Blog

My name is Katherine Ann Byam and I’m your host. What’s your purpose? And how does it integrate with sustaining life itself? For some of us this question is a deep ache that we spend a lifetime trying to find, perhaps shifting direction as we learn and grow from one path to another. For many of us, our children give us a clear definition, providing for them becomes our reason for being. For others, it’s about enjoying the present moment, ever so fleeting and ever so beautiful. For still others it can be financial, status, contribution or impact. In this podcast, my guest and I will share with you tips, ideas and methods on how to build a career that integrates with who you are and the life you want to lead. We will explore the social foundation on which to build your transition and an ecological ceiling above which, we need not climb, so that we live, not just for ourselves, but for our collective ability to thrive. Welcome to the purpose driven career podcast, Do What Matters. 

Today’s session is about optimising LinkedIn for your job search. There’s a lot to talk about for LinkedIn, but six things that I think you should focus on to make your profile ready for review and viewing by those who will be interested in hiring you. So the first thing I would say is your headline. So normally, when I look at corporate headlines and people who are in the corporate space, their headline usually says their job title. And that’s not relevant in the marketplace, because job titles vary depending on the company. So what you really want to put in your headline is what you’re known for. So what your real authority area is, so if it is a supply chain professional specialising in three PL or planning, or whatever it is, but you should really state what your authority really is. Supply chain professional alone doesn’t cut it, because that’s too broad, it’s too generic. So you want to narrow it down to something very specific: supply chain, professional dash, your area of specialisation, finance professional, your area of specialisation, etc. So your headline should be about your authority statement, it should already tell people what they should be coming to you for. You can put other things after that right and say the company you work for, you can say, you can add different titles after, but that first line of your headline is very important, because it’s the first line that people see when they’re looking at your comments or looking at anything that you post, because it’s the first line that comes up for them. So you really want to make that first line powerful, and what you want to be known for. The second one is your about section. So this is a section that you can add to your LinkedIn profile if you haven’t done it already. And that about section is effectively your new cover letter, you have to think about LinkedIn as your professional storefront. This is basically where people will first get to learn about what you have to offer. And that about section is where you make a communication about what you have to offer. It is like your cover letter. But obviously you’re not sending that cover letter to some specific company. So it is more about, it’s about the normal type of role that would hire you, right? So you need to think about them. So think about if you’re in finance, and you’re normally hired by the CFO, think about what’s on the CFOs mind, what’s most important for the CFO. And those things are what you need to start talking about when you put in that about section, what typical challenges, what the CFO wants to accomplish, what typically frustrates them and how you, with your specific skill set, can address that need. So this is one of the ways that you can tackle that about section. It is like a, like a, cover letter, but you have to tailor it as much as possible, given the constraints that you have, which is that you don’t know exactly the company that you want to work for. But if you have a range, or type, of companies that you want to work for, you can specialise and tailor that inside that about section. Don’t make your about section completely about yourself, so you have to first go from the person who’s reading it, to then talk about you. So make a transition between the two.

The next section is your feature section. So, this is another section that you have to add to your profile. So if you go to the menu on LinkedIn, there is an area where you can add things to your profile, you can add a feature section to your profile. And this is where you can introduce external links or PDFs about work that you’ve done in the past, right. So this is another area where you can demonstrate the authority that you have on the platform from your previous work or from your current assignments. It can be even a space where you indicate other achievements that you’ve made volunteering work that you’ve done, anything that you feel relevant to highlight for the future job search, that you’re doing, it all depends on how, let’s say how good you are at authority building. So if you already write articles, for example, if you already have a blog that’s relevant to the work that you’re doing, this is a nice place to introduce it. Okay, so that’s number three. Number four, is LinkedIn learning. So I scouff and laugh a little bit, because there are a lot of people who are going on LinkedIn learning, and hey, I just finished this course, blah, blah, your really using LinkedIn learning for two, for two, things you want to get the language that’s being used, or the current language that’s being used around the roles that you’re doing. So for example, things are obviously being changed and adapted by, by data, by remote working, by all the things that are changing sustainability, etc. What you want to get from using LinkedIn learning is the keywords that people are using nowadays to describe things, because they will be different in every company. So it’ll be interesting to see how different people are expressing different things. And this helps you to augment your CV, augment your profile, etc, when you start picking up some of the newer keywords that are being used. So this is one of the things that I would use LinkedIn learning for, even if you already know the topic. And the other one would be for things that you don’t know, obviously, so. So, it’s very useful to have a demonstration, a public demonstration, that you are keeping your skills up to date, on your LinkedIn profile, that’s quite handy. I mean, if I was hiring, I would look for that, I would look to see if you’re actually doing anything to advance yourself, I think other hiring managers would as well. The other one, I’m going to skip all the skills and all the stuff that you normally have in your CV, because I think that that’s over talked about, but I’m gonna go straight to something that really makes a difference, and tat is recommendations. So at the bottom of your, of your, LinkedIn profile, there’s a space for you to either give recommendations or receive them. And I will antithetically tell you that you should give them, right, you should really give as many recommendations as you feel in your integrity to do, because this is a great way of giving something to your network that they didn’t ask for. So if you want to tip that, that is the best tip I can give you – give recommendations to people. Beyond giving recommendations, you should also ask for them, be bold, and ask for them, I would suggest not to ask the same people you give them to because it really looks like quid pro quo. And you don’t necessarily want a quid pro quo, you really just want to add value to somebody who’s added value to you. And that’s why you give them and then you ask for a strategic one. So you ask for the ones where you feel that it’s quite important what they could have to say about you, depending on the type of role that you’re looking for. So if you, if you have a mixed background, so for example, if you have a background of finance and audit like I did, and maybe you want to go for an audit role next, you want to be strategic and ask for audit type feedback on your profile. When I was leaving my last job, for example, I asked everybody to give me change management type feedback, because that’s what I wanted to do. I wanted to get into change management consulting. So I wanted change management feedback. I also wanted feedback on my human relationship skills, because I’m doing a lot of coaching with people. So you have to be strategic about what you ask for. But the ones that you give, you give them generously, regardless, right. So you can be strategic about who you give as well in terms of, you know, where you want to go, the companies that you want to work for etc. But I feel as if giving recommendations based on people you’ve actually worked with who’ve really added value to your life will be a point of gratitude that will pay you back if you believe in karma. And the final point I wanted to talk about is an engagement. So we mentioned that at the at the top of this session, about the headline, and that it’s the first line that people see, engagement is where this comes in. So I’m not telling you to just engage crazily on anyone’s posts, but I want you to think strategically about whose posts you want to get engaged with. So you want to think about the person and you also want to think about the topics. You want to be engaging on things that you are the authority on. So yesterday I talked about what you should be choosing as your authority set, you should have three main things as your authority, and when you’re engaging with posts, you should be engaging with posts on things that you are the authority on, or that you are interested in becoming an authority on. And that’s how you you drive your engagement. One key tip for engagement is to make sure that the length of your comment, so if you’re commenting on someone else’s post, make sure the length of that comment is more than 10 words. That sounds silly, but this is how the algorithm works. At the moment, you know, the algorithms always change but this is currently how the algorithm works. If you make a comment, that’s more than 10 characters it’s likely to be shown to more people and this is also a way to build your authority. That’s my session for today. If anything, just hit me in the DMs and we will chat. See you soon, bye.

This episode was brought to you today by the courageous career club. Have you picked up your own copy of; Do What Matters: The Purpose Driven Career Transition Guidebook? To find out how you can get your copy, as well as resources that go alongside it, visit my website, www Katherine Ann byam.com or engage with me on the socials. I’m looking forward to hearing from you.