When you think of job seeking using social media, what is the first network that pops into your head? If you didn’t think of LinkedIn immediately, then you’re probably in the minority. The professional network is a great tool that recruiters and job seekers use to look for candidates and jobs respectively.
There’s loads of ways you can use LinkedIn to your benefit during your job search, but now there’s a new feature that can really make you stand out from the job-seeking crowd and show off your expertise.
I’m talking about LinkedIn Publishing. The social network has been providing a publishing platform to its global influencers since 2012, but announced in February this year that they were rolling out the feature to all LinkedIn users. (If you haven’t been invited to publish yet, you can apply for it here if you have an existing LinkedIn profile.)
This is great news to professional bloggers who now have an extra platform for their content, but how could it benefit you during your job search? Here are four ways it will!
1.) Show Off Your Expertise
The best way you can use LinkedIn Publishing is to write articles about the industry you’re looking to get a job in. Not only will this showcase your knowledge, it will also show off your writing skills and your ability to communicate – great soft skills to possess!
Another great thing about LinkedIn Publishing is that your connections get a notification whenever you publish a post, meaning that if you’re connected to a lot of recruiters, you and your posts are always on their radar!
2.) Build Your Network
Regularly publishing high-quality posts on LinkedIn will encourage your connections to interact with your content, and this interaction will be visible to their connections, who may in turn connect with you or follow your posts.
Building up your network on LinkedIn is great for your job search for two reasons: 1) The larger your network is, the more recruiters or hiring managers that are bound to be connected to you. 2) If you have a large network of people who regularly interact with your posts, the more likely you are to be seen as an authority in your industry.
3.) Grow Your Reputation
It goes without saying that recruiters and hiring managers are more likely to go with the candidate that has the best possible reputation, and this is yet another perk of using LinkedIn Publishing to its full potential. As long as you’re creating consistently high-quality content, which gets people talking, you’re already on your way to building a good reputation.
Also, it’s not just LinkedIn users that will see your content. Depending on the type of keywords used and the amount of views and engagement your post receives, these LinkedIn posts can gain search engine traffic, giving yourself an even better change of growing your reputation outside of the boundaries of the LinkedIn site – exposing your personal brand to recruiters off-site.
4.) Spark A Conversation
A lot of recruiters trawl through hundreds of LinkedIn profiles every day looking for candidates, and a lot of the time they’ll merge into one if nothing special jumps out at them.
Having your published posts at the top of your LinkedIn profile is a great way of making your profile stand out and, who knows, if the content is something that interests the recruiter, they may feel more inclined to start a conversation with you!
So there we go, a few ways that using LinkedIn Publishing will really benefit your job search!
Have you used this publishing tool? Do you think it’s a good way for job seekers to get noticed or do you prefer more traditional blogging methods?
Let me know in the comments below or on Twitter @BubbleJobs! :)