LinkedIn Profile Writing For A Four Dimensional, Job Search Audience

As a job seeker, your LinkedIn profile content and activities need to appeal to 4 separate audience groups. These include your existing connections, new connections/fellow group members, recruiters & hiring managers who are researching your credentials and social network recruiters who are sourcing candidates via LinkedIn.

Let’s talk about each group and what you need to consider.

1) Existing and/or Older connections

These are the connections you’ve had for awhile. They may include a mix of friends, family, college alumni and past co-workers.

Strategic questions: Is it clear from your profile information and activities that you are in the market for a new job or might these old connections assume nothing has changed? If they do know something has changed, is it clear from your profile the type of industry or profession you may be targeting?

You want these connections to know something has changed and what type of new job you are targeting, so they can help, make introductions and send you job leads.

2) New Connections Or Fellow Group Members

New connections (for the sake of this blog post) are people you’ve recently met at networking functions, via LinkedIn groups or people you’ve met during interview processes. You may have only chatted for 5-10 minutes, exchanged business cards, then LinkedIn a few days later. Or, you may have participated in a LinkedIn groups discussion or commented on a Groups news post.

I don’t know about you, but I often meet someone at a networking event and although we had a great conversation, I may forget the specific details of the conversation a few days later. The way I remember is to go back to LinkedIn and view their profile- and I also use the “contact notes” section which is displayed on the right, center part of their profile.

You want these new networking connections to remember you so they (like your established connections) can help, make introductions and send you job leads. And, you also want to be able to help them.

Strategic questions: Is it clear in your profile what you’ve done, what you want to do and your specific skills and expertise? Do you have a picture on your profile so these new connections can “put a name with a face”?

3) Recruiters/hiring managers who have your name and are doing research to specifically learn more about you. They’ve received your resume in response to a specific job, or perhaps an existing employee referred you to them.

Strategic questions: What happens when they get to your profile? Does the profile information match exactly with the resume information? Does the additional information they find on your profile, make them want to call you for an interview or move on to the next candidate? Do you really stand out from the competition?

Close to 100% of Recruiters and 75% of Hiring Managers use LinkedIn to source and research candidates. You need to be prepared!

4) Social Network Recruiters who are sourcing candidates on LinkedIn

These web savvy recruiters use LinkedIn in a number of different ways. They leverage the paid,LinkedIn Talent Advantage application and the free, Advanced People Search function, using a specific set of keywords or a Boolean string to identify a pool of candidates to choose from.

They may be using automatic search alerts to proactively notify them of new candidates who meet their exact requirements. (Similar to how job seekers use Job Posting alerts.)

And they may be scanning targeted LinkedIn groups or reading the Answers section looking for users who answered appropriate industry or occupation related questions.

Strategic questions: Does your name come up in search results? If yes, how close to the top? Have you optimized your profile for the “limited search results view” which includes very limited info such as name, headline, image and industry? Does your profile include the keywords associated with your targeted position and industry?  Does your profile information impress these recruiters and truly differentiate you from the competition?

Metrics To Measure Audience Success

How do you know if you are optimizing for all four audience groups? LinkedIn allows you to monitor how many people have viewed your profile each day and how many times you’ve showed up in search results. This is displayed on your home page, in the right hand column. By clicking on the “learn more” link, you can see some of the people who’ve viewed your profile.

Keep an eye on this data and see if the stats are going up, down, etc. The other way to know? Are you getting a continual stream of LinkedIn notes, emails and calls about job referrals and interviews?

Next Steps

Now that you have answered these strategic questions and assessed your LinkedIn Profile,  how do you optimize your LinkedIn profile content and activities for all four audience groups? Here are several blog posts that provide excellent advice in this area:

Executive Branding & Your LinkedIn Profile- Ebook

Ten Tips for a Great Job Seeker LinkedIn Profile

5 LinkedIn Profile Branding Mistakes To Avoid