If you’re job searching, LinkedIn can’t be ignored.
Or even if you just want to ramp up your networking in the new world of work, it’s time to dive deeper into how LinkedIn can help you.
When combined with the human-focused, real-world networking tools we share here (more of those below), LinkedIn is the engine that helps you find real people doing real work that can help you —and who you can help, too.
But I keep seeing people overlooking the opportunities LinkedIn provides, especially if they’re looking for jobs online. In this video, I show you how to use LinkedIn to find others in companies who are hiring or where you’d like to work.
(9 min, 12 sec)
(Note: I recorded this in July 2020, and like any online platform, LinkedIn changes all the time, and not always for everyone at the same time. If you see something here that’s changed or no longer works how I’ve described it, email my team here and let us know. Thanks!)
Not sure about your LinkedIn presence? Check out my article, Tame the LinkedIn Shame: Simple Steps to Put This Powerful Tool to Work
Want me to personally review your LinkedIn profile?
No matter whether or not you’re job searching, LinkedIn is a power tool to help you manage your career. If you’re not sure whether your LinkedIn profile is working for you—or if you’ve just gotten stuck worrying about what to say or do—I can help.
When you book your personalized LinkedIn video review here, you’ll get a Getting Started tool from me you can download, complete and return to me. That’ll help me know what’s most important to you.
Then, I’ll record a 15-20 minute personalized review of your profile, and send it to you privately. I’ll tell you what’s working from an outside perspective, and offer specific ways you can make the most of your LinkedIn profile that meets your broader goals—all without having to pay for LinkedIn’s premium services.
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Transcript
(For those who’d like to read while they watch, here’s a rough transcript, which hasn’t been fully edited for grammar or punctuation.)
Hey, it’s Coach Darcy Eikenberg here. Some of you have been asking, if I apply to a job online, especially on LinkedIn, how come I don’t get any response?
Well, the truth is that the online job boards are in many ways, big black holes.
But there is a way you can use LinkedIn.
And it’s one of the reasons that I really advocate for building your community on LinkedIn, building your visibility on LinkedIn, and not in a fake way, in a totally authentic way to you.
But let me show you how that works.
So let’s say you’re going to your LinkedIn feed. And you even see a post like this, you know, here’s a list of different companies that are hiring lots of people. Sure some of these opportunities, maybe more local retail, maybe are not the right thing for you.
But let’s go to something like The Home Depot. Let’s go and look at what are the open jobs that someone at The Home Depot has? Okay, so here’s their page on LinkedIn.
Here’s the job openings. So there’s a couple of things.
One, over here, you can see who do I already know that work at The Home Depot.
So if you find a job that was open and remember this, a open job is a problem that needs to be solved.
You know, if someone has company has gone to the effort to say we are going to hire we need to hire we have enough problems to hire.
They wanted to fill that job yesterday, nobody in this economy and quite honestly, nobody in the economy we are in in January and February of 2020 was opening up jobs just for the heck of it.
So an open job is a problem that someone wants to solve now, and so we need to follow the pain. An open job is a clue.
So let’s say, first of all, now we recognize we actually know a couple people at The Home Depot. And we probably know people who are connected to people at The Home Depot. And let’s say we search for a job.
I’m just going to pick one that’s right here. So let’s say that hey, director of strategic executive communication at The Home Depot, that’s a job that would have qualified for, okay, it was posted a while ago. Maybe it’s on hold, but it’s still open.
Yes, you can go ahead and do the application piece if you want. can’t hurt but don’t expect that. The feedback that you get or the call for the interview is going to come through this button.
But here’s where it comes. So now we go back to you know, our network and this is my personal profile. And we go to our network.
So we already know that there were two people, for sure, that are part of our network and we go to our connections, okay, and we see all our connections that we have here. And now we can search with filters.
And we can search with the filters. That what we are looking for is The Home Depot.
Okay, and we’ll take the main one, although there’s different variations. So we want people who are currently at The Home Depot.
So we’ve got these two people that I’m connected to and plus other people that know this person that I know. And so what I always recommend is not to message somebody here unless you don’t have their email.
But let’s say I want to go and I want to say you know what, I haven’t said hello to fill in while I’m connected to him. I like him. He’s a fantastic person. I’m going to go, and I am going to find his contact information.
Oh, right there, sorry, find his contact information, my recent contact information, and there’s an email. So then I’m going to email him in my normal regular old email.
And I’m going to say, “hey, Phil, I hope that you’re well, I was looking at some opportunities at The Home Depot, and I saw that you’re there or you’re still there, whatever the right conversation is for you and your relationship. I wonder if you’d be willing to jump on a call with me for 15 minutes and just tell me a little bit about what’s happening for you there and what’s happening at the company in general. Love to catch up.”
And it can be as simple as that.
So you found people that are there. I’ll add some scripts as to how you can reach out and also how you can follow up If you don’t get response the first time.
I’ve Written the Networking Emails for You (So You Can Start Now)
Of course, if you don’t get response in email, you always do have the LinkedIn message tool.
Don’t assume that people are not on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is actually having 60 million interactions a day, something like that.
(Check out my article, Tame the LinkedIn Shame: Simple Steps to Put This Powerful Tool to Work)
So, okay, so let’s go back. And let’s say, you know what, I know Phil’s at a different company now or something else. Or I don’t want to reach out to Phil or Jimmy.
So if so if I go back to my connections again, and I can do another search, I’m going to search with filters. And again, maybe so let’s try The Home Depot again.
Instead of just a first degree, I want first and second.
So what that’s going to tell you is not just who the first person is, but are other people that might be one step away from me. So here’s Leslie, I actually have know her we’re just not connected on a first level basis. So it’s an opportunity I could connect with her.
Or I could ask one of these other people who are shared to connect with them.
So suddenly, I actually have a lot more people who are just one person away from me. I mean, looks like there’s a whole, you know, 100 pages there who are accessible to me that work at The Home Depot, and I don’t have to find just one.
Maybe I want to reach out to several maybe I want to make several and maybe there’s somebody who is more specifically in the area that I’m looking for.
So that job that I was looking at was communication, right? So you know, maybe do we add a filter? That is, let’s see. industries, maybe it’s human resources. Maybe it’s marketing, just this for kicks and giggles. Let’s just see.
So one thing to LinkedIn, if you’re not a premium member, LinkedIn does limit you to a number of searches and tries to, to sell you on it. If you are in an active job search, and you’re doing a lot of searches to find people, I what I recommend is use it until it tells you you can’t use it anymore. And then typically, they’ll give you a month free. And that might be all you need to do some searches.
And then when the next time the month rolls over you you’re kind of starting over but so anyway, so here’s some other people, there’s an organizational development leader. There’s a person learning design marketing executive.
And again, you have to kind of peek at these people take a look at who you might be shared with. And just make the decision of Do you want to reach out? How do you want to reach out. But my message here today for you is don’t not reach out.
This is the power of LinkedIn.
The more people you are connected to builds the spiderweb of other people who they’re connected to.
So if you’re going to apply online if you see an open job online, and remember, an open job means there’s a problem to be solved.
Don’t just apply, then go and find human beings that work at that company.
Don’t worry if they know anything about the role, just start talking to human beings inside that company.
And you’ll be surprised at how open people are to helping how you might learn things. That no one else has gone out of their way to learn and that makes you stand out.
Okay, this is Coach Darcy Eikenberg of Red Cape Revolution. I hope this little video was helpful, and thanks for being here.
Related Resources
Tame the LinkedIn Shame: Simple Steps to Put This Powerful Tool to Work
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