LinkedIn became the hot topic at High Profile’s first GROW event of 2019 held on Wednesday, March 6th. The professional network of the Internet stands as one of the most powerful tools at the disposal of job seekers, companies and recruiters; however, utilizing this resource to its full capacity still manages to elude users. Chris Chaillot, Senior Recruiting Coordinator at High Profile, guided the group through an engaging and informative discussion of best practices on how to approach LinkedIn and how this tool works together with your resume. The following are some key takeaways from that conversation:
Make your resume stand out.
Ask 10 recruiters how best to format your resume and you will get 10 different answers. Chris shared his advice on resume formatting based on where recruiters spend the most amount of time statistically.
Recruiters spend, on average, 80% of their review time looking at the following four places:
- Name
- Current company, title, and tenure
- Past companies, titles, and tenures
- Education
In general, your experience is your experience. This means you cannot change the main information recruiters are looking at on a moment’s notice because that is your history. Most people assume the best way to really tailor a resume is in how you briefly describe your key responsibilities and skills pertaining to each position. However, not all recruiters take the time to read your experience in depth if they don’t believe it will be a worthwhile investment. That leaves us to ask how you can capture a recruiter’s attention in just the name, experience and education. Chris shared two simple but effective methods that can be incorporated into any resume:
- Put your StrengthsFinder top five (5) results near your name
- Color scheme your resume to match the company colors
Chris also shared his resume which was used when applying for his current role at High Profile Staffing as an example of this technique. Click here to view.
The StrengthsFinder assessment is a win-win in most scenarios. The results have become a very popular tool in most agencies for teambuilding and dynamics, so an immediate connection is created when companies see that you are familiar with the tool. Even when a company does not utilize the tool, you can utilize your strengths as a key talking point.
The color scheme answers the question “How do I know you intentionally chose our company?” without the need for any additional space! Companies know their logo colors, and by tailoring your resume color scheme in this simple way it shows that you did your research, and your resume has a familiar hue. Download this easy tool to find the color code of any color on your screen.
LinkedIn is not your digital resume.
Q: How am I supposed to tailor my LinkedIn profile to every position I am applying for to match my resume?
A: First and foremost, your LinkedIn profile is not a digital carbon copy of your resume. The two documents should complement each other, however, they serve very different purposes. To best understand this, place yourself in the seat of a recruiter. When a recruiter receives a list of resumes, they are trying to determine if your resume should be moved forward or declined in an average of six (6) seconds.
However, if a recruiter or hiring manager is looking at your LinkedIn profile, there is an additional factor at play here: investment. Your LinkedIn profile is a more in-depth picture of who you are, what you have accomplished, and where you want to go with your career. Your resume captures their attention with your technical skills and abilities, and your LinkedIn profile builds upon this to tell the story of your success. Long, drawn-out narratives of your accomplishments are not ideal (most people do not want to read through bulk text), but this is the place where a 2-3 sentence summary of how you achieved the highest customer service metric in your company’s history may reside. Use this platform to breathe life into the impressive skills you claim to possess and give the reader confidence that they made the right choice to pursue you.
Where’s Waldo? Are you searchable?
According to statistics released by LinkedIn, there are approximately 154 Million LinkedIn users in the United States alone. How are you supposed to shine through all of this congestion in a generic LinkedIn search? Remember, there are some factors that cannot be controlled easily such as your job history, titles, and education. However, understanding the recruiter search model and weighted metrics of LinkedIn search results allows you to optimize your profile in every way under your immediate control.
- Career InsightsLet Recruiters know you are open! There is a button under the dashboard section of your profile titled “Career interests”. This link will take you to a page where you can turn this section to “on” and answer a few additional questions to target the positions you are looking for and let recruiters know the degree of your search. The “Note to recruiters” section is also a great place to briefly describe anything that you want recruiters to know, but not necessarily anyone else.
- Where is the weight?Recruiter searches on LinkedIn do not pull information evenly from your entire profile. The most heavily weighted areas are your headline and your most recent company/position information followed by your previous experience. You have 120 characters in your headline so use this wisely! Remember to think like a recruiter. Their initial broad searches are going to include the job title of the position they are seeking candidates for followed by the most necessary skills required by the position. Research the key positions you are applying for and figure out the skills most likely to be searched. Then, if you have those skills, add them in this section.
Those in transition or looking to change careers may find that this is more difficult if your experience does not translate smoothly into what you wish to pursue. Another trick is to type “Seeking job title 1, job title 2, and job title 3.” Notice that these are specific job titles and not a generic statement such as “new opportunities”. The argument is often made that those in transition do not want to put themselves in a box, but being too open can put you in a box of its own: the clueless box. Recruiters need to perceive you as someone who is working towards a goal, and, if you later decide your three target areas are not working, you can always make edits down the road.
Thank you to those who attended!
The focus of our GROW events is to allow High Profile candidates and their connections a chance to learn and discuss a relevant industry topic, engage with our team, and form lasting relationships with other candidates in our community. We plan on hosting at least one GROW event per quarter, and we want to ensure that we are covering topics that are important to YOU. Please complete this short 3 question survey so that we can better understand what you care about most.