Are you starting to look around the job market and wondering where else to look so you don't miss any job offers? Do not forget about LinkedIn – a professional network that brings together experts (or future experts :-)) from various fields.
In addition to the active way of searching for interesting job opportunities, you can also be on this network as a passive candidate, open to interesting opportunities. But in order to have any hope of success, you need to complete your profile properly and understand at least a few basic algorithms for how this social network works.
Create a profile and regularly add new work experience, skills, collaboration, etc. Connect with companies/schools where you worked.
Don’t forget the photo. A person without a photo is uninteresting to most recruiters, since these people usually do not communicate at all on LinkedIn.
Set up notifications on your profile about incoming messages to your e-mail – this is the only way to ensure that you notice the messages and can respond to them in time.
You can change the settings so that you are open to new job opportunities and then a label will appear over your photo. This is not required, but by doing this, you will help the algorithms a little more and you will be more visible to the recruiters.
In the initial lines of your profile, fill in the “Motto” column with a list of the professions in which you are an expert, or which you think are promising for you. This line is displayed to recruiters when they search for experts as one of the first and has a great influence on whether or not they click on the candidate. Mottos such as “No pain, no gain” unfortunately do not help recruiters very much. They prefer more practical information.
Also look for the buttons that allow you to ask people in your network for a reference, recommendation, or endorsement of your skills, and don’t be afraid to ask.
Build your network. Your profile alone is not enough. In order to appear in the search results of recruiters, you need to have the widest possible network of contacts. You can see the number 1 for people you have made contact with. With each 1 you make, your network grows with that person’s contacts, all of which become your 2s (i.e. level 2 contacts). And the contacts of all your 2s are then your 3s. You can start communicating with 1s at any time. You can easily request a connection and then start a conversation with your 2s. With 3s, it’s a bit more complicated, and LinkedIn intensively offers you its paid services. However, you do not need the paid services for normal use of this network. The more contacts you have, the more people can see you sharing a post. However, you will also appear more often when the recruiter enters in the search fields that they are looking for, for example, an IT Analyst who worked at bank XY, lives in Prague, and speaks English and German.
If you follow these few simple rules, you will greatly increase your chances of landing an interesting job offer or collaboration without having to do much for it. In this way, recruiters will learn about you without even knowing your name. So go for it!!!
