How To Use LinkedIn To Stay Employable

Even in today’s world where prosperity is growing, the problem of rising unemployment still remains. Hence, we must always prepare ourselves for any situation that arises.

In this rapidly changing world, we must stay relevant and employable. Staying employable will depend on many factors such as assets (knowledge, skills, abilities, attitudes etc.), presentation (the way you present those assets to employers through CVs, interviews etc.) and context (personal circumstances, labor market environment etc.) within which they seek work (Hind and Moss, 2011).

Bear in mind that the traditional résumé is insufficient in gaining and maintaining employment. You need an online résumé.

Look no further, LinkedIn is your ultimate tool in staying employable.

Always ensure that you have an up-to-date résumé. This is the first thing that employers scrutinize before arranging an interview with you.

Include you work experience, education as well as honors and awards that you received. LinkedIn also allows you to add a Twitter account, effectively highlighting your social media presence.

On top of that, you can also add up to 3 websites. Available choices include personal website, company website, blog, RSS feed and portfolio. Yet, the best option would be ‘Other’ where you can personally name the website title.

Most significantly, you should change the URL of your public profile. A customized public profile URL is SEO-friendly. In other words, your LinkedIn profile will rank higher in search results.

In addition to your online résumé, LinkedIn has a variety of applications for you to choose from to enhance your profile.

For all the bloggers out there, you should add Blog Link or WordPress application. These applications connect your blog to your LinkedIn profile, efficiently synchronizing your blog posts to keep your connections in the know.

You can also showcase your creative work with the Creative Portfolio Display application by Behance.

Have you created a great PowerPoint presentation? Why not display it on your profile with the SlideShare Presentations application?

Besides the aforementioned applications that demonstrate your talents and skills, LinkedIn has other applications to help you connect with professionals.

With the Events application that lets you find professional events, from conferences to local meet-ups, you will make the right connections with other professionals at the event.

You can share your upcoming trips, current location and travel stats with your network through the My Travel application. With this application, you can see where your LinkedIn network is traveling and when you will be in the same city as your colleagues.

Maximize your LinkedIn experience by utilizing these applications!

LinkedIn is a social networking website for people in professional occupations. Since networking is the key feature, you should connect with your friends and colleagues on LinkedIn.

By connecting with people in the same industry, you can receive the latest industry-related news from their status updates.

Aside from keeping in touch, you can also reach out to professionals from other industries. These professionals might be your next hires, business partners or even clients!

Apart from connecting with people you know, you should also reach out to people who share the same interests as you! The easiest way to find these people would be to join groups.

LinkedIn Groups allow you to quickly discover the most popular discussions in your professional groups. You can see both member-generated discussions and news in one setting. Moreover, you can find interesting discussions by seeing who liked a discussion and how many people commented as well as easily browse previews of the last three comments in a discussion.

But don’t be satisfied as a mere spectator. Be a participant instead! Be active! Follow the most influential people in your groups by checking the Top Influencers board or clicking their profile image to see all their group activity. Have an active part in determining the top discussions by liking and commenting. Or even better, start a discussion!

Did you notice the Answers section in LinkedIn? This is one of the best places on the web to share business knowledge.

When you ask questions, you can get fast, accurate answers from your network and other experts worldwide. This is another way to connect with experts.

You can showcase your knowledge, expertise and interests by answering questions. When the questioner picks your answer as the best, you gain a point of expertise in the category of the question.

Experts in each area are recognized on LinkedIn: the more points of expertise you gain, the higher you appear on lists of experts.

What better way to make yourself stand out from a crowd than by establishing yourself as an expert.

How else does LinkedIn help you stay employable?

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