Good advice on using LinkedIn – from those of us who use it every day
How do you land your dream job? Whether you want a new permanent job or a new assignment as an interim manager, these are the tricks headhunters don’t tell you – but should, to make recruitment easier for themselves.
How headhunters use LinkedIn
We headhunters rely heavily on our own networks, sources and industry experts to tip us off about talented candidates. That applies to both permanent and temporary leadership positions. In addition to our own databases and data-driven searches, LinkedIn is an important tool when we search for interim managers and leadership candidates for our clients.
Build your profile with the headhunter in mind
Is it time to change jobs, or do you need a new interim assignment? Then you should make it easy for us to find you in the database. Build your profile with the headhunter in mind.
Let’s start at the top!
- A professional photo is important – ideally one that looks like you do today.
- In the introduction below the photo, we need your name, current position, industry and location.
- Use the ‘headline’ below your name to describe, in a few words, what you can do, what you do or what you are passionate about. How you set this up depends on your industry.
- Fill in your email address and phone number in the contact information field.
- If you are actively looking for a job, indicate that you are ‘open to new opportunities’. Only professional recruiters with a recruiter profile can see that information, and it puts you at the top of our search lists.
- Use the ‘About’ section to describe your key expertise and experience, what you have done and what results you have achieved. But don’t write a long dissertation – longer texts belong in a cover letter. Instead, add a list of keywords at the bottom that tells us which skills you want to be found for.
- Under ‘Experience’, list the different jobs you have had, with job titles. If a position was temporary, you can write interim in front of the title or in brackets. Use the free-text field to fill in your areas of responsibility, and feel free to include what you achieved.
- Under ‘Education’, you have 1,000 characters at your disposal – feel free to describe your specialisation and what you wrote about in your bachelor’s and, if applicable, master’s degree. There is also room to mention whether you were active in the student union or held other significant positions.
- Remember to include ‘certifications’ and ‘volunteer work’.
- It is especially important to add ‘skills’ – the more skills you list that match our requirements, the higher you rank in our search results and the closer you are to your new dream job.
- If you have managers, colleagues or clients who will give you a ‘recommendation’, add it to your profile. Even if you don’t like to blow your own trumpet, it is good to have it there.
Finally
There you go – now you are search-engine optimised too! Good luck with your job search, and feel free to get in touch if you have any questions.
PS! You don’t need to be active and ‘like’ and ‘comment’ – we will find you anyway, as long as your profile is up to date.