• Ability to work independently and as part of a team.
• Ability to plan, prioritize and organize workflow.
• Demonstrated excellent interpersonal and communication skills, with the ability to train clients using library tools.

To apply please send your resume and cover letter to the contact information is available on the job posting in LinkedIn.

No recommendations?

Since I spent the weekend reading What's Mine Is Yours, I am interested in the concept of generating an online reputation. From a collaborative consumption perspective this reputation would generate: how good a buyer/seller and loaner/borrower you are, all available in the online.

Using reputation, making an introduction or a referral is not new and recommendations were and are based on character as well as caste. Using an online community to make recommendations may allow us to circumvent the caste aspect of the recommendation--I can see and write a recommendation for my plumber, for example, a person who may not live in my neighborhood or have gone to college with me, but which my social network can access and decide whether or not to hire him, or let him couch surf in their house in London, a privilege not available to previous generations of plumbers.

There are systems in place to keep track of reputation: eBay's star system for buyers and sellers, is just one example. In the realm of business networking, LinkedIn has a reputation manager, the Recommendations field which allows users to write recommendations for people who are in their LinkedIn network. You can vet any recommendations written for you and hide them if you don't want them to be visible, revealing them again when you think they might help. But should an employer be able to stop employees from writing recommendations for their network connections on LinkedIn? Workforce Management has an article on when and why to craft a LinkedIn referral policy, but I think writing referrals, in the age of "collaborative consumption" is much bigger than the people we work and have worked with, and it may not be possible to forbid a person from writing a recommendation, considering the varied places where a recommendation can be input and our coming ability to search and sort individual reputation.

Rachel Botman's TED talk about collaborative consumption and what it might mean

How to Find a Job on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter , MySpace and Other Social Networks

How to Find a Job on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and Other Social Networks by Brad and Debra Schepp is a nice basic book on how to use online networking tools to look for work.

More than one half of the book is devoted to LinkedIn, with the other networking tools receiving one chapter each. The book is filled with testimonials from users who have used that service to find work online, and it also includes advice from users on how to navigate the site and on online networking etiquette, mainly focused on LinkedIn practices.

This book may have nothing new in it for experienced users, but for people who have not joined an online networking service, or have joined but have done nothing more than update their status, this book would offer some direction on how to proceed.

If you haven't used LinkedIn to look for work, you should know that:

• There are librarians on LinkedIn, some looking for work and some that are responsible for hiring
• There are librarian groups on LinkedIn, some offering general support and information, and others that include job boards
• There is a job posting service on LinkedIn that you can use to find work. Some of the job postings will ask that you are have recommendations and can get a referral within your network to apply to a position. Even if you have less than 50 connections, you will probably have at least one third degree connection who you may be able to get put forward by, depending on how your network works.

If you aren't on LinkedIn, you might want to add it to your job search strategy. You can also consider using LinkedIn to fuel your job club if you are currently at library school or have a local networking group for job seekers.

How to Find a Job on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and Other Social Networks will give you the basics, but you can also sign up for some online education from the LinkedIn Learning Center.

LinkedIn API

This comes via the SimplyHired blog, a video from LinkedIn about how developers can use the LinkedIn API to create job searching tools on the web.

Use Social Media

This is a link to an article posted on Inside Higher Ed about the benefits of using social media for PhDs. A lot of what the article says can be applied to librarians. I do think that a lot of librarians are blogging, but I don't see very many of us on LinkedIn, so pay attention to what the author has to say about the benefits of LinkedIn.

I would like to add that it is relatively easy to import a badge from LinkedIn and place it on your blog, so that if someone reads your blog and wants to find out more about you, they can find your profile on LinkedIn. Which can also lead to your resume, should they decide to find out if you are a librarian-for-hire.

You can also get a LinkedIn Companion for Firefox (which has gotten mixed reviews on the source page, but I think it can be handy). When I used it and scanned job postings, I could also see if anyone on my LinkedIn network was connected to the company. I would feel more comfortable using my first degree connections if I was looking for info on a prospective company, but you can use this tool to see who you might know, weak or strong-tied to you, at the company.

Career Experts Complaints

I came across this post from one of the people in my LinkedIn network and I felt that it was important enough to post a link to it, just because the scam site looks so credible.

You can also search scams on the Scam Slammer site, a valuable service for any of your clients/patrons or for your own use.

LinkedIn webinar for Career Services

LinkedIn has prepared a webinar for Career Services professionals about using LinkedIn and how to use it to help students, teach about networking and use it for research. I've been a long time member on LinkedIn and I found the tour to be very useful and easy to follow (so you don't have to take LinkedIn 101 first). Lindsey Pollak, the author of Getting from College to Career, was the presenter and she did her homework: she had spoken with career services professionals and had looked at how they had used LinkedIn (sometimes, presenters just do a surface presentation and don't understand how career service business rules work, but she was well-versed).

LinkedIn has also opened a Career Services Professionals group and you have to attend the webinar to gain admittance to the group. Librarians that are offering career services or career information in a job centre, or if you work in the academic library with all of the career and business reference material, should consider attending one of these sessions.

Cross-posted at co-agitating

Common Craft explains LinkedIn

What is LinkedIn? from LinkedIn Marketing on Vimeo.

Spotted on iLibrarian.

I think this can give you an idea and even explain networking. But the true benefit to LinkedIn, for job seekers, is that there are many human resource professionals on the site. Many of them are LIONs--many of them are not, and hate the idea. They pay a lot of attention to the Answers section, so you should be in there answering and asking questions, when relevant to your expertise. I have gotten recommendations from strangers, but LinkedIn connections, that I have been able to use in my work. You can use it in your job search, but you need a bigger network than other librarians and your college pals, so you have to make connections to people, usually by answering and asking questions.

That is the power of LinkedIn: you can expand your current network, which is limited by geography, and connect with people, linked to you by others or who ask to be introduced to you. But sitting passively on LinkedIn is not going to get you anywhere.

Getting LinkedIn Recommendations

Jason Alba has a post on his JibberJobber Blog providing some basic rules and giving an example of how to write a LinkedIn recommendation. If you don't use LinkedIn, LinkedIn is business networking that you can use to share information, look for work and get career advice (there are tons of tools that you can check out, and an Answers area that reference librarians will swoon over).

LinkedIn Recommendations are little blurbs or adverts, that you can write for people that you have a business relationship with. You can accept or reject a recommendation; once you accept a recommendation, you can show or hide the recommendation, if you wish (which can be helpful if a former colleague has recommended you, but your boss doesn't really like that person, for example.) Recommendations can help your profile on LinkedIn since people will scan your page and see that you have been endorsed by others for your work. This is great if the person recognizes the person who endorses you and if the person is not a serial endorser (a condition that sometimes affects predatory linkers).

Check out LinkedIn, if only to use the job board feature, if you are looking for work or if you want to while away a few hours on the Answers board.