Being a graduate on LinkedIn is a bit like being an ugly person on Tinder. Most recruiters or HR managers are going to scroll passed your profile with barely a second glance, searching for the more immediately desirable (in recruitment terms = harder to find) senior candidates. So the question is how do you make a recruiter/HR manager pause on your profile and look beyond face value to the qualities (personality) beneath?
Firstly, let’s clarify that I’m not talking about physical looks here, quite frankly if you’ve ever met me you’d know that I’m a long way from being Brad Pitt myself! Secondly, I’m not talking about having a professional LinkedIn headshot – the rise of small businesses doing these photo’s always baffles me, I can’t say I’ve ever stopped on a LinkedIn profile to admire the composition of a person’s photo. True I will look to see if they have a “corporate” photo, but I have a wide definition of this – if you’re not in fancy dress you pretty much get a pass. Thirdly I am not even really spending too much time on the layout/information you’ve written in the about sections or your job history – you’re a graduate – you don’t have much job history and that’s the point.
So, what are we looking for?
The reason that Recruiters/HR Managers spend time looking at senior candidate profiles on LinkedIn is that they’re searching for specific skills, project types that they’ve worked on, competitors that they’ve worked for or connections they have – all that can be clearly demonstrated via a well written LinkedIn profile. Searching for candidates this way is time-consuming (it takes time to read individual profiles, craft tailored messages to candidates etc), but ultimately rewarding as you’re able to proactively target specific people with the correct skills. Whereas advertising on job boards limits your audience to the people who apply. When it comes to graduates’ employers are not chasing extensive skills or project experience – they’re predominantly hiring on capacity and personality. Equally at the graduate level, it’s quicker for a recruiter to craft a well-written advert, sit back and wait for the response as opposed to spending time trawling through LinkedIn for a commodity that is likely to respond to adverts anyway.
So as managers are hiring on personality and capacity, how do you demonstrate this in a professional way?
1. You need to draw people in/appear interesting.
You can do this by posting interesting articles that people will pause at and read. This takes work, people in your network will have access to the same feeds as you, so reposting articles on your feed will only have a minor effect. Actively searching articles from specialist websites, overseas best practice, award winners, industry websites and alike will be content that your target audience won’t receive on their feed and therefore be more likely to make them pause. Whilst you can develop processes that can streamline this (for example set a dedicated time aside each week to click through saved favourite URL’s to find content), it takes work.
2. Reach out to people.
Anyone who comments on your feed or views your profile and is relevant/potentially helpful in your job search should be connecting with. Again, take the extra effort to make it personal, rather than just clicking connect, craft a message along the lines of saw you looking at my profile, anything I can do for you (we’re heading back to the Tinder analogy again!). The extra effort encourages people to do more than simply connect/forget you, but nudges them into opening a conversation which could lead to potential opportunities
3. Have an opinion.
When you post an article (or even better if you have time write a blog), don’t be afraid to provide your personal opinion. Remember that people aren’t necessarily looking for controversial, just for you to be willing to state and stand behind your opinion, as they hope you would in a workplace.
4. Utilise the contacts you make.
If you see a role advertised by a company and are interested don’t be afraid to search your LinkedIn connections to see if you know anyone who works for them, and flick them a message asking for any tips they have in applying. At the very least you’re showing initiative or potentially finding an ally who will vouch for you to at least getting an interview.
5. All of the above takes work.
True it’s not taxing, difficult or even something that requires masses of time, but to be effective and to get yourself noticed it needs to be consistent and done on a regular basis. So set yourself a regular weekly 30-minute timeslot when you’ll commit to doing it.
Finally, remember that like the ugly duckling – as your experience grows you’ll turn into a beautiful swan, with HR Managers and recruiters pausing on your profile – looking for a specific skill set or project experience – so be sure to review your resume on a fairly regular (bi-annual or at least annual basis) to make sure that you’re updating it with new projects/skills that you’ve done.
Want more advice?
Contact Russell Locke on 03 9069 6520 or russell.locke@plannedresources.com.au
