How to Use LinkedIn Powerfully: 10 Tips to Know

 

By Tracy Gold
Source: http://www.marketingtrenches.com/marketing-careers/how-to-use-linkedin-powerfully-10-tips-to-know/

LinkedIn is a powerful tool for making business connections—but it is just that, a tool. Even the most active users miss on some simple ways to optimize the way they use LinkedIn. This was true for me—I recently attended a seminar on LinkedIn by Colleen McKenna, and learned a few ways to kick my LinkedIn presence up a notch.

Now, I’m not going to give away Colleen’s secret sauce (you’ll have to head to one of her seminars for that) but below are a few tips from both my experience and Colleen’s talk on how to make the most of your LinkedIn presence.

1. Think about your goals. Why are you on LinkedIn? To find new employees, partners, and contractors? To be found? A mix? Your goals should drive your entire presence.

2. Post a picture. Please. Of your face. You should have a professional looking headshot as your LinkedIn photo so people can put a name to a face. If you’re uncomfortable with recruiters or prospective clients seeing your picture next to your professional credentials (a valid concern), you can change your privacy settings so only your connections can see your photo.

3. Use LinkedIn to remember names. LinkedIn can help you with offline networking too—simply checking out someone’s profile after meeting them at a networking event, even if you don’t connect, can help you remember their name and what they do. This is another reason why having a picture is important—it will help people remember you.

4. Make the most of your headline. Colleen really stressed this one—your headline does not have to be your job title alone. Job seekers, use “Talented [Your Profession] Seeking New Opportunity” not “Unemployed.” Students, use “Aspiring [Your Profession] Seeking Internship,” not “Student at [Your University].” Keep it concise, but make sure it communicates what you do and what your skills are. Here’s mine:

5. Post statuses. Updating your status gives you visibility on your connections’ LinkedIn home page. If you have found something online your business connections would like, or have good news to share about your work, spread the word by posting it on LinkedIn.

6. Write a rich but concise summary. Your summary should be about you, not your company—don’t just copy and paste the “about” page of your employer’s website. Your profile should be about what you do at your company, not what the company does as a whole. Tip: use concrete details like results you have generated and tasks you do on a daily basis to show people how awesome you are, not tell them.

7. Explore LinkedIn applications. Colleen encouraged us all to add Amazon’s Reading List application to our LinkedIn profiles. I was skeptical—I wasn’t sure how the fiction I love would be relevant to my professional connections. However, Colleen got more comments on this list, she said, than anything else in her profile. Sure enough, a few hours after I added Reading List to my profile, in came a message from a connection. She had written her senior thesis on Steinbeck and wanted to know what I thought of East of Eden. If you’re not a big book person, you can still enrich your profile with apps like Slideshare for presentations, WordPress for blog posts, and any number of others (the directory is here).

8. Add sections to your profile. LinkedIn offers several sections beyond the standards so users can showcase volunteer experience, projects, foreign languages, even test scores. This is especially helpful for young networkers who may not have extensive work experience, but adding more sections can add weight to any profile.

9. Connect with care. Your LinkedIn network is only as valuable as the strength of your connections. For some professionals—like recruiters or salespeople—it is advantageous to connect generously, but personally, I favor being a tad picky. I’d like to think I could recommend—or at least answer questions about—anyone I am connected to on LinkedIn. If you want to connect with someone and think it might be a stretch, be sure to personalize the message you send with the invite to explain why you want to connect—and why this person should want to connect with you.

10. Join and participate in groups. Some groups are full of spam, but others are generally valuable. For example, in the marketing industry, the Marketing Director Support Group is a great place to get and give advice. Do a little research, think back to your goals, and you’ll likely find a group that will help you reach them. If you can’t find a group, just start one!

Did you find anything new in this LinkedIn advice? Have anything to add? I’d love to hear from you in the comments.

About the Author: Tracy Gold is a Marketing and Content Associate at Right Source Marketing. Let her know your thoughts on this post—comment away! Follow Tracy on Twitter for more marketing commentary.

 

Coping With Being Fired

 

by Alex Barnett
Source: http://lawyerist.com/coping-with-being-fired/

As anyone who’s been fired knows, being fired is difficult to deal with. It’s not at all like quitting. Well, maybe they’re just a bit alike in that both involve you no longer having your job. But, that’s where the similarity ends. Quitting is proactive. It’s freeing. It’s liberating. It’s you telling your boss to “take this job and shove it.”

Being fired is not like that at all.  It’s not proactive. It’s not freeing. It’s not liberating. It’s your boss telling you to “shove it.” Being fired is being victimized. Someone with power over you is controlling you and telling you what to do. And, what they’re telling you to do is “get the hell out.” It doesn’t matter how nice they say it. It doesn’t matter if they tell you that you’re an awesome person and that you’re not really being fired, you’re just being laid off for financial reasons that have nothing to do with you.

That’s nonsense. The reasons have everything to do with you. Somebody somewhere in the hierarchy (not necessarily the Angel of Doom who has given you the pink slip) decided that you are expendable for whatever reason or reasons. So, you’re out. You don’t get a say. It’s not open to debate. You’re just fired. So get your box of stuff, get to stepping and don’t let the door hit you in the behind on the way out.

How to Resign Gracefully: 8 Steps

 

Source: http://www.wikihow.com/Resign-Gracefully

It’s time for you to make a change, be it a new career path or simply a new challenge. The procedure for resigning is simple enough: give notice, preferably in advance. But if you don’t want to burn any bridges, thereby creating obstacles to future opportunities, you must be especially careful and considerate. Resigning is easy, but resigning gracefully is not. This article specifically covers several ways a person can make their resignation as smooth and as grudge-free as possible

Steps

1. Keep it to yourself. Once you’ve made the decision, don’t go blabbing it all over the company until you have notified your immediate supervisor. Give her or him time to absorb and process the information. If the company makes an attractive counter-offer, it will be awkward if you have already announced your plans to coworkers.
2. Plan to give notice. If you want to leave under the best possible terms, don’t leave your employer high and dry, scrambling to cover your position. Give at least two weeks notice (or the minimum notice specified in your employment contract if applicable) so that your boss can prepare to have others cover for you, or have time to groom a replacement.
3. Ask your boss for an appointment to discuss an important matter. Poking your head in and asking for a moment of his or her time will do – just be respectful of the fact that your supervisor has a job to do, and may not be able to drop everything at the precise moment you are prepared to spring this news on him or her. If there is too much going on, you will only add to your his or her hassles, so if it’s at all possible, wait for a time when your boss will have a few moments to focus on your news.
   

   A moment of your time?

4. Be prepared, direct, and polite. Rehearsing privately will help you be ready when your supervisor has you in to talk. Most managers are extremely busy and they will appreciate your direct approach, forgoing the temptation to “cushion the blow,” “find the right way to say this,” or otherwise beat around the bush. You might say something like:
   • “I’ve been considering my options here for some time, and I’ve decided it’s time for me to move on. I am grateful for the opportunities I’ve found here, but I must give my two weeks’ notice.”
   • OR… “I need to let you know that I have been offered a new position at another company. I have really enjoyed working here, but I need to give you my two weeks’ notice as of today. Does it work for you if my last day is [whatever two weeks from then is]?”
5. Be prepared to discuss. Chances are you’ve been working with this boss for some time, and whatever your reasons are for leaving, she or he may have some questions. Or your boss may value you much more than you realized, and make a counteroffer. Being polite and dignified about your resignation could make this possible. You will need to consider in advance whether you would stay for a pay raise, increased benefits, a promotion, or other incentives. This would be a prime negotiating opportunity, so be prepared for it, and know your own bottom line. If staying is an option, what would make you open to it? Check the warnings below, though, because counter-offers can have some serious downsides.
6. Emphasize the positive. Be honest, but polite. If the boss asks you if he or she had anything to do with your decision, and was a factor, it’s best to rely on tact and diplomacy to make an honest answer palatable. In other words, you won’t help yourself by saying, “Yes, you’re a lousy supervisor and I (or anyone) would have been way better,” (even if it’s true). You can be truthful without being cruel: “It was a factor, but not the entire reason. I felt our working styles and approaches just weren’t a great fit, and that we never meshed as well as I wished we had. Still, the overall experience here has been positive; and with this opportunity, I feel excited to have new challenges.”
7. Have a copy of your letter of resignation in hand. Make your letter brief, non-confrontational and professional. An example: “Dear Mr. Spacely: It has been my honor to work for Spacely Sprockets, Inc. This letter is to notify you that I will be leaving to accept a new position with another company as of [a date which is AT LEAST two weeks from the date of your conversation and letter]. Please accept my thanks for our association, and best regards to you and the entire company for the future. Sincerely, George Jetson.”
8. Shake hands, smile, and thank your boss. Whether your departure is to relocate, to take a better job, or just to get away from this guy, show some class when you’re walking out the door. Shake hands, thank your soon-to-be-former supervisor (yay!) for “everything,” and leave. Go to your work station and stay there for at least 10 minutes. Now you can go blab it to everybody, but don’t rub it in your boss’s nose – be classy and simply confirm that you will be leaving.

 

Who Needs a Printed CV? You Might!

Click here to go to CV Maker

By Alison Doolittle-Suokas

Though it may be the digital age and you may have your CV in LinkedIn, Monster and maybe even Facebook, the fact remains that you still need a good old-fashioned paper version every once in a while. Sometimes printing from the “digital” CV programs leaves a lot to be desired and the result is a less than professional looking CV on paper.

I’m no slouch when it comes to using word processing software but on occasion I just don’t feel like fighting with it.  If you’re all thumbs when it comes to word processing or you just don’t want to bother why  not try the free CV maker?  It doesn’t have a lot of bells and whistles but it allows you to create a very clean and simple CV fairly easily.  Did I mention that it’s free?  CV maker allows you to create your CV and then export it to PDF, text, etc.  After registering you can save your CV and come back to edit it time and time again.

Good luck with it. I’m off to go create my CV! Check it out at https://cvmkr.com/

Grow Your Stars — Don’t Buy Them

An interview with Boris Groysberg, Professor, Harvard Business School. Many star performers hired from outside don’t perform as expected at their new company. So, develop stars within your company; for example, through strong training and mentoring programs.