5 Simple Ways Moms Can Use LinkedIn to Find Work

5 Simple Ways Moms Can Use LinkedIn to Find Work 5 Simple Ways Moms Can Use LinkedIn to Find Work 7Whether you’re unemployed looking for work, or working and looking for something better, moms still have to negotiate trips to soccer games, sick days, summer vacation plans, play dates, and the rest of it. But you still need to fit in time to job search. Here are five simple ways moms can use LinkedIn to find work.     Unless youve been raising a family in the Canadian Rockies, you know that using LinkedIn can make all the difference to your professional success. Ive written extensively on using LinkedIn on my blog, Career Enlightenment, but if I had to distill the most vital tips for someone as busy as you, these are what you should focus on. Here are the most important things to pay attention to when you use LinkedIn to find work. 1. Optimize Your Profile Studies show that when someone looks at your LinkedIn profile, they give you about eight seconds and look at your picture, your headline, and your current position first. If those three areas pass the test, then they’ll read your summary. So if you have to prioritize which parts of your profile to spend the most time and energy on, make them your photo, your headline, and your current position. Profile picture Don’t crop it out of another photo, take a dedicated photo just for this Smile, it’s OK to show some personality Make sure you are well-lit Headline You have 120 characters here Don’t just put your job title, fill in as much of this space as you can Think of this as an advertisement, write it in a way that appeals to your audience Current Position If you’re unemployed, make your current company, “Seeking Opportunities” If you’re employed, then be sure to be as descriptive as you can about your current role Make sure the logo of your company shows up in your experience section 2. Build Your Skills and Endorsements Skills and Endorsements help recruiters sort and filter possible candidates. So it’s important to take charge of this part of your profile. Most people just let their network pick the skills that show up. But you can actually pick these yourself. Pick 50 skills to be included in your profile Start with more general categories, like Sales, and then narrow down, “Software Sales” Endorse others in your network, they will reciprocate 3. Customize Your LinkedIn URL Once you apply to a job, you are going to be Googled. It’s just the way the world works these days. And when you are Googled, you want to make sure they find the best possible information about you- that includes your LinkedIn profile. One of the fastest ways to start ranking your profile on Google for your name is to customize the URL. When you use LinkedIn to find work, you want employers to find your profile here before anything else about you on the web. 4. Get to 500+ Connections The power of LinkedIn comes from a network effect- the number of people who will show up in your search results will depend on how many first degree connections you have. More importantly, the chances of your profile showing up on an employer’s search will also depend on how closely you are connected to them. Your goal is to grow your network size quickly. Here are some tips: If you have a stack of business cards, use the Evernote Hello app to easily scan and invite them Use the Alumni tool to find old classmates to connect with Connect your email account to LinkedIn and invite the contacts you already have Search for LION and invite those people 5. Get Involved with Groups Over the last few years, LinkedIn’s groups have become extremely important for networkers. There are groups for every industry, technology, association, and school available for you to join. And many of these groups have membership in the thousands with many posts each day. Joining groups is a great idea if you want to use LinkedIn to find work. Joining, posting, and commenting in groups not only gives you access to the group members, it’s an opportunity to engage with new people. Make it a habit to post to at least one group a day so that members will recognize your name and visit your profile. Final Results Naturally, there are many more things you can do to use LinkedIn to find work. To track your progress, give your profile a grade before you start working on it, and then again after you’ve worked on it to see if you’ve made any progress. The real test of progress will be in tracking how many new conversations you can start through your networking efforts. Joshua Waldman is the author of Job Searching with Social Media for Dummies and is recognized as one of the nations top authorities in social media career advancement. Learn more at his website,  CareerEnlightenment.com. Looking for a Side Gig? Check Out These Companies Hiring for Part-Time Work-from-Home Jobs!