Are You LinkedIn?

Happy New Year. Now get your LinkedIn Profile updated! Not on LinkedIn? You should be. Don’t worry; this is not about New Year’s resolutions. It just happens to be a good time to remind you LinkedIn should be part of your professional arsenal.

Are you highly motivated in your career? Of course you should be on LinkedIn. No brainer.

Not interested in climbing the corporate ladder? Would you be interested in a job with ½ the commute and 10% more pay? Yep, you should be on LinkedIn too.

Already have a job? Greater than 90% of the people our clients hire from us are currently employed and not actively looking. People get hired every day that aren’t actively looking.

Want to be informed in your profession? You can find information on industry trends, research competitors, join groups that share valuable information for their specific field and much more.

Does your position or business rely on new customers and/or clients?  LinkedIn isn’t just for getting recruited.  Far from it.

The list goes on….

Some of you are thinking “I don’t need this. I have a good job, I don’t have time to deal with the recruiting messages, I don’t need another social media outlet.” There are exceptions to every rule and some of you are doing perfectly fine without LinkedIn.  But what do you have to lose?

Here’s how I look at it: The upside to having a LinkedIn profile is substantial. The downside?  None. The cost? Small investment of time to get it set up. While you might not need it now, the time will come.

Ok, good talk. Now that we agree you should be on LinkedIn, what does a good LinkedIn Profile look like? You know how this works. I have to save that for another post! Here’s a teaser though. This is the progression I go through in the first 10 seconds of reviewing your LinkedIn profile:

  1. Do you have a picture?
  2. How long in current position?
  3. How long with current company and what company is it?
  4. When and where did you graduate? (if education is requirement for the search)
  5. If it’s worth continuing, I go back to detail in current and most recent positions.

More on that later. Have questions? Fire away!