LinkedIn Search Secrets

When searching for work on LinkedIn of jobs many candidates tend to choose for the lazy option and use the automated job email notification tool to find work. I cannot emphasize enough that as an active candidate in the market you utilize the search function to search for jobs. You really need to adopt an aggressive approach to finding ideal roles rather than sitting around on your rear end waiting for the work to come your way. 

Use this tool efficiently is actually a little bit of a science. Most people I coach tend to plug in their own title, conduct the search, find a few roles and they satisfy themselves that they have done a hard days job of being a proactive individual. Others tend to thrash the living daylights out of the search by searching and applying to everything that moves apply for everything and then give up when nobody returns their emails in a record-breaking turnaround time and all of this with a poor CV and not so great LinkedIn profile. 

So here is the deal closer; most companies do not call their staff by generic titles! It’s not like everyone gets together and decides that now we are going to call all of our Finacial Directors by this title. Companies choose their titles for a myriad of different reasons, this makes your job much harder when searching for roles. Nothing like a challenge to get the blood pumping right? 

The secret is to use variation when using the search tool and most importantly to adopt a few very important attitudes; become a researcher become opportunistic think out the box and most importantly learn to explore.This is how: 

Title aliases

Firstly make a list of all the variations of your title including single words rather than the whole title, 

so let's say you are a Financial Director. Your keywords would be FD, Financial, CFO, Chief Financial, Financial Executive and so on. Linkedin helps when you enter your search but the words they recommend do not always come up with a search result in your country. 

Research using keywords

Secondly, conduct the search using one of these keywords at a time. You can see the number of hits in the top hand section below the search bar for your search. This is important as if the number is too few your keywords are too specific.The ideal result should vary between 100 to 300 results for the more common roles. Actually, you would like to get as many results as possible without it being crazy. Remember this is not the time to get all apprehensive and overwhelmed, 

Expand your list of Aliases

Look at the specs when you go through your list. Most people use a sudden gift of advanced recruitment skill to filter roles and become terribly specific about what specifications to study. Not even recruiters understand all job titles that companies use. Here is a chance for you to educate yourself on other keywords that you can use for your search efforts. So look at these job specifications to find hints of other aliases you can use and also explore roles that may seem not right but may be exactly right when you examine the detail of the specification in more detail. 

Search for technical skills

I often get individuals who give up on their search efforts and complaint that they have they have exhausted all avenues. Try to think out the box for a change! Using other keywords when the search can be an excellent way to find new roles. An example could be if you are a project manager you could use PMBOK or prince. 

Recruiter or company?  

This is important! Determining whether the company advertising is a recruiter or company is vital to your job finding efforts. You can determine this by hitting the link to a role and following the path t the specification - no rocket science here. Apply via LinkedIn through a recruiter for a job application process can be longer and more complicated also there is an extra barrier between yourself and the client when applying. The company who advertises will respond often quicker if you are an ideal fit. But there is one major advantage to determining the source of the advertiser.  Recruitment companies do not advertise all their roles and often recruiters specialise in certain industry roles so following the beard crumbs back to the recruiter's website can yield lots of other roles that may be of similar title. Also on the right-hand side of the opened job specification are other roles of similar content - good to know right!

These are just a few ways to expand your search efforts on LinkedIn. I my next article I will be covering the all-important subject of using LinkedIn to research a company that has advertised a role so as to gain better insight. 

Happy hunting! Visit my website for more great articles and info about our products and services. 

www.yourcvforlife.co.za