We guide you on how to harness LinkedIn’s technical platform to get the best out of it.
Off late there’ve been some amazing developments from LinkedIn giving users access to a multitude of features. This Tips & Tricks section is not a tutorial teaching you how to build a strong LinkedIn profile but it will guide you on how to harness LinkedIn’s technical platform to get the best out of it. Follow these nifty tricks and cheats for mastering LinkedIn.
Connecting professionally is what it’s all about
SEO your profile
The
fact that you’re a LinkedIn user means that you’re out there to market
yourself and your skills. As such you need to make your profile easier
to find when searched for using a search engine. A useful tip is to
include a certain keyword throughout your profile. Make sure that this
keyword appears in your endorsements and recommendations as well. Once
done, you can check and rate your profile against others with similar
keyword by doing a search by people. This tip is hardly a
LinkedIn-specific hack but is extremely useful and powerful.
Use Boolean search
The
LinkedIn search bar has awesome support for Boolean search, which means
that you can execute complex searches by combining Boolean operators
(terms such as AND, OR, NOT). For example, if you want to search for a
software engineer or architect you can search for ‘software AND Engineer
OR Architect’ by combining the AND and OR Boolean operators. For exact
matches, use quotation marks on either side of specific terms and use
the NOT operator to exclude certain terms. E.g. “subject matter expert”
NOT “technical writer”. This sort of search query allowance lets you
look for extremely specific profiles or a largely generalised database
of profiles by a smart combination of Boolean operators.
Reorder and rearrange headers
Don’t
like the way your profile headers are arranged? Reorder them. Simply go
to the Profile > Edit Profile and move your mouse pointer to the
double-sided arrow at the extreme right of each header. Click and drag
to rearrange the positions of the headers.
Build your resume
Linked
in has a really nice built-in Resume Builder tool which can turn your
profile into a resume that you can print, store and share as a .pdf
file. To export your LinkedIn profile as a resume, go to http://resume.linkedinlabs.com/
and click on the “Create a new resume now” button. Grant access to the
Resume Builder application. You’ll then be redirected to a page where
your resume will be exported to a document type sheet. You can choose
between various resume formats. After zeroing in on the desired format
and content, click on the PDF/print option located at the end of the
menu just above the sample document to save and download the resume as a
.pdf file.
Optimise your profile to get pulled up in search results
You’re
probably already aware of a similar feature within your LinkedIn
profile where you also have the option of a quick .pdf download of your
profile. However, that’s a plain Jane version compared to the template
options you’ll get with Resume Builder.
Export contacts
LinkedIn
enables you to have multiple levels of connections. As such it gets
really important to organise contacts. You can export LinkedIn contacts
to another contact or people management system. To do this, go to
Network > Contacts > My Connections. Then scroll down and click on
the bottom right option of Export connections. There’s an option to
export contacts either as a .csv or .vcf file.
Remove Contacts tab
Deleting
connections is not a really smooth procedure in LinkedIn. The remove
connection page simply displays a list of contacts without pictures. For
users with a large number of contacts it may become cumbersome to
identify contacts without additional information. But thanks to a neat
Greasemonkey script deleting connections becomes simple. Follow the
instructions for installation at http://dgit.in/189ubY2 and install the plug-in from http://dgit.in/189usdD to enable a ‘Remove Contact’ link next to each profile.
Create map virtualisation
Although
this tip doesn’t really utilise a LinkedIn-based service it relies on
an official application called InMaps developed by LinkedIn employees
for an experimental service (like Resume Builder) called LinkedIn Labs.
InMaps is a beautiful tool that essentially creates a graph network
linking together all your contacts with you and each other. It’s a
stunning visualisation tool and you can easily zoom in on the map and
see specific contacts and their connections. Clicking on a specific dot
on the map will show the respective contact’s connection in the map and
his/her details are displayed in the pane to the right. This is a handy
tool when it comes to viewing connections of specific contacts and
building databases. You can easily share the map with other contacts
also. To use the service go to
Save searches
This
might sound like an utterly useless thing to do but it is actually
quite handy if you’re tailing a particular profile for a job or
otherwise. A little known feature in LinkedIn allows you to save upto
three searches and get email notifications if there are new profiles
similar to the ones in your search query list.
Call it
keeping an eye on the competiton or whatever but it quite useful if you
happen to be in HR. Simply type your search query in the search toolbar
at the top and click on the Save option. Let’s suppose you’re looking
for a mechanical engineering student who joined graduate school at MIT,
you can simply type “Mechanical” AND “graduate” AND “MIT” in the search
bar and save that search query. LinkedIn will send you alerts weekly or
monthly regarding additions to the list.
Customise your LinkedIn profile URL and other profile settings
The
official profile URL provided by LinkedIn hardly catches one’s eye. The
URL has a set of confusing and unrelated numbers at the end and it
would be really great if a user could obtain a cleaner and crisper URL
instead. Fortunately you can. If you’re signed in at LinkedIn go to http://dgit.in/16iAqqu.
In the tab titled ‘Your Public Profile URL‘ click on ‘Customise your
public profile URL’. Enter a suitable URL in the box that appears and
you’re set.
The same page is quite handy for changing the way
your profile appears when searched for. You can choose the kind of
information to display when googled! The page also provides a nifty
option of creating a profile badge to display and promote your LinkedIn
profile on other public forums associated with you. Choose from a
variety of profile badge options by clicking on the “Create a profile
badge” under the Profile Badges section.
View stats of LinkedIn groups
This
option gives you an idea of the group dynamics in general which
includes number of group members, activity and growth. You can view
comprehensive infographics that cover demographic information, activity
(discussions, jobs posted, comments and promotions) over a period of
time and growth in number of members. This is quite an amazing feature
if you’re wondering whether the group is the right match for you given
your career aspirations. For example, if you’re at entry-level and the
demographics show that a majority of the group members are at a senior
level, this may not be the group for you yet. To access it go to the
specific page under investigation. In the tab containing the name of the
group click the ‘i’ button towards the extreme right. Click on ‘Group
statistics’ in the menu box that appears.
Explore the demographics tab for a deeper insight into the group
Track your brand’s reputation
This
tip is regarding another brilliant LinkedIn application called Company
Buzz. This application helps track what people are saying about you,
your company or product via microblogging on Twitter. That’s not all.
You can also see a time-varying trend to track information over time,
and modify search queries to catch Twitter trends. To install this
application go to http://dgit.in/185HpXz.
Once added, you can type in search queries in the search toolbar, click
on the “Follow Topic” tab that appears on the upper-left side of the
page and view instant Twitter feeds.
Check out LinkedIn plug-ins
Developers at LinkedIn have come up with some really fancy applications and plug-ins to act as useful value additions. Go to https://developer.linkedin.com/plugins
to see an array of plug-in options that you can install. Some of the
cool member-based plug-ins let you embed a profile summary card on your
personalised webpage or simply a neat LinkedIn logo that shows your
profile summary card on hover.
Sync LinkedIn with Twitter
There
are quite a few users who are very active in cyberspace including in
the Twitter blogosphere and the LinkedIn network. If you’re one of them,
you might want to share your LinkedIn status updates on your Twitter
profile. To do this, simply post the update in the update box and click
on the ‘Share With’ box below. Choose ‘Public + Twitter’ from the
dropdown menu and press Share to post the update simultaneously on your
LinkedIn
and Twitter profile.
