How to use LinkedIn for job seekers

Getting Started With LinkedIn In Your Job Search

Setting Up Your LinkedIn Account

Note: This guide was completely updated in January 2020; however, LinkedIn is constantly updating its site, changing features and moving things around. If the website looks different for you, don’t be afraid to poke around or check out LinkedIn.com/help.

Why Get LinkedIn?

LinkedIn is the top social networking website for jobseekers. As Jeff Weiner, CEO of LinkedIn, explains it, “Post a full profile and get connected to the people you trust. Because if you’re connected to those people, and you posted a profile, then when other people are searching for people, they might find you.”

LinkedIn has more than 575 million registered users as of January 2020. More than 250 million users access the site monthly, with 40 percent of users logging in on a daily basis. With so many members, the rate at which your network expands on LinkedIn can be truly amazing. A hundred strategic contacts could mean access to millions of people in a short amount of time. You’d have to attend dozens — or hundreds — of in-person networking events to equal the reach you can get on LinkedIn.

LinkedIn allows you to leverage the power of your network — the people you know, and the people those people know — to help you connect to a person who is in a position to offer you a job.

Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn, put it this way: LinkedIn is about “connecting talent with opportunity on a massive scale.”

Executives from all Fortune 500 companies are on LinkedIn. Recruiters from every discipline and industry are on LinkedIn. More than 20 million companies have profile pages on LinkedIn, five times as many as in 2017.

LinkedIn is also the place to find jobs. There are 14 million open jobs posted on the site, and 90 percent of recruiters regularly use LinkedIn. In addition, one study found that 122 million people received an interview through LinkedIn, and 35.5 million were hired by a person they connected with on the site.

Author Guy Kawasaki puts it best: “I could make the case that Facebook is for show, and LinkedIn is for dough.”

Why LinkedIn Is Important In Your Job Search

Once upon a time, attending networking mixers, industry events, and Chamber of Commerce meetings were the best way to make new connections and build business relationships. Now, many of these activities have moved online within the LinkedIn community. Much like networking in person, professionals interact on LinkedIn with the explicit intention of making business connections.

With LinkedIn, you get all the benefits of networking in person, with less of the hassle. Instead of going from business lunch to business lunch hoping to meet people, LinkedIn provides a platform for you to specifically search for and research individuals who you know will directly add value to your job search.

Employers and recruiters use LinkedIn to locate both active jobseekers and those who aren’t necessarily looking (passive candidates). They also use LinkedIn to vet job candidates before making an interview invitation or extending a job offer. LinkedIn also allows candidates to create an online portfolio of their accomplishments — by facilitating embedded video, links to content posted elsewhere on the Internet, and the ability to create highly shareable, long-form content in the form of LinkedIn’s “Publishing” feature.

LinkedIn allows you to identify, research, contact, follow-up, engage, and maintain your contacts in one place. Its ability to facilitate business networking is unmatched by any other social network. Essentially, your LinkedIn profile is a résumé, business card, and elevator speech all rolled up into one.

However, your LinkedIn profile is not your résumé. LinkedIn is a personal branding page. You need both a résumé and a LinkedIn profile, and they should be in sync with one another, but not be exact copies. The information on your résumé should match your profile (in terms of positions you’ve held, your educational credentials, etc.), but the content you include on your LinkedIn profile may be different than what is included on your résumé.

How To Set Up A Basic LinkedIn Account

Setting up a LinkedIn account is a quick and easy process. You can create a basic profile in just five minutes. However, speed is not the objective if you want to use LinkedIn to facilitate your job search. Rushing could lead to a sloppy profile that doesn’t represent you well — or may even prevent you from getting called for an interview.

Basic LinkedIn memberships are free. For most jobseekers, the free option is adequate. (If you find you need the paid functionality, you can always upgrade your account later.)

To get started, go to LinkedIn.com.

Fill in an email address and create a password. Then click the “Agree & Join” button.

Next, you’ll see a screen to enter your name.

LinkedIn has implemented a security check to reduce fake accounts. Users are now required to validate their identity through a security check by adding a phone number and then providing a security code that is issued to that phone number.

Once you’ve entered the phone number, you’ll receive a notification that the code has been sent, and you’ll see a field to enter the code.

Once you enter the code, you’ll be taken to a welcome screen, where you’ll be prompted to enter your country/region and your postal (zip) code.

Unlike other social media sites, it’s not enough to just enter your name and email address to create a profile that you can complete later. LinkedIn requires you to input details related to your career right away.

The next screen provides a place to enter your job title and company. Both of these are required fields. You can also indicate if you are a student.

When you enter the job title and company, a third field will pop up, asking you to select an industry. This is also a required field.

Next, LinkedIn will ask you to confirm your email address.

You should receive an email from LinkedIn with the confirmation code:

Next, LinkedIn will ask you to set up a Job Alert. Click “Skip for Now.”

Next, LinkedIn will take you to your home page and provide some suggested steps to take.

We’re going to work on finishing setting up your profile.

Adding Your Photo to LinkedIn

LinkedIn profiles with photos attract 50-70 percent more inquiries than profiles without photos. Adding a photo makes you 36 times more likely to receive a message on LinkedIn. Profiles without photos are not as effective as those with photos. Business headshots are best.

Be selective about the photo you use. Pick one that is professional in nature, not personal. Lighting, attire, and overall composition are all elements to consider when making your choice.

With LinkedIn’s visually-centered format, it is important to use a large size, high-quality photo. The recommended size is 400 pixels by 400 pixels. You can use a .JPG, .GIF, or .PNG format, and the file size limit is 4 MB.

When you click on the camera in the circle, it will open a popup window.

LinkedIn reminds you that you don’t need a professionally taken photo. Click the blue “Upload Photo” button and select a photo from your computer. You’ll then be prompted to edit the photo:

You can use the onscreen tools to reposition the photo and make it larger or smaller (to emphasize your head and shoulders, for example, while cropping out the rest of your body). You can drag to center it (using your mouse) and zoom in. Make sure the photo looks the way you want before clicking “Save Photo.”

You can also review the privacy settings for your photo. In the bottom right-hand corner, LinkedIn allows you to select the visibility of your photo.

Once you’ve uploaded the photo (and made adjustments to it) and selected your privacy settings, click the blue “Save Photo” button.

LinkedIn now also offers the opportunity to add a background image to your profile. The recommended dimensions for the background image are 1536 by 768 pixels. The image can be a .JPG, .GIF, or .PNG format, with an 8 MB size limit.

To add a background image, click on “Update Background Photo” on your profile page and you can browse to upload an image.

You can drag the photo to reposition it, zoom in or out, and even straighten it. You can also crop the photo using the photo editor or apply a filter. You can also click the “Adjust” button and adjust the brightness, contrast, saturation, or vignette.

Once it has been positioned where you want it, click the blue “Apply” button.

That’s the first step to completing your LinkedIn profile!

LinkedIn Settings for Jobseekers

“If you build it, they will come” may have been true for the Iowa corn farmer in the 1989 film “Field of Dreams,” but as a jobseeker, simply “building” a LinkedIn profile will not open the floodgates to job opportunities, nor will you have recruiters contacting you to solicit your interest in filling their open positions.

About 87 percent of recruiters (92 percent of recruiters with Fortune 1000 companies) use LinkedIn as a major source for finding and vetting candidates and posting positions. For your profile to have the greatest impact on your job search, there are two things you must do:

1. Build a complete profile that is well-branded and keyword optimized (you may want to hire a professional to help you with this, if you haven’t already).
2. Increase your visibility by optimizing your LinkedIn Settings and Career Interests. This guide will walk you through what to do, how to do it, and why.

To understand the importance of these settings, you need to know that LinkedIn has a separate platform called LinkedIn Recruiter that interfaces with your profile. By purchasing a membership on either Recruiter Lite or Recruiter Corporate, recruiters not only post job openings, but can search for candidates using various search parameters. Your LinkedIn Settings and Career Interests will increase your visibility and drive recruiters to your profile when using the Recruiter platform.

Getting Started

The first step is to locate the Settings & Privacy page in your profile; the following screenshot will show you how.

Hover your mouse over the word Me and click the drop-down arrow below the thumbnail image of your profile picture.

Scroll down to Settings & Privacy and click.

This will open the Settings & Privacy window, with four headings across the top (Account, Privacy, Ads, and Communications). You’ll want to be sure you have the window open for Privacy.

There are several categories of settings on this page, beginning with How others see your profile and network information. Scroll about two-thirds of the way down and you will find the heading for Job seeking preferences.

The next screenshot shows you what this section looks like and the five areas to address. Follow along…

Job Application Settings

Let’s start by looking at the various options available to you. Click on either the first heading or the word Change (as seen in the screenshot).

The first few settings address how your applications will be handled when you apply for a job via LinkedIn. You can save your application answers (I recommend turning this feature on), choose to apply for jobs with 1-Click Apply (to activate this feature, you must first scroll down to Contact information and enter a phone number), and input an email and address and phone number where recruiters can reach you. The next screenshot shows you each of these options.

When you apply for an Easy Apply job on LinkedIn, you can save your application information and use the information as default for future job applications, allowing you to more quickly apply for jobs. You can also opt in to applying for jobs with 1-Click Apply based on this saved application information.

When you apply to jobs with 1-Click Apply, LinkedIn will send the job poster your full LinkedIn profile in addition to the following saved application answers:

1.   Email address: You can choose from the email addresses you’ve already provided and verified. You can’t add a new email address with 1-Click Apply.

2.   Phone number: You’ll need to provide a new phone number to be included with your application. LinkedIn won’t use the phone number stored in Settings & Privacy. Phone numbers will be pre-populated, either via the first application or from the job application settings page.

You can preview your application and change your answers before applying to any job.

Scroll down further and you will have the option of uploading a resume. You can have as many as four different versions of your resume uploaded and saved in your profile. The next screenshot shows you how.

Note: Resumes you have uploaded to your profile are not visible to other LinkedIn users. They are only stored in your account and available for you to attach to applications.

1.  To upload a new resume, click Upload under Default Resume in the Resume section. LinkedIn will only store the four most recently used resumes that were submitted on LinkedIn.com or the LinkedIn Mobile App. If there are four stored resumes, the Upload button won’t be available, and you’ll need to delete a recently used Resume to upload a new one.

2.   To replace your default resume for 1-Click Apply, click Replace Default under Default Resume in the Resume section.

3.    To remove your default Resume for 1-Click Apply, click the More icon (…) next to the resume name under Default Resume in the Resume section and select Remove Default from the dropdown.

4.     To delete a recently-used resume, click the More icon (…) next to the resume name under Recent Resumes in the Resume section and select Delete from the dropdown.

Important: The ability to reuse recently uploaded resumes is currently only available on LinkedIn.com and the LinkedIn Mobile App. The feature is not currently available on the LinkedIn Job Search App.

Resume Requirements:

1.    The file must be less than 5 MB.

2.    The file format must be Microsoft Word or PDF only.

3.    On mobile, you can’t attach a resume when applying for jobs. However, many jobs support applications with your LinkedIn profile. You can also save jobs and complete the application process on your computer if you prefer to upload a resume with your application.

Letting Recruiters Know You Are Open

Once you have completed all your application settings, go back to the Privacy tab and click on the second set of options, as shown in the next screenshot.

Your options are a simple Yes or No. Click either on the heading or the word Change and toggle the radio button to Yes.

You will receive an email notification from LinkedIn confirming this change. (And you will receive another email from LinkedIn if you change your setting to “No.”)

Important: To protect your privacy, LinkedIn takes steps to keep users of LinkedIn Recruiter who work at your company — as well as related companies — from seeing the Career Interests that you share. However, LinkedIn notes that they “can’t guarantee complete privacy.”

Creating Job Alerts

Job alerts serve two functions:

1)      They let recruiters know that you are interested in working for their company; and

2)      They push newly-posted job opportunities to your inbox.

Going back to your Privacy settings, click on the third heading under Job seeking preferences, as illustrated in the next screenshot.

As with the previous section, your options are a simple Yes or No. Click either on the heading or the word Change and toggle the radio button to Yes.

As a savvy jobseeker, you should have already created a list of companies you would like to target in your job search. (The recommended minimum number of companies to have on your list is 20). There is a document included at the end of this guide for creating this list and tracking your activity.

In November 2018, LinkedIn rolled out a new feature that enables users to set up job alerts on a Company Page. Once you’ve set up a job alert, you’ll be notified of new jobs that match your skills through the Notifications tab.

You can also share your interests with recruiters of companies you are targeting. Your details will only be shared with recruiters who want to contact members who have created job alerts specifically for their company.

To set up job alerts for a specific company:

1.      Search for the company you’re interested in on the LinkedIn homepage.

2.      On the Company Page, click the Jobs tab.

3.      Click Create Job Alert to set up alerts for when the company posts jobs that match your skills.

Once you create a job alert, you can also let recruiters know that you’ve created job alerts for their company by switching the toggle to On. To stop notifying your interests to recruiters, switch the toggle to Off. Your changes will be saved automatically.

4.    You can view and manage the list of all companies that you’ve created job alerts for by clicking Manage Job Alerts on the Jobs page.

You can also manage your job alerts from the At companies you’ve saved job alerts for section on the Jobs page.

The following screenshots illustrate how to locate a company page and create a job alert.

From the Home page of your profile, click in the Search box, scroll down to Content, and from the drop-down list, click on Companies. This will take you to the Companies search screen. Or you can just type a company name in the Search box.

Type in the name of a company on your target list and click to go to the company page. The following screenshot is taken from IBM’s company page. On the left drop-down menu, click on Jobs and then click on the text box Create job alert.

You’ll also want to toggle the radio button to On, as illustrated in the next screenshot.

Sharing Your Profile When You Apply

Going back to your Privacy settings, click on the fourth heading under Job seeking preferences, as illustrated in the next screenshot.

As with the previous section, your options are a simple Yes or No. Click either on the heading or the word Change and toggle the radio button to Yes.

Managing Your Saved Job Application Information

Third-party job applicant accounts may be stored on LinkedIn after being created or added by you while applying to jobs through LinkedIn. You would have elected to activate this feature when you modified your Job application settings, as described at the beginning of this guide. The following screenshot is a reminder of where you made this change:

To view and manage your stored job applicant accounts, go back to your Privacy settings and click on the fifth heading under Job seeking preferences, as illustrated in the next screenshot.

By saving your application when applying to a company, you can reuse your uploaded resumes and other job application information for future applications to that company. Saved answers can only be used when applying via the Apply with LinkedIn on partner sites.

You can delete the history of the account creation from LinkedIn under Settings & Privacy. Once a stored job applicant account is removed, LinkedIn won’t auto-populate or recognize that you have an account if you apply to a job within that third-party job applicant account in the future.

To fully remove your information from the third-party job applicant account owner, you will need to contact the third party directly.

Important: This information is only stored for third-party applications that require a created account.

Letting Recruiters Know Your Career Interests

You can share your career goals — including the types of companies and roles you are most interested in — with recruiters on LinkedIn who may have opportunities that match your interests and background. Once you opt to share your career goals with recruiters, users of LinkedIn’s Recruiter product will be able to find you based on your shared career interests when they are searching for profiles.

This is an extremely valuable section to complete, whether you are an active or passive jobseeker. Remember, to protect your privacy, LinkedIn has taken steps to keep LinkedIn Recruiter users who work at your company, as well as related companies, from seeing the career interests you share. (However, remember that LinkedIn says this is not a foolproof method, so consider that before proceeding.)

Note: You can share your career interests with recruiters for a period of six months (180 days), after which it will automatically be turned off. You will receive an email notifying you that you’re no longer sharing your career interests. However, you can continue sharing by manually changing the settings.

From the Home screen of your profile, click on Jobs and then on Career Interests, as illustrated in the next screenshot.

The next few screenshots illustrate the various settings.

When you toggle On the setting to Let recruiters know you’re open, it will automatically turn off after 90 days. You will need to turn it back on if you are still searching.

The Note to recruiters text box is where you can key in something specific about your search, such as your willingness to travel, that you are changing careers, or that you are in the market because of a company-wide downsizing. You are limited to 300 characters.

In the next two text boxes, choose from the drop-down arrow options to specify your Status and your Start date.

Below that, you can enter a number of job titles for which you’d like to be considered.

Note: When you start typing, a job title that is in LinkedIn’s database will pop up and you can click on it to add it. If you try to add a title that is not in the database, an error message that reads Invalid input will appear.

Next, you can indicate where you would like your next job to be located, if you are open to working remotely, and what types of jobs you are open to.

In the final two settings you can let the recruiter know what industries you prefer and the size of the company you would like to work for.

Note: As with job titles, you must choose from the list of 148 industries that are included in LinkedIn’s database. There is no limit to how many industries you can add. Refer to the Profile Industry Choices table that is included with this guide.

Additional Tips for Jobseekers

LinkedIn’s artificial intelligence (AI) tracks when you are on LinkedIn and what you are doing. Company recruiters can actually “see” which candidates have taken an interest in their company — not only creating Job alerts, but also by who is following their company, what content they are viewing and sharing, and the number of connections they have within the company.

The next screenshot of the IBM company page shows you where the links are found to follow a company and locate people who work there. You’ll also see a feed of the company’s recent posts.

While on the company page, another area you may want to look at is found on the About page. The next screenshot is also taken from the IBM company page.

By clicking on the About link to the left of the screen, the Overview will be revealed. If you scroll to the bottom of the page details, you will find a section labeled as Specialties (see the section encased in a red border in the screenshot).

Having the right keywords throughout your LinkedIn profile will increase your chances of being found in a Recruiter search. When possible, work a company’s Specialties keywords into your profile, resume, and/or cover letter when applying to that company.

TARGET COMPANIES LIST

Use this document to create a list of companies you are targeting in your search and place an “X” in each column once you have completed the task. Note: Some companies (particularly smaller companies) may not have a LinkedIn page.

When you are logged in to a company page, click the relevant links to follow, create job alerts, and find profiles for people on LinkedIn who currently work at the company. Ways to engage with the company include reading (and possibly sharing) their updates.

	Company Name	Followed Company	Connected To 5+ people	Engaged with Company	Created a Job Alert
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2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20

LINKEDIN INDUSTRY CHOICES (148)

Accounting	Dairy	Individual & Family Services	Mining & Metals	Recreational
Airlines/Aviation	Defense & Space	Industrial Automation	Motion Pictures & Film	Facilities & Services
Alternative Dispute Resolution	Design	Information Services	Museums & Institutions	Religious Institutions
Alternative Medicine	Education Management	Information Technology & Services	Music	Renewables & Environment
Animation	E-learning	Insurance	Nanotechnology	Research
Apparel & Fashion	Electrical & Electronic Manufacturing	International Affairs	Newspapers	Restaurants
Architecture & Planning	Entertainment	International Trade & Development	Nonprofit Organization Management	Retail
Arts & Crafts	Environmental Services	Internet	Oil & Energy	Security & Investigations
Automotive	Events Services	Investment Banking/Venture	Online Publishing	Semiconductors
Aviation & Aerospace	Executive Office	Investment Management	Outsourcing/ Offshoring	Shipbuilding
Banking	Facilities Services	Judiciary	Package/ Freight Delivery	Sporting Goods
Biotechnology	Farming	Law Enforcement	Packaging & Containers	Sports
Broadcast Media	Financial Services	Law Practice	Paper & Forest Products	Staffing & Recruiting
Building Materials	Fine Art	Legal Services	Performing Arts	Supermarkets
Business Supplies & Equipment	Fishery	Legislative Office	Pharmaceuticals	Telecommunications
Capital Markets	Food & Beverages	Leisure & Travel	Philanthropy	Textiles
Chemicals	Food Production	Libraries	Photography	Think Tanks
Civic & Social Organization	Fundraising	Logistics & Supply Chain	Plastics	Tobacco
Civil Engineering	Furniture	Luxury Goods & Jewelry	Political Organization	Translation & Localization

Commercial Real Estate	Gambling & Casinos	Machinery	Primary/ Secondary Education	Transportation/ Trucking/Railroad
Computer & Network Security	Glass, Ceramics & Concrete	Management Consulting	Printing	Utilities
Computer Games	Government Administration	Maritime	Professional Training	Venture Capital
Computer Hardware	Government Relations	Marketing & Advertising	Program Development	Veterinary
Computer Networking	Graphic Design	Market Research	Public Policy	Warehousing
Computer Software	Health, Wellness & Fitness	Mechanical or Industrial Engineering	Public Relations	Wholesale
Construction	Higher Education	Media Production	Public Safety	Wine & Spirits
Consumer Electronics	Hospital & Health Care	Medical Device	Publishing	Wireless
Consumer Goods	Hospitality	Medical Practice	Railroad Manufacture	Writing & Editing
Consumer Services	Human Resources	Mental Health Care	Ranching
Cosmetics	Import & Export	Military	Real Estate