Job Search Tip: What’s the One Thing You Must Understand In the Job Search?

How many jobs have you applied to online—only to receive no response? Or maybe you received a “thanks but no thanks” letter. Either way, you aren’t making much progress in landing a job. If this applies to you, I have a question: Do you have a LinkedIn profile? Maybe you don’t think it’s really necessary. Maybe you hate the thought of learning something else, or just don’t want to put the time in on one more thing you think won’t really help you. It’s easy to have that attitude—job searching is hard. Most people don’t do it often, so they’re not that good at it, and usually, you have to get a lot of “no”s before you get a “yes.” But: It is absolutely, positively NECESSARY to have a LinkedIn profile if you are in the job search today. There are over 70 million professionals on LinkedIn. It’s like a telephone directory, but with names, titles, companies, experience, who’s connected to who, and more. And you can contact them. It’s really amazing. It doesn’t matter what company you want to work for, you can probably find the hiring manager on there. If you want to find a recruiter, you can. You can even find specialized recruiters. If you’re looking for a specific person at a small company in San Diego, he’s probably on LinkedIn. Once you find out who and where they are, you can contact them yourself. And, it’s free. LinkedIn doesn’t charge you anything unless you want to upgrade, and you don’t need to, so the cost isn’t there. Setting up a profile lets you participate, and even better, it allows you to be found. The majority of recruiters and hiring managers look for candidates on LinkedIn. As much as you want to know about them, they want to know about you, too. LinkedIn isn’t just for jobseekers—it was built as a way for professionals to network with each other. But in addition to all the background information that will help you win the job, LinkedIn provides a place for you to get in the game and make your job search productive and successful.