LinkedIn 2020

Your Most Valuable Job Protection and Job Searching Tool

Facebook may dominate Internet social media, but when it comes to keeping or landing a job, LinkedIn gets all the likes. Launched a year before Facebook in 2003, LinkedIn has become the top tool for networking and job searching in any industry. You simply can not afford to not have a LinkedIn presence if you want to stay employed or plan on finding the job of your dreams. The people you are competing against are on LinkedIn, and you need to be, too.

With more than 630 million active users worldwide, LinkedIn is powered by Microsoft, which purchased it in 2016 and supercharged its effectiveness. Horizon Hire’s team of professional career consultants have deep experience with teaching workers of every stripe how to best leverage LinkedIn to job search or job-protect in even the most difficult of economic periods. Like the one we’re in now during the COVID-19 Pandemic. You’ve probably looked at LinkedIn or may even have already created your page, but many people find it to be a difficult task to set up and navigate. Ahead we’ll walk you through setting up your LinkedIn profile, how to best use it to network, and reveal some secret tricks-of-the-trade that will get you on the radar of job recruiters in your target industry. The platform can be a bit intimidating for even a seasoned veteran, so we’ve chosen to break it down into bite-sized chunks. Don’t worry, we’ll also make detailed how-tos available to you on our website.

Starting Point

We suggest you consider LinkedIn to be your professional landing page, your personal brand’s business website. It lets colleagues, hiring managers and industry leaders know who you are in a glance. That’s what makes it as important as a resume in the modern era of job searching and job protection.

Whether your profile’s been gathering attention for years or if you’re just signing up, the tips below are just what you need to help make your LinkedIn status reach All-Star level (yes, that’s actually an official designation in the platform!).

PROFILE
All sections of your LinkedIn page are important, but the profile reigns supreme so you’ll want to spend time getting it “just right.” Start with a headline that will catch people’s attention but also explains in a glance who you are and what you do. It’s perfectly okay to get some help with this by accessing LinkedIn.com and searching for other people in your field of work and see the keywords they use to describe themselves. (Warning: We’ll be suggesting this “swipe-file” approach more times ahead.) The headline sits directly below your name, and the space is limited so you have your work cut out for you to make a concise and engaging headline that will entice people to continue scrolling
ABOUT
Now that your headline is in place, you’ve laid the groundwork for your summary. Think of it as a personal elevator pitch…meaning, what you’d say to a leader in your field should you find yourself alone in an elevator ride and they ask you, “What do you do?” You’ll probably spend more time on this task than any other individual work for your LinkedIn profile. It’s that important. You’ll want to explain who you are, what experience you have, and how you’ve put that experience to use helping others. You have space for 2,000 characters, so don’t waste them (the paragraph you’ve just read has about 500 characters). To help keep the reader’s eyes moving down your page, you can use bullets to call out a few career highlights, but don’t go overboard with them. Paragraphs are best.
EXPERIENCE
Grab your resume as you’ll want to use it as the blueprint for this section. Beware! Do NOT simply copy-and-paste your entries. Instead, you’ll want to highlight your positions, experience and successes in an essay format. Don’t be shy, and don’t be humble. Instead, recap the wins you’ve racked up in recent months. Include volunteer work and church work if you’d like.
EDUCATION AND TRAINING
This section can be tricky for workers who have attended more class reunions than they want to admit! The good news is you can skip listing your high school, especially if you have an Associates or Undergraduate degree. If you have college experience or degrees, list them and then polish the section by adding societies or extracurricular activities that you participated in. Be sure to also include any awards, certificates and licenses you’ve earned.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Once you’ve done the work to outline your experience and skills, your next step is to have colleagues, managers and clients validate your profile by adding their recommendation. This is more elaborate than the endorsement request outlined above, and we won’t pretend that this is not difficult. In fact, Horizon Hire is publishing in the near future an exclusive training about this very topic.
SKILLS AND ENDORSEMENTS
The skill section is the LinkedIn profile area where experienced (aka “older”) workers can really showcase their strengths. Before you begin crafting this section, open a spreadsheet (like Microsoft’s Excel or Google’s Sheets) and list as many skills that you can think of. For hints, search online for job listings in your current or targeted field, and copy down the descriptions that apply to you. Be sure to add the phrases verbatim, as that’s how hiring managers hunt for them. List both the hard and soft skills so that you provide a richly detailed look at your skill set. (Hard skills include the software or machinery that you know how to use, while soft skills include leadership, project management, teamwork and communication.)

After you have these skills listed, you’ll be able to change their order depending on the particular position you are applying for.

Protip: Ask for endorsements. Endorsements are a quick and painless way for your LinkedIn associates to show their support by simply clicking LinkedIn’s version of a Like button. It’s best that you first endorse others, so once your profile is published and you’ve made connections, don’t hesitate to endorse the skills on your colleague’s profiles. Many of them will then do the same for you.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Unfortunately, winning MVP of your corporate softball league most likely doesn’t apply here, unless you are seeking a position as a softball sporting goods rep. What should be listed are the other achievements you’ve racked up over the years. Things like “top selling agent for Q1 2019,” “fluent in Spanish,” “directed the successful onboarding of 19 new clients in 12 weeks,” etc. etc. Having difficulty creating the list? Think back at the moments over your career where you were the most particularly proud – the events or rewards that you couldn’t wait to tell your spouse about. Those are what belong in the Special Accomplishments section, to give your prospective new firm a fuller look at you as an employee. Plus this is another opportunity where you can take advantage of your age and wisdom.
INTERESTS
The Interests section is at the end of your profile but its lowly place doesn’t make it any less troublesome. You’ll want to be judicious here, so list at the top of your interests the groups, organizations and events that can be most beneficial to your job protection or job search efforts.
PROFILE PHOTO
We’ve saved the best (or worst, depending on your point of view!) for last: The profile picture. Every page needs one, so don’t even think about skipping this step. Don’t be cute, don’t be clever…you basically want a photo that looks like a really good driver’s license picture. Quick tips include:

A photo taken with a smartphone will do the trick;

➤ Use a simple background that’s not busy and doesn’t distract;
➤ Dress for the job you want, not the job you have;
➤ No sunglasses and no ball caps;
➤ You’ll want to frame the photo from no wider than the elbows.

Hello, World!

Once you’ve created, updated or polished your profile, it’s time to release it to the wild. LinkedIn offers you total control on how much or how little of your profile is available to the public, both within LinkedIn and externally via search engines. Your profile has two layers:

Public Profile: This is a simplified version of what you’ve just finished. It’s visible to everyone and search engines;
Complete Profile: This is the whole shebang, and you get to decide who has access to it.

To edit the settings, click on the “Edit public profile & URL” tab in the upper right corner of your main profile page.

Your Turn

Recapping, we’ve showed you:

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How to Invest in yourself by spending time to:

  • Assess your skills, abilities and possibilities
  • Revise your resume
  • Create or Revise your LinkedIN profile
  • Add a new skill
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Why you should assess your finances

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The need for mental and physical well-being.

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And how to network prep, laying the groundwork for your job hunt.

All of this can be done, because it MUST be done. The good news is that Horizon Hire is here to help you weather the storm. We have the experts who have helped hundreds of people just like you survive and thrive in a turbulent job market. Our community is full of seasoned employees who are using our help to prepare themselves for job loss, or to thrive in not just a new position but an entirely new career. Our site will soon offer detailed, step-by-step guides in print and video form that you can use to take control of your professional future. Sunny days are ahead; we’ll get you ready for them.

We invite you to become a founding member of our new, online Horizon Hire community. It’s free to join, and by doing so you’ll be guaranteed to be the first to receive our latest trainings, advice and action steps that will help put you at the front of the line of job-seekers as the economy heals. Plus, you’ll get exclusive, free access to Horizon Hire resources normally reserved for paid subscription members, including detailed webinars and how-to-guides that will prepare you for job applications, employment interviews and salary negotiations.

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