Wayist's recent activity

  1. Comment on How are you actually supposed to network / LinkedIn? in ~life

  2. Comment on How are you actually supposed to network / LinkedIn? in ~life

    Wayist
    Link
    Alright, I'm going to start from the assumption that you are a total newbie to LinkedIn / social presence in general. Apologies in advance if I say something that seems self-evident or overly...
    • Exemplary

    Alright, I'm going to start from the assumption that you are a total newbie to LinkedIn / social presence in general. Apologies in advance if I say something that seems self-evident or overly basic, just trying to cover all the bases.

    First - when you create your profile - having a picture and a headline is important if you want to do any networking on LinkedIn. The photo doesn't need to be a professional photo, just a decent picture of your face, not in any compromising positions (so no racy shirts/hats/beer in hand, etc). Your headline can be basic - and just say something "Environmental Scientist" to start or whatever type of job you want. It's important to build your headline and profile as the job you want, not what you are doing now.

    Skip over your about/Summary section for right now, and build out jobs / education / certifications. Depending, you can just put job titles and not put any achievements or anything in there. I've seen people be successful both ways. if you go with putting more content, make it actionable - Start with a verb - "Won, Achieve, Kicked-off" or whatever you did, and talk about your impact. So the structure is <Verb> <thing you did> <impact you had>. Try to keep in mind that your resume / linked in is a marketing document - you are marketing yourself and you want to show your best.

    That's the straight-forward part. After that you need to start sleuthing a bit. If you have a small network, see who they follow/are connected to, and see what they post about. If you see someone who has a lot of connections or posts a lot, you can start with a 'follow' (you see their public posts) if you feel weird about the out of the blue "hey wanna connect!"

    If you go the "Hey wanna connect" route - be up front. Say you are just out of school, on the job hunt and trying to expand your network to grow. Most folks will accept the connection and the people who don't, meh you aren't missing much.

    Now more sleuthing. LinkedIn search is going to be your best friend. Start by searching for job titles you want and look for people who have your job title. Look at their profiles and see the terms they use, what their headlines looks like, their About section, etc. You need to see how people in your broader industry talk to each other - what terms the use, how they reference things, what hashtags they used. This is your key being able to reach the right people. keep track of common words phrases, and don't be afraid to look through their activity lists and see who they are interacting with. Your goal here is to track down the most active people on LinkedIn who do the job you want or work in your industry.

    Try to connect with people who seem like they are active or are especially interesting. Like they work in the company you want, they have the job title you want, etc. When you reach out to them, again say "Hey I'm fresh out of school and job hunting, growing my network. I see that you work at <x Company>. Would you be open to talk with me about your career journey there." or "I see that you are an <X role>. Would you be open to talk with me about how you got your first role?" Again, most people will connect and you might only get a few messages back and forth, but every little bit helps here.

    Now that you've been looking at people's posts, and profiles, paying attention to their "About" Section, go back and write your about section using the commonalities you saw from the profiles you were reviewing. Your goal here is to include the words that recruiters and hiring managers are going to search for when they are hiring for the job you want.

    As you are doing this, you'll see lots of posts from people about things you are knowledgeable about -- you'll be using LinkedIn search to help you find things to comment on. Don't spam, LinkedIn doesn't like that, but high quality comments on a couple posts a week will do a ton to boost your visibility.

    It's a lot and it takes constant effort, but it's worth it. Getting just a little bit of visibility on LinkedIn goes a long way, and its totally possible to build your network without being creepy or spammy.

    Hope this helps

    11 votes