Enhance & Leverage Your LinkedIn Profile

When LinkedIn opened up its API (Application Programming Interface) last year, it really opened up some nifty new possibilities for those wishing to take advantage of cool new tools and enhancements brought forth by the software development community.

One application that has some very good potential to help those in transition is Box.net. This application allows you to create folders and place files into your LinkedIn profile.

You can also share files with any of your first degree connections if you choose to do so. This means you can post additional enhanced detail summarizing your work as a document (pdf, doc, xls, ppt - take your pick). This might be another cool way to add a resume with just a custom email address, city and state listed for contact information.

Add Box.net to your LinkedIn account by clicking here and don't forget to enable the check boxes to:
• Display on my profile
• Display on LinkedIn homepage

Linkedin Contact "Work Around" Thwarts LinkedIn Police

I have run across LinkedIn profiles that contain either an email address or contact information listed within the body, title or summary section of the profile. Technically, placing an email address or contact information in these areas is a violation of the terms of service for LinkedIn. I know the LinkedIn Police can't effectively patrol 20 million members but I think every so often they do a search looking for the @ symbol or the word "dot" to find offenders.  I personally know three people that have had their profiles "yanked" by LinkedIn, only to be restored later after much pleading and promises to revise the profile and remove the contact information. 

This begs the question...If I am in transition, how can I make it easier for a recruiter to contact me on LinkedIn without having to go through a connection or use a LinkedIn "inmail" (a paid subscriber feature often used by recruiters) ?

Because LinkedIn allows you to list up to 3 URL's in the website section, a solution might be to add one called "my resume".  

You can create an online resume with a free service called emurse (www.emurse.com).  Emurse is an anagram for the word resume. 

When you sign up for emurse, you will be asked your full name and there is a check box that indicates - yes, I would like to display my resume on the internet at http://www.firstnamelastname.emurse.com - When you create your resume, you don't have to provide your complete address or phone number, you can elect to put in a few basics as well as an email address (I would suggest using a new special one you can get for free such as hotmail or yahoo that is specifically for this purpose and not part of your mainstream email).  You can find out more about emurse here . 

Survey Says - LinkedIn

Recently, Bullhorn (a global leader in On Demand, front office staffing and recruiting software, and integrated solutions for staffing and recruiting firms) conducted an industry-wide “Tools of the Trade 2007″ study on established and emerging websites, online social networks, job boards, professional development sites and blogs.

"The Survey Says"
(free download here)

"The majority of staffing and recruiting professionals (68 percent) listed LinkedIn as the online social network they use most frequently, followed by ZoomInfo (12 percent) and Electronic Recruiter Exchange (ERE) (9 percent). Just 4 percent use Jobster most frequently. Only 1 percent and 2 percent of respondents, respectively, reported using Facebook and MySpace most often."

Not surprising, considering the following:

• Recently, I attended an information session on LinkedIn thanks to the kind folks at Challenger Gray & Christmas and Baker & McKenzie. During the presentation, Sherman Hu, Regional Sales Manager for LinkedIn commented "People who have >20 connections are Thirty Four times more likely to be approached by a recruiter than people with <5".
• Early in 2006, recruiting/sourcing icon Jim Stroud interviewed Konstantin Guericke, co-founder and former VP of Marketing with LinkedIn (now with Jaxtr). Jim captured the interview as a podcast in his Recruiter's Lounge. During the interview, Konstantin Guericke describes how LinkedIn has become an essential tool in the recruiting tool kit and mentions that over 100,000 of LinkedIn's paying customers are "Recruiters".
• Master Cybersluething Pioneer Shally Steckerl knows the importance of LinkedIn. Shally is helping recruiting and sourcing professionals learn cutting edge tips and techniques to leverage LinkedIn through JobMachine's LinkedIn Cheat Sheet which provides excellent insight into advance searches in LinkedIn.

Now Consider this....

• Internationally recognized speaker, Gerry Crispin of Career Crossroads determined that based on his recent source of hire survey, Employee Referrals are Fifty Four times as likely to result in a hire than all the job boards put together. (see blog entry).

If you are networking for new opportunities do you want to be....
LinkedIn or Left Out? You decide. Here are some resources to help you:

• The unofficial users guide for executive and professionals - published by the Global Human Capital Journal.
• Virtual Rolodex video tutorial - Detailed tutorial on LinkedIn by Otis Collier.