Part 1 of Guerilla Search Tactics on LinkedIn
That's what LinkedIn did October, 2010. In the
good ole days (say, the previous September), when you did a People search on LinkedIn, your search
results could include 1st level connections, 2nd level connections, 3rd level
connections, members of your groups, and either the first name of non-connected
people or just their title. For your 1st, 2nd, 3rd level and group connections,
you would see their full name and could click on their link and see their full
profile. You could search all your groups at once (handy if you belonged to a
lot of groups), search for new LinkedIn members, and use other criteria.
Then, without any warning or explanation,
LinkedIn began changing search results. 1st and 2nd level connections show up
as before, but 3rd level connections and even fellow members of groups often show
up with only their first name and last initial. Click on the link to their
profile and you still don't see their last name. If you click on the link that
says "See Full Name," you get a window which says, in effect, "Either
get more connections or cough up $99.95
per month, sucker." LinkedIn also now requires a subscription to
search for people using the categories: Groups,
Years of Experience, Interested In, Company Size, Fortune 1000,
and Recently Joined. (Function and Seniority Level are new paid search categories, too.) So, LinkedIn
now has the dubious distinction of being the only social media site that makes
it HARDER (or more expensive) to search for other people on their network.
(Don't get me started on their pricing policies.)
You might respond, "So what? I don't use the
People search that often. I don't try to convert 3rd degree connections into
1st degree connections, either." This may be true, but if you're job
hunting, you want hiring managers, freelance HR people, and even old friends TO
BE ABLE TO FIND YOU!
That's where these changes really bite you in the
ankle. Sure, HR professionals who regularly search on LinkedIn for potential
employees will cough up the higher fees to get better search results. But what about hiring managers who only do
occasional searches, small business owners, consultants, freelancers, or people
who are unemployed and looking for work?
Fortunately, there are several things you can to
do make it easier for others to find and contact you. There are also ways you
can search for these missing names, both on LinkedIn and off. In this post
we’ll show how you can make yourself more visible on LinkedIn. Then we’ll look
at some guerilla techniques for finding other people on LinkedIn.
Make Yourself Easier to Find –
Even When LinkedIn is Trying to Hide Your Name
First, make a simple change on your profile. On
the LinkedIn menu bar, point at Profile and click on Edit Profile.
Then, click on Edit, next to
your name. Below your name, you'll see a block for entering your Professional
"Headline". All
you need to do is repeat your name in this block. Instead of just entering your
job title, write something like, "Andrew Brandt writes frequently about
his love/hate relationship with LinkedIn." (Better yet, write something
appropriate to your profile.) You decide whether to use first or third
person in the headline, just be consistent.
Some people do put their email address here, too,
although that might be a technical violation of the LinkedIn terms of agreement.
I suggest you make your email address prominent somewhere else in your profile.
(NOT in your name field, though!) Hiring professionals often like to see email
addresses rather than go through LinkedIn with expensive InMails.
After this, go to Settings (on the top
right of the page). Under Profile Settings, click on Public Profile.
There, select the Full View option (or think carefully if you still want
to restrict info on your public profile). You should already have customized
your LinkedIn URL to add your name. If not, do it now. Save your changes.
Another way to make sure your full name always
shows on your profile is to ask people who are writing recommendations for you
on LinkedIn to include your full name in your recommendation. (Most people only
use first names.)
(You used to be able to customize the link title
to your blog and internet connections with your name, too. LinkedIn, playing
cat and mouse with its users, no longer lets you do that.)
If you belong to groups, check your group
settings to see if the group name and logo shows up on your LinkedIn profile
page. (In the group menu—not the top-of-the-page
menu—point at More... and click on My Settings.) If you want others from the group to be able to find
you more easily, click on Display the
group logo on my profile. If you belong to 10 different job hunting groups,
though, you might not want to show all of them, especially if you're still
working. (Your boss might read your profile and not like the idea that you're
trying to jump ship!) There might also be a few groups you want to keep private,
like that Cat Lovers Who Knit group that doesn't exactly fit your
Construction Foreman professional title.
Of course, the best way to make it easier for
others to find you on LinkedIn is to have more connections so you show up more
frequently as a 1st and 2nd level connection. You don't have to become a LION
(LinkedIn Open Networker) who accepts any invitation on LinkedIn. (You can bet
that open networkers are feeling vindicated nowadays, though, after taking so
much heat from LinkedIn.)
If you belong to a group and send an invitation
to a even just a couple of LIONs in that group, you'll make it a lot easier for
all your group members to find you. (Invite other group members and friends,
too.) You should do this, at least, for your professional groups related to
your job hunt.
Another way to help HR
people find you (especially if you are in a job hunt) is to add the Skills
application to your profile. Go to the More menu and select Skills beta.
(The beta, or test, indication may come off soon, since it’s been around for some
time, now.) Add keyword skills to create a list on your profile. With this list
it will be easier for HR people and others to find you based on a search of
keywords.
If you want to add optimized
search words to your profile (actually, repeating certain keywords in your
profile so you show up higher in LinkedIn’s search ranks) you need to first
find out which words you should emphasize. Here’s one way to do this:
1. First, find 3 or 4
detailed job descriptions for positions you think would be perfect for you.
2. Copy and paste these
descriptions into a single text file. (If you use Word, save the document as a
text only file.) Copy this entire file onto your clipboard.
3. Go to the website http://www.wordle.net/create.
4. In the
box below where it says, “Paste in a bunch of text:” paste in those job
descriptions from your clipboard and press the Go button.
5. This
creates a word map, where the most frequently used words (other than “a,”
“the,” and the like) are presented most prominently. This gives you a pretty
good idea of which keywords are most important in your dream job. Make a list.
6. Make sure
those keywords are used frequently in your LinkedIn profile. The top one or two
probably should be in your headline. Repeat those and others in your summary
and make sure they also show in your Skills section that we described earlier.
7. Do a
search for those top job skills with LinkedIn’s Advanced Search tool. If you
still don’t show up on the first page, look at profile for the person on the
top of the list and count how many times they use the top search terms.
The
important thing is NOT to make it look like you’re trying to load up your
profile with lots of search terms. Writing style and communication are more
important. But this might make it easier for hiring managers to find you on
LinkedIn.
Next: Finding Full Names on LinkedIn,
even when LinkedIn is hiding them
Keywords: LinkedIn, search, jobhunting, HR, guerilla,
keywords, SEO
