LinkedIn and Other Social Media

WRITTEN BY DAVID MARWICK, KEMPMILLJOBASSIST ON 16 MAY 2019. On your LinkedIn page, above and to the right of your head shot, is a large rectangle, known as your background image. The default option for this image looks like the night sky — a blue background with stars in constellations. Instead of retaining this default option, you can make this large space work for you by inserting content that reinforces your “brand.” It’s a great way to help a reader see you the way you want to be seen. The custom background “can make your profile stand out and put itself in a category of one,” said William Arruda, who Entrepreneur Magazine dubbed the “personal branding guru.” Here are a few examples of how people can effectively use their background image to reinforce their brand: 1. Christopher Doerr is a packaging company sales executive, and his image shows products that use his company’s packaging. 2. Alex Freund is a career coach, and his image shows him teaching a class. 3. Peggy McKee is also a career coach. Her brief webinar on background images inspired me to write this article. Her image (pictured below left) shows the cover of one of her books and identifies her as an “Amazon.com best-selling” author. 4. John Nemo is a LinkedIn guru. His image (pictured below right) includes the covers of two of his books and the logos of publications where he has been quoted. 5. Claudia Williams is a leadership consultant. Her image shows her giving a TED Talk. Other people use cityscapes, landscapes, or something similar. Such content is more interesting than the default option, but — no matter how breathtaking the shot — it does not help others understand who you are and what you offer. For further reading: William Arruda, “The Best LinkedIn Backgrounds And How To Create Yours,” October 7, 2018. He provides links to seven LinkedIn profiles and explains why the images are effective. Dann Albright, “How to Choose the Perfect LinkedIn Background Photo,” March 27, 2018. Lindsey McMillion Stemann, “3 Tips for the Optimal LinkedIn Background Image,” originally published September 21, 2015, updated January 2017. By David Marwick, KempMillJobAssist

WRITTEN BY DAVID MARWICK FOR KEMPMILLJOBASSIST ON 22 FEBRUARY 2018.  Following up on our Jan. 25 article about the differences between your resume and your LinkedIn profile, here are four tips for getting the most out of LinkedIn. Personalize Your URL When you join LinkedIn, you will be assigned a unique, but clunky, URL (Uniform Resource Locator, aka web address). It includes your first and last name and nine numbers and letters. For example, the URL for one of the thousands of people I found on LinkedIn named John Smith is https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-smith-3375a713b. Your LinkedIn URL should be part of the contact information on your resume, and a personalized URL looks better than the one you are automatically assigned. In addition, you can use your personalized URL to advertise your business or specialty: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexfreundcareercoach, for example, or https://www.linkedin.com/in/hirejohnnemo. Personalize Your Name If a prospective employer likes your resume, the typical next step is to look for you on LinkedIn, to learn more about you.  If your resume includes your LinkedIn URL, no matter how clunky, it is easy to find you.  But if your resume does not include your LinkedIn URL, finding you can be a challenge. We all think that we are one of a kind, but we likely share our name with many other people. For example, I found that there are 189 people in LinkedIn named Daniel Goldstein and 316 people named Benjamin Cohen. How likely is it that a prospective employer will take the time to sort through many profiles to find yours? These numbers are dwarfed by the number of LinkedIn members with more common names.  For example, I found 2,426 people in LinkedIn named Thomas Jones, 4,341 people named Tom Jones, and 62,465 named John Smith. To find a specific Daniel Goldstein or Benjamin Cohen, it is possible to search within LinkedIn by state or other descriptor, but not every prospective employer can be assumed to know how to do this. Finally, you can distinguish yourself from all the people who share your name by using your middle name, a middle initial, and so forth. Personalize Your Invitations To grow your LinkedIn network, you will want to invite people to connect to you. LinkedIn provides the generic text with an offer to let you customize your invite and the advice that “LinkedIn members are more likely to accept invitations that include a personal note.” If you are inviting someone who knows you reasonably well, a personal note may not be necessary. If, however, you met 10 people at a conference last week and are inviting each of them to link to you, a personal note may help refresh their memories when they see your name. For example, you might say: “I enjoyed meeting you at the [name] conference last week and discussing [topic] with you.” Use Capital Letters to Format Your Profile  Relative to Microsoft Word, LinkedIn offers few options for formatting your text. In Word, you can bold, italicize, or underline text to make it stand out.  In LinkedIn, by contrast, you can do none of those things. However, you can use CAPS to set off sections of text.  For an example of using CAPS in this way, please watch John Nemo’s 18-minute video on how he reformatted the LinkedIn profile of Tom Ziglar, son of super-salesman Zig Ziglar, at http://linkedinriches.com/tz/. Bottom line: You can get more from LinkedIn by personalizing your URL, invitations, and name, and by using capital letters to format your profile.

WRITTEN BY DAVID MARWICK FOR KEMPMILLJOBASSIST ON 14 SEPTEMBER 2017. To get a new job, dozens of things need to go well for you. However, your approach to two seemingly insignificant items may make the difference in whether you land the job. Email Address Email addresses seem innocuous. We all have at least one. What could be wrong with an email address? Believe it or not, an email address can work against you in two ways. First, some people use email addresses that reflect their hobby or other preferences. I could cite some doozies, but I don’t want to embarrass their owners. For your personal email, it’s fine to use, for example, backnine2017@xxx if you’re a golfer. But for job search and other business purposes, your email address should be business-like. Second, some email addresses reflect a favorite sports team or something similar. But your favorite team may be someone else’s least favorite team. Let’s say that your email address is GoYankees2017@xxx. If the person receiving your email is a Boston Red Sox fan, that email address will not help your chances. Headshot Many people have one or more photos of themselves in cyberspace. If you are searching for a job, you almost certainly should have a LinkedIn account and, as part of your profile, you should have a head shot. In addition, many people have photos linked to their email addresses. For a LinkedIn head shot, there’s no question that the photo should show you dressed appropriately for your profession, and it should not include extraneous or distracting images —  no kids, no beach scenes, no pets. Almost exactly two years ago, I noted that a client’s LinkedIn head shot showed him and his toddler. When I suggested that he change the photo to a more professional (less personal) picture, he initially resisted. That led me to pose a question to Caroline Ceniza-Levine, a New York-based career coach and the co-founder of www.SixFigureStart.com. “One of my ‘clients’ (I’m a volunteer) is looking for a policy analysis job in DC. His LinkedIn head shot shows him and his toddler. I suggested that a shot of him alone is better because the people he wants to work with may construe him as too family-oriented, not willing to do whatever it takes to get the job done, and pass him over. He responded that having the kid in the picture adds a touch of levity. What’s your reaction?” Ceniza-Levine answered:  “I agree with you — no to the toddler.” He later changed his LinkedIn head shot to a more standard photo. He got the job. Was there a connection? Who knows? But in a highly competitive job market, why take a chance? For a photo linked to an email address, there’s a difference between those appropriate for personal and for business purposes. For personal emails, if your hobby is raising guinea pigs, for example, it’s okay to show you with your favorite guinea pig. But for your business email, the same rules apply here as for LinkedIn photos. Nevertheless, the sky is not the limit even for a photo linked to your personal email. You should expect a prospective employer to scour the web for anything and everything about you. Thus, if the photo linked to your personal email account is too far “out there” (for example, you’re wearing a toga or chugging a beer), it may count against you. (For more on the issue of your web presence, see my March 2, 2017, Kol HaBirah article “When Your Interview Really Begins.”) The Bottom Line For-job search and other business purposes, you need to project a professional image, including an appropriate email address and LinkedIn head shot.

WRITTEN BY DAVID MARWICK FOR KEMPMILLJOBASSIST ON 04 MAY 2017. Social media platforms like LinkedIn and Facebook are an increasingly important tool in any job search. As a job seeker, you can publicize your past successes, sign up to receive alerts about relevant jobs in your area, and check out people who work at a potential employer. As an employer, you can check out prospective employees and look for candidate who may fit your needs — even if they are not looking for a job right now. This is called stealth or passive recruiting. What is stealth recruiting? For example, if an employer wants to hire a chef in the Philadelphia area who speaks French, he has two choices. First, he can advertise the vacancy and receive a large number of applications, perhaps hundreds, from people who meet or nearly meet his requirements. Because the cost of submitting an online application is so low, applicants don’t seriously consider whether they are well qualified, and therefore an employer may receive many applications. Dealing with this flood of applications can be time-consuming (read: expensive) for an employer. An employer who has premium access to LinkedIn, on the other hand, can comb through LinkedIn members’ profiles, even if they are not currently seeking a job, to find the relatively small number of people who clearly meet all of the job’s criteria. This allows the employer to avoid the time and expense of screening so many applications. The following four recent articles — three on LinkedIn and one on Facebook — are well worth your time: 1.) “7 LinkedIn Hacks That Will Help You Get Noticed by Recruiters,” by Marguerite Ward, published March 2017. “If you maximize your LinkedIn profile, you may not be looking for your next job; it could come find you.” This advice comes from Suzy Welch, a best-selling management author. Welch’s seven suggestions will not surprise those who are diligent about maintaining their LinkedIn profile. But for the casual user, they can make the difference between being found and not being found by a recruiter. For example, include your location. “Recruiters screen by location,” Welch says. “Leaving your location off leaves you out of the running for a lot of jobs.” Also, include your education. Adding your school(s) makes it more likely that hiring managers and former classmates will find you in searches. 2.) “Older Workers Rebuild Professional Networks With the Help of LinkedIn,” by Mary Kane, published March 2017. Kane focuses on Mark Stein, a communications professional in his late fifties, who, through no fault of his own, needed to find a new job. Social media platforms are not only for the younger generations. Kane cites a Pew Research Center finding that 21 percent of LinkedIn users are 50 to 64 years old, and another eight percent are 65 and older. She details how Stein dramatically improved his LinkedIn profile and made LinkedIn a part of his daily job search routine. He set criteria for notification of job openings and used his connections to learn more about those openings. Using those connections helped him land a job. In one way, your age can be an advantage — after decades in the work force, you (potentially) have a massive network. Kane provides specific suggestions on how to activate your network. 3.) “3 LinkedIn Updates You Need to Know About for 2017,” by Sara McCord, published March 2017. McCord explains three new features recently rolled out by LinkedIn. They are intended to help users connect more easily with other users, make it easier to navigate someone’s profile, and connect better with recruiters. 4.) “Will Facebook Make Looking for a Job Easier — Or Just More Social?” by Willam Arrude, published April 2017. Arruda discusses the launch of Facebook’s job board and its implications for passive recruiting. As Arruda notes, Facebook’s reach is astounding (1.9 billion active users), about six times as many as Twitter (about 320 million). It remains to be seen, he concludes, how effectively Facebook will help connect employers to the right applicants and whether it will be an efficient use of time for recruiters and applicants. My own two cents: Facebook may not “get it right” from the outset, but that much brainpower is sure to improve the product over time. By David Marwick for KempMillJobAssist  David Marwick is KempMillJobAssist’s workshop coordinator. He studied economics at George Washington University and worked as an economist for George Washington University and the U.S. Government Accountability Office.