Out of Date Job Tactics to Avoid

Reading 5 Out-of-Date Job-Search Tactics, there were a few tactics that jumped out at me. Remember dedicated résumé paper and envelopes? There’s no point now purchasing fancy paper to print your resume and cover letter. Your resume will travel the information highway and digitally end up in people’s hands. Instead, make sure your resume is formatted simply and contains good, strong content.

You should also avoid addressing cover letters with Dear Sir or Madam or To Whom It May Concern. Why? Because companies are transparent nowadays. You can find the hiring manager’s name on LinkedIn with two clicks of the mouse!

The article also advises avoiding long lists of bullets for each job listed in your résumé. This is something that also translates to your LinkedIn profile. You don’t want to say too much and risk disqualifying yourself. You also don’t want to list all your duties. Talk about key accomplishments. Use numbers, show your success in percentages, dollars, time savings, etc.

I am just going to quote this paragraph because it’s so important:

Limit yourself to two or three bullets for each of your past jobs. A short, bulleted point that tells the reader what you’ve gotten done in your career and how you roll—“When our two biggest rivals merged, I launched a grass-roots e-mail marketing campaign that ramped sales 20 percent”—beats the heck out of long lists of tasks and duties or general statements like “solved tricky customer service issues.” Use your résumé to tell your story. Give it a human voice, a breezy tone, and quick, pithy stories to bring your power across on the page. No one cares about your daily tasks. (Most of us can extrapolate those from your job titles, anyway.)

It’s a different world out there. You have to change your mindset. It’s all about putting forth a professional image that showcases what you’ve done and WHAT YOU CAN DO. Your image spans more than just your resume. Gain control and brand yourself… you will be unstoppable!

The email goes something like this:

Linkedin has very quietly introduced some new settings that potentially seriously affect your privacy and your ability to prevent unwanted emails (spam). These new settings are defaulted ON and include allowing Linkedin to use profile information, names and photos in third party advertising. Please see the links below for opting out. You might want to consider alerting your contacts on Linkedin.

The settings they refer to are:

• Manage Social Advertising
• Manage Enhanced Advertising
• Data sharing with third party applications
• Partner InMail

This email has been making the rounds for a few months now. None of these settings are brand spanking new. In fact, when LinkedIn added the Manage Social Advertising setting last August, they had a banner message alerting users that the privacy policy changed AND they posted a blog entry explaining the setting and their reasoning behind it.

Regardless of how old or new any of these settings are, it is important to know they exist, understand what they mean, and make the decision to leave them at their default status of on or turn them off completely.

So come with me and take a walk through the land mine that is LinkedIn’s communication/privacy settings!

Manage Social Advertising

The real question is what do these ads look like and how will my likeness or name be featured?

Here is an advertisement example LinkedIn provided back in August on their blog:

Here’s another example I found online:

via Marketaire

You may wish to opt out because you follow a competitor on LinkedIn and you don’t want your name or image used to potentially advertise them! This of course is worst case scenario.

I spend a lot of time on LinkedIn and I can’t remember seeing either of these advertisement types. I am sure they are out there but the chance of me popping up advertising something seems awfully slim so I am going to allow this setting to stay on.

Manage Enhanced Advertising

Data sharing with third party applications

Turn on/off Partner InMail

I unchecked these boxes in my settings but I don’t see any issue keeping them checked. Will you get more email? Yes, but only slightly. The messages will be targeted and you may even find that the information being shared is desirable.

In Conclusion…

So what do you think? Leave your comments below!

It was last week that I ordered a Blue Snowball Microphone from Amazon for $99 (with SPIT GUARD). It arrived just a few days ago and let me tell you, it looks AWESOME sitting on my desk. I feel like an old time radio star with it! Not only does it look good… it sounds great. In fact, I used it today for a LinkedIn Profile Optimization session through Skype and my client kept telling me I sounded like I was in the same room with him.

It’s not enough to have a glorious new microphone, software is also needed! I ended up downloading Audacity to record the podcasts and PowerPress to make my WordPress installation podcast friendly. Once I had the tactical stuff completed, I started thinking about what to say.

In my LinkedIn Group, Profile Makeover: Optimization Secrets, I asked the members what they would like to hear from me and I got some great ideas. With almost everything I needed gathered, I asked my friend Ernie to record a theme song. He came up with a really cute little ditty and next thing I know, I am recording a podcast.

I hope you like it! I had fun recording it for you. This is my very first podcast…. EVER, so realize it’s more or less a test run. This will be an experience for all of us.

Take a listen and when you are done, tell me what you think in the comments. Please be kind

LinkedIn Makeover Podcast #1, January 27, 2012

• Theme Song
• Introduction, who I am and what I do
• Week in Review in the LinkedIn Universe
• Wall Street Journal Article, No More Résumés, Say Some Firms
• New LinkedIn Profile field, Grade
• Q&A: Dave Dixon asks: I’d like to hear the best way we get our connections to introduce us to their connections. What can we do to encourage our connections to help us out?

PLAY!

The education section has a new field called, GRADE!

Yes, LinkedIn now allows you to enter your grade for the school you attended. It’s actually a rather odd field. It says grade, not GPA. In my mind, there is a difference. I think of a grade as a mark for a class. The GPA is the overall average of time spent in school. Of course, that could just be me.

I have a feeling that few will fill out the new grade field willingly unless they graduated at the top of their class. Who wants to admit they received anything lower than an A? Still, I am always happy to see LinkedIn adding functionality.

Watch my LinkedIn Screencast

So what do you think? Is this Grade field a welcome new addition or is it just a silly field that shouldn’t have been added?

View more videos at: http://nbcphiladelphia.com.

Tracy had reached out to me back in October. She was interested in doing a story about LinkedIn and how it has become such an instrumental source for people looking for job opportunities. She asked if I would be willing to be interviewed and if I might introduce her to a client of mine that had success with LinkedIn.

I immediately thought of Sharon Hanscom. Sharon and I worked together just months before to create a Website for her newly formed consulting business. In addition to designing her promotional materials and Website, I optimized her LinkedIn profile. Not more than 6 months after we launched her new Website, she called me to take it down. I was surprised and asked why we were taking it down since she was doing so well. Turns out, through LinkedIn and her optimized profile, she found the most amazing job! Talk about success!

Just days after the initial email, Sharon and I met with Alexis Leonard, Tracy’s producer. Alexis interviewed us separately and together. She also shot footage of us walking and talking and pointing at a computer screen.

We both talked about how instrumental LinkedIn is in building a strong personal and professional brand. We also talked about the importance of networking and I discussed what makes a LinkedIn profile unique.

The whole session took about 3 to 4 hours to shoot. I remember being exhausted from it but I still got in my car and drove directly to New Jersey to speak to the Institute Of Management Accountants about LinkedIn.

At any rate, my hope is that this segment will help people discover the power of LinkedIn and give them an idea of what they need to do to stand out from the crowd.

–Donna

In fact, this may surprise you but you do not have total control over your LinkedIn account. According to LinkedIn’s User Agreement, it states quite matter-of-factly:

LinkedIn may terminate the Agreement and your account for any reason or no reason, at any time, with or without notice. This cancellation shall be effective immediately or as may be specified in the notice. Termination of your LinkedIn account includes disabling your access to LinkedIn and may also bar you from any future use of LinkedIn… Upon the termination of your LinkedIn account, you lose access to the Services.

This means that it is very possible that LinkedIn can pull the rug out from under you and terminate your account… for no reason at all. If this happens, your profile, recommendations, contacts, emails, etc… just disappear!

I speak from experience. In total transparency and quite a bit of embarrassment, I will admit to you that LinkedIn Corporation deleted my LinkedIn company page back a few months ago. Apparently, I inadvertently violated their Branding Guidelines by using the word “LinkedIn” in my company page. There was no warning, I woke up one morning and my company page was gone. My followers, my products, my recommendations, all deleted! I attempted to get it reinstated and although LinkedIn was polite, they were not interested in helping.

It was a difficult lesson to learn.

Are you thinking, “Gosh, that would never happen to me?” Here are a few ways that you can violate LinkedIn’s User Agreement:

• Publish inaccurate information in the designated fields on the profile form (e.g., do not include a link or an email address in the name field).
• Invite people you do not know to join your network
• Upload a profile image that is not your likeness or a head-shot photo
• Deep-link to the Site for any purpose

These are just a few violations that I see taking place EVERYDAY!

Realistically, the chances of LinkedIn taking down your account are slight. The greater danger is hackers. Hackers love LinkedIn! How secure is your password? Tennis, anyone? It is entirely possible that your LinkedIn account could be compromised for nefarious purposes and according to some reports, it is quite easy to accomplish.

I am not trying to scare you. I simply want you to protect yourself. If you are using LinkedIn as a business tool, you need to take precautions to protect your data. Unfortunately, there is no tool like SocialSafe for LinkedIn. Not yet at least. Until an online backup is developed, you need to back up your LinkedIn Account manually. Here are the steps to backup your LinkedIn Profile and Contacts…

How to Backup your LinkedIn Profile

You can get fancy and format the file but it’s not really necessary. The important thing is that you capture your content! You want to make sure you have a copy of your headline, summary, job titles and descriptions, recommendations, groups, etc…

How to Backup your LinkedIn Contacts

1. Click Contacts on LinkedIn’s main navigation bar at the top of your home page.
2. Click the Export connections link at the bottom right corner of the page.
3. Leave the Export to field as it appears and enter the security text if prompted.
4. Click Export.
5. Save the file in a location where you can easily find it, like the Desktop.

Note: If you’re using Internet Explorer and see a yellow pop-up blocker across the top of the page, click the yellow bar and then select Download File.

Now that you have your contacts in spreadsheet format, it’s easy to bring them back into LinkedIn under a new account, if necessary.

Importing Contacts

Lather, Rinse, Repeat

Have you had your LinkedIn Account terminated? What happened? How did you deal with the situation? I’d love to hear from you in the comments!

Poking around LinkedIn’s Google Finance profile, I noticed a listing of LinkedIn Executives and I couldn’t help but wonder about their LinkedIn profiles. It didn’t take long to find their LinkedIn profiles:

LinkedIn’s Executive Team

Click their name to see their LinkedIn profile.
Jeffrey (Jeff) Weiner, Chief Executive Officer, Director
David Henke, SVP Operations and Engineering
Reid Hoffman, Chairman of the Board
Steven J. Sordello, Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer
Michael Gamson, Senior Vice President – Global Sales
Erika Rottenberg, Vice President, General Counsel, Secretary
Nick Besbeas, Vice President of Marketing
Steve Cadigan, Vice President, Talent
Robby Kwok, Head of Corporate Development
Deep Nishar, Senior Vice President, Products and User Experience

Looking at LinkedIn’s Executive Team’s LinkedIn profiles, I was surprised to see similarities among them. I created this table to compare and contrast their profiles:

8 Surprising Ways LinkedIn’s Executive Team Optimized Their LinkedIn Profiles

2. Recommendations
The average number of recommendations is 8.9. Two executives have 0 recommendations. Reid Hoffman has the most at 49.

3. Connections
LinkedIn tells us to only connect with those we know and trust. All of LinkedIn’s Executive Team leaders have over 500+ connections.

4. Twitter
The majority of LinkedIn executives have their Twitter accounts connected to LinkedIn.

5. Volunteer Experience & Causes
Almost all of them have Volunteer Experience & Causes listed

6. Skills
11.5 is the average number of skills listed. Steve Cadigan has the most skills with 37 listed on his LinkedIn profile.

7. LinkedIn Groups
LinkedIn Groups are important to the LinkedIn Executives. The average number of Groups listed on their profiles is 22.9

8. Contact Request Information
The LinkedIn executives tell their readership how they want to engage in communication.

This blurb appears on a couple profiles:

Please do not request to connect with me unless we know one another, worked together or went to school together. By only connecting with people I know, I am able to recommend my connections, serve as a reference and count on only receiving high quality and relevant introductions and requests. Of course, a photo on your profile and a personalized message is always helpful to remind me of you.

LinkedIn Founder, Reid Hoffman’s profile gives this advice:

Unfortunately, I’m extremely busy.


First: if you have an interest in getting my attention for an investment, working at Linkedin, a business development deal (for Linkedin or another portfolio company), then I *highly* recommend that you get an introduction to me. I am almost certainly not going to engage without a reference/introduction.


Second: I am generally not available for new projects. If it’s a new project, you must have a great introduction. Otherwise, I generally recommend you indicate who you would like to be connected with at one of my organizations to proceed.


Third: sadly, because I’m busy, if your communication to me is just a generic “ask” of me, I’m very likely just to decline it. Nevertheless, I wish you the best success if your project is a good improvement in the world.

In Summary

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You tell a person you will write them an awesome recommendation to post on their LinkedIn profile but instead you find yourself staring blankly at your computer screen at a total loss for words.

What to do, what to do?

Endorser to the rescue!

This amazing little tool coughs up LinkedIn recommendations in a blink of an eye.

Yes, I know there is something innately evil about sending off computer-generated recommendations. I get it, but it’s a busy world out there. Whatever helps you save time is a good thing in my book.

Here’s the thing… my suggestion is to use Endorser as a starting point. Use it for inspiration. Take what they give you and edit it to make it your own.

If you are stuck for words, don’t be afraid to pick up the phone and call the person you are recommending to ask them what they want you to write! Heck, I often ask the person to write the recommendation themselves and then I will go in and make some tweaks to it.

LinkedIn Recommendation Examples

Click the Endorse button and out pops a recommendation. Here’s a couple I generated for myself!

The recommendations aren’t great but they aren’t terrible either. I can’t help but wonder where they got the text. Did they cull it from recommendations already written on LinkedIn or did they hire a writer to come up with hundreds of glowing sentences that can be combined together to form paragraphs of recommendations? I don’t know and I can’t find any info on their Website.

Regardless, I think The Endorser is a great little tool if you take it for what it is… an idea generator!

Generate a Recommendation!
 

The idea behind Vizualize.me comes from Chris Spurlock’s out of the box resume.

It’s ugly out there and it’s important to stand out from the crowd. Vizualize.me provides a new way to showcase your accomplishments and career in a totally different way.

Signing up was easy. You can create an account from scratch or sign up using your LinkedIn credentials.

Vizualize.me ports over your LinkedIn profile and VOILA! Your profile is magically transformed. There are a number of customizable themes to choose from. I decided to use their Crescendo Classic theme.

Here’s how my LinkedIn profile looks “Vizualized!”

See my entire infographic CV on vizualize.me

Yay or Nay?

Include the link in your cover emails and on your resume, next to the link to your LinkedIn profile. Add the link to your email signature and place it on your personal business card.

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