Great LinkedIn profiles and resumes have a lot in common, including highly targeted, keyword-rich and concise content, accomplishment-oriented bullets and a powerful summary section. Because of these similarities, copying your resume content right into your LinkedIn profile is often a good idea. Yet in some situations you’ll want to take a different approach to your profile.
If you’re concerned about how a resume gap will be perceived by employers, here’s some good news: you can usually reduce or eliminate the harm it can cause your job search. Plus, in many cases, the gap will not be viewed as a big deal to begin with. How much of a problem the gap poses depends on:
If you’re a candidate for C-suite, Partner, or Board roles, you’ll be asked for a bio as part of the process. For some roles reporting to the C-suite, you may need a bio as well. Employers evaluating your candidacy want to see how your career story will look to prospective investors, clients, and employees when shared publicly. For more junior roles, a bio is usually not worth prioritizing, except when your story is especially unusual or compelling.
To create a resonant bio,
For those over 50 and gainfully employed, this study says you have a 56% chance that you'll be let go before you're ready to retire, risking substantial income loss. The study supports my own observations via client work that there is no real job security, only "career security." In a sense employees are really all consultants.
But not to worry! Here's a list of things you can do to both minimize the risk of an unwanted departure and set yourself up for a quick, positive transition if necessary.
Perhaps you've experienced the disappointment of carefully crafting an email or cover letter asking for a meeting only to get no response or turned down. In fact, all too often these messages are not even read, because the email subject line or the content doesn’t resonate or the message is too densely worded. Clients who have applied the following nine rules, however, have seen big improvements in their email response rates.
Job searches go faster when job-seekers first take a step back to plan strategically. And careful planning has become even more important during these challenging economic times. Think of it this way; your “job” in a job search is to be a world-class consultative salesperson, for yourself. So do what the best salespeople do: plan carefully first, to get the highest return on your time investment. Here’s a seven step job search plan that has gotten results for my clients, and that any great salesperson would appreciate.
LinkedIn's “Open to Work” feature can potentially let employers, recruiters, and your network know you're looking for a job. But, should you use this feature? Before I share my thoughts, a word on how to access this feature: click the Open to Work button under your profile picture. You can then share your open-to-work status by checking either "share with recruiters only" or "share with all LinkedIn members."
A powerful pitch, one that resonates with your target audience, can give your job search a big boost in this challenging economy. Employers and networking contacts will be impressed when you concisely and engagingly describe what differentiates you from your competitors. Plus the process of creating your pitch is, on its own, well worth your time; the deeply self-reflective thinking that’s required will help you to sell yourself. You’ll need two versions of your pitch:
When clients first contact me for résumé help, they often say things like “I heard that you should never…” or “I was told to always…” Most of these rules are just plain wrong, because they contradict the one Golden Rule of Résumé Writing: your “why you should hire me” message needs to jump off the page in the 15 seconds or less that your résumé is being reviewed (one study says your résumé is looked at for only 7.4 seconds).
Keeping the Golden Rule in mind, let’s look at the top four résumé myths that I’ve come across in my work with clients.
The #1 Reason You’re Not Being Found On LinkedIn for Opportunities
by Robert Hellmann • Getting Interviews, On-the-job Success, Resume, LinkedIn, self-promo
Recruiters and hiring leaders can’t reach out if they can’t find you—here’s what your LinkedIn profile is missing. . .