3 Simple Ways You Can Make Linkedin Work For You
The Show Notes
An Investment You Can’t Overlook
The idea of LinkedIn can make a lot of teachers cringe. It’s another social media platform to keep up with. You might not feel like you have a network- or at least any non-teacher contacts. It just all feels so foreign. So in this episode, I’m going show you three ways you can make LinkedIn work for you!
What you need to know is that hiring managers regularly use LinkedIn profiles as a way to see if any of the applicants can set themselves apart. For this exact reason, it’s worth it for you to invest an hour or so updating some key elements of your profile.
1 - Make it Yours
LinkedIn allows you to represent your personality, your strengths, and your experience in a way that you can control. You can emphasize what you are most proud of and connect most directly to a future job opportunity.
Having an updated and professional-looking headshot is really key here. These can even be taken on your smartphone, but investing just a little effort here goes a long way. Consider your lighting and finding a simple background.
Additionally, if you want to take another step and customize your profile, even more, you can create a banner on your profile. But if you want to save more time and energy, you can grab a template in the Teacher Transition membership. You can download, customize, and upload it in less than five minutes!
2 - Make It Smart
Here’s something else to consider if you are trying to make your LinkedIn profile work for you. Say there are two teachers with the same goals for what to do next. The reality is that the opportunities will likely be drastically different based on how effective their profiles are.
So let me ask you this: what is the purpose of creating a LinkedIn Profile?
a. To tell the narrative of your work history
b. Help you open up future job opportunities
It’s a bit of a trick question. It’s really both because making your profile smart means you are telling your work history through the use of keywords that the hiring manager of your dream job would be searching for.
If you would love to understand more about using these keywords that companies want to see, we have another resource for this in the Teacher Transition Membership as well!
3 - Make it Easy
If you want to make your LinkedIn profile work for you, make it simple for the right people with the right opportunities to discover you are the perfect person for the job. When you understand that hiring managers are looking at dozens of resumes for every position, you want to consider how yours can easily stand out.
Some simple ways to set yourself apart in this way are to have clarity and keywords in every section, including the headline, skills, objectives, about, and experience sections. Make sure you are extending an open invitation to connect with you.
I remember how overwhelming LinkedIn felt to me at the very beginning of my transition journey. But after I realized the potential I had to control my message and the ability to stand out above a bunch of other applicants, I fell in love with LinkedIn. As always, remember that done is better than perfect. Set aside an hour and see what you can create.
If you need even more feedback, you always have an open invite in the membership too!
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Resources Mentioned in the Show
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