These days itâs not just your resume thatâs reviewed for your credentials and experience. LinkedIn is now a critical part of your job search as the majority of employers will look for you there.
Your LinkedIn profile is also an important tool and an important part of your job search strategy. Your LinkedIn profile may be promoted on the signature of your email address, your website, your blog, and business cards. It should also be added to your resume as an additional resource employers can go to in order to scope out your experience, knowledge, skills, and connections.
6 Steps To Personalizing Your LinkedIn URL
One of the most important things you can do for job search success is personalize your LinkedIn URL. By default, when you set up your profile on LinkedIn, you are given a URL for your public profile that may look like this:
This URL above is a temporary LinkedIn ID. A temporary LinkedIn ID typically has /pub/ and numbers that follow it. Personalize your LinkedIn URL to something that is more memorable.
Changing your default public profile URL to a personalized one is simple and takes only a few clicks of a button.
Here are the easy steps you can take to personalize your LinkedIn URL:
Sign in to LinkedIn and click "View Profile."
Click the edit icon to edit your intro.
Scroll down to the contact info section. Click on "Edit contact info" and then click on your profile URL. You'll be redirected to the settings page where you can change your public profile.
Click the edit icon next to your public profile URL (under "Edit your custom URL").
In the text box, edit the last part of your public URL.
Click "Save."
You now have a personalized LinkedIn URL that can be used to further promote your experience, knowledge, and skills for job opportunities!
Your new personalized LinkedIn URL should be your name or some variant related to your profession or field of work. If you have a common name, then try to add something that defines you. In my case, there are a number of Don Goodmans so I use "don-goodman-job-expert."
Keep in mind when creating your personalized LinkedIn URL to make it something timeless. You know using your name is a safe bet and you likely wonât have to make changes to it in the future. While you are allowed to change your URL at any time, LinkedIn will not redirect anyone clicking on an old URL you have created previously.
Creating a personalized LinkedIn URL allows you to enhance your personal brand. It is particularly helpful to use on your resume. Resumes have limitations on the type and depth of information you can offer, so when you can include your LinkedIn URL, employers have the opportunity to learn much more about you through recommendations received, skills and expertise, endorsements, and other information thatâs available on your LinkedIn profile!
Need more help optimizing your LinkedIn profile?
We'd love it if you joined our FREE community. Itâs a private, online platform where workers, just like you, are coming together to learn and grow into powerful Workplace Renegades. More importantly, we have tons of resources inside our community that can help you optimize your LinkedIn profileâthe right way.
Recently, the top 10 most overused words on LinkedIn profiles were announced. And I'm not shocked to see that all 10 words break the basic rule of personal branding: stay objective.
Opinions Of Your Skills Donât Belong On LinkedIn
The 10 most overused words on LinkedIn are subjective. Meaning that if you use them, you are stating an opinion of yourself. Take a look:
Specialize
Experienced
Skilled
Leadership
Passionate
Expert
Motivated
Creative
Strategic
Focused
The problem with using these words is that, while you think itâs okay to talk about yourself in this way, the reader of your profile (aka a recruiter or hiring manager) gets the mistaken impression that you think you are âall that and a bag of chips.â
Simple Test To Fix Your Profile
The solution is to test your profile and then take out any words that arenât fact. Hereâs how you test it: simply read each sentence on your profile and then ask yourself, âSays who?â If you canât validate it within the sentence you are using it in, then it needs to go. I used all 10 of the words on LinkedInâs list below to show you examples of how they get misused.
I know how to specialize to meet the needs of my job.
I am a focused leader who's passionate about my industry.
For all of the above, you canât help but think when you read them, âGeez. Donât you think a lot of yourself!â Or, as I mentioned above, the immediate reaction becomes, âReally? Says who?â
Solution: List Accomplishments
Once you edit your profile, go back through and insert accomplishments that prove what you were trying to say about yourself. These would be examples of better fits:
I have a 10-year track record of exceeding my employerâs performance review standards.
I have created 20+ projects in X, resulting in $1M in new revenues.
I have completed more than 100 business analysis projects that have saved my employers $250K+ in the last 2 years.
I have managed teams of 2-50 through 15+ complete project lifecycles.
I have worked with over 400 customers to solve implementation issues that reduced client service calls by 50%.
Final Tip: Quantify To Qualify
Notice all of the above bullet points use numbers, percentages, and statistics to prove the skill. This is called quantifying your accomplishments, and it is the most compelling way to validate your experience. When it comes to LinkedIn, facts are always better than fiction!
We know how difficult it can be to optimize your LinkedIn profile so it effectively communicates your personal brand. If you're still struggling to update your LinkedIn profile, we can help.
We'd love it if you joined our FREE community. Itâs a private, online platform where workers, just like you, are coming together to learn and grow into powerful Workplace Renegades. More importantly, we have tons of resources inside our community that can help you update your LinkedIn profileâthe right way.
It's time to find work that makes you feel happy, satisfied, and fulfilled.Join our FREE community today to finally become an empowered business-of-one!
This article was originally published at an earlier date.
In 2008, My partner and i read Business Weekâs post entitled, âManagement from the Figures, â inside which they review exactly how IBM has been constructing mathematical models of the own employees having an goal to improve productivity and even automate management. Iâll allow you to read it and attract your own conclusions, yet I realized that this particular article still rings correct today.
After reading this content so many years back, I learned a fresh workplace term that theyâre using over at MICROSOFT. "Fungible" is a phrase utilized to describe workers who else are âvirtually indistinguishable through othersâ the value associated with their contributions at work.
You see, IBMâs study is enabling these to identify top performers coming from average ones, with your latter being fungibleâand My spouse and i would imagine translates in to expendable as well. Business where layoffs continue for you to make the headlines, I just guarantee management teams almost all over the country happen to be getting in rooms together with saying, âWhoâs fungible about the payroll right this moment? â
Okay, therefore they are most probably not utilizing the term, nevertheless they are having that will discussion, I assure anyone.
How In order to Be Indispensable (Not Fungible)
Employees must get in the ball and begin performing two things if that they wish to keep their careers:
Generate quantifiable results that tie to the exact financial success of the very company
Marketplace their success to the people which determine if they really are fungible
Therefore , if youâve recently been automatically when it arrives to assessing your expert strengths, building your career identity, and marketing the personal brand (if you are new with the career advancement terms I simply used, be enough to say youâve been recently on autopilot), i quickly inspire you to get started out.
That takes much more to obtain and keep a great job these days, and additionally thereâs an entire new method to manage your career. If you need assist understanding how to be indispensable throughout your career so people don't end up consumible, I would love it if everyone joined my FREE neighborhood where experts like you are studying how to become strengthened within their careers so many people can finally find career happiness and satisfaction for good!
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It's not uncommon for job seekers to spend almost all of their time sitting behind a computer searching through online job postings. If your job search has been unsuccessful up to this point, your time behind the computer could be a major factor in your lack of success.
Sitting behind a computer screen, endlessly scrolling and applying to open positions, is simply not the most effective use of your time out of the workforce. Here are some tips for balancing your activity during your job search:
Make It A Point To Network Every Single Week
The old adage, "It's not what you know, it's who you know," really is true. In most cases, a friend or colleague won't be able to get you a job for which you're not qualified, but they may be able to get you an interview when your resume would have otherwise been overlooked.
Anything you do that involves talking to other people about your job search counts as networking, whether it's lunch with a former co-worker, coffee with a recruiter, or a formal networking event in your area. Some people are apprehensive about networking, but like anything in life, the more you do it, the easier it becomes.
Schedule Time For Follow-Ups
Whether you're inquiring about a submitted job application or following up with a colleague you met while networking, these intimidating tasks often get pushed to the back burner as you prioritize your time. Scheduling them into your weekly agenda ensures that you will set aside adequate time to close the circle with various activities that you've started.
Update Your LinkedIn Profile
If you've taken the time to build your LinkedIn profile, you should be logging in at least once a week, and preferably more often.
The various groups on LinkedIn offer a never-ending conversation on topics from looking for a job to news relevant to your industry/field. Following and connecting with people who work at your bucket list companies gives you the opportunity to build your professional network and get referrals. A fully optimized profile also allows recruiters and hiring managers to find you when they search for job candidates with specific skill sets.
Build Your Personal Brand
The candidate who walks into a job fair or interview knowing who they are and what they can provide has a remarkable edge over a candidate who's still figuring these things out. Spend some time developing a personal branding statement, printing business cards for yourself, and engaging in activities that support your personal brand—whether that means volunteering, blogging, consulting, or tweeting about your field.
When you walk into a room and say, "Hi, this is who I am and this is what I do," it makes a powerful statement.
Having a polished resume is critical to your job search. However, sending that resume off to online job postings is not how you should spend 100% of your time looking for a job. Make sure you're interacting with other people both in-person and online to maximize your chances of standing out from the crowd.
Remember to stay positive during your job search and know that there are resources available to help you through this challenging process, including the resources at Work It Daily. Join our FREE community today and learn how to become empowered in your career so you can finally find job search success and career satisfaction!
This article was originally published at an earlier date.
Think of yourself as a business-of-one. You're a service provider, right? You sell your services to an employer. And companies that make the most money and get the best opportunities have great brands. Therefore, you want to have a great personal brand so that the best employers want to hire you.
So, how do you build a great personal brand? Well, there is a step-by-step process that you use, especially tools like social media, in order to put out your message (and communicate your personal branding statement) in a way that feels normal and natural to you. I know most of you don't want to sound like a guru, and you definitely don't want to look like a narcissist. You don't have to. Personal branding is about documenting your experience so that people understand what you do for work and how you create value. And there's a very logical and easy way to do this that won't make you feel like a fraud.
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Everyone needs a personal brand. It's not hard to build one. It's not rocket science or brain surgery. But having one can make all the difference in your career. Would you like to make more money? Would you like to work for great employers? The better your personal brand, the higher the chances you'll achieve those goals. So, go build that personal brand! I'll be here if you need any help.
When you think about personal branding, a few questions might come to mind: What is a personal brand? Why do I need to develop my personal brand? How do I create a personal brand? Of course, you don’t really “create” a personal brand. You already have one. What Can Influence Your Personal Brand? Don’t believe me? Google your name followed […]