Guide: How To Find A Job On LinkedIn With Steps?

Job Search can feel like an emotional rollercoaster. It’s not an easy task and can bring along lots of uncertainties and anxious feelings. The highs and lows of a job search can be felt during a single day or sometimes during the span of a week.

There are numerous job boards out there that list job openings like Glassdoor, Indeed, Monster, Craigslist, etc. However, LinkedIn is considered one of the easiest and safest places to look for job postings. To make things easier for you, we have curated a guide on how to find a job on LinkedIn.

Before applying for a job on LinkedIn, you can easily go through the company profile to understand the company’s culture and environment.

If you want a more detailed review of the company’s culture taken from not just LinkedIn but other company review sites like Glassdoor and Google, you can quickly check out the company at Vantage Lens.

Before applying for jobs on LinkedIn, you must do some basic tasks to make your LinkedIn profile look professional. Let’s learn more about them first.

Optimize Your LinkedIn Profile

After receiving your job application, the recruiter will most likely visit your LinkedIn profile. Hence, it’s important to have a professional and approachable profile. This can be done through a few easy steps.

1. Put up a professional profile picture.

The profile picture is the first thing one notices when one visits your profile. Put up a picture that is of high quality and looks professional enough for work. Simply using your Instagram or Facebook profile photo will not work here.

If you do not have any professional pictures, spend time clicking them. Here are some tips to follow:

• Make sure you’re the only person in the photo.
• Use a high-resolution picture.
• Use a solid background if possible.
• Smile and look approachable.
• Have professional attire on.

The background or cover photo is optional. It can showcase some of your work or something relevant to your expertise.

2. Craft a catchy headline.

Your headline should clearly reflect your work expertise and what you can contribute to your potential employer.

Your headline could also contain keywords related to your skills and experience. Adding keywords makes your profile appear on more searches.

If you do not have any experience, you could add your dream job to the headline and any achievements or awards you have received.

Example of a beginner LinkedIn headline:

Aspiring UX Designer | Experienced Graphic Designer | Seeking Exciting Opportunities

3. Write an interesting summary.

LinkedIn provides you with 2000 characters to write down your summary. You can go into details in this section. Remember that people have a short attention span nowadays; hence, do not end up using the whole 2000 characters.

Your profile summary can include a brief about your education, skills and talents, past experiences, and things you’re interested in. Focus on the readability of your summary and write things in bullet points.

Show off yourself using your achievements or any certifications you may have received. Communicate about what you’re looking for and the job title you want to achieve. This is another place you should try to include keywords related to your area of interest.

4. Create an attractive experience section.

This is the part hiring managers are most interested in. Hence, it becomes the most important part of your LinkedIn profile. Here are some tips to optimize it:

• It must be up-to-date.
• Describe your position.
• Include job responsibilities and achievements.
• You can also include links to your best pieces of work.
• Highlight your accomplishments with numbers and metrics.
• Skip out all the irrelevant experiences.

5. Use the Featured section.

The featured section is especially important if you do not have much experience to show. If you were a part of any important events or conferences or have published any important articles, eBooks, or books, you can showcase it all here.

You could also upload your portfolio, personal website, or simply your GitHub profile in this section. Try to create a visually appealing featured section to make your profile stand out.

How to add a featured section?

Profile > Add Profile Section > Featured > Pick relevant items.

6. Upload your certifications and licenses.

Regardless of your profession, you can show off all your certifications and licenses on your profile to add additional skills to your profile or improve existing ones.

Having certifications related to your skills and profession adds value to your expertise and validates your knowledge. Being certified is always seen as a plus.

7. Add Skills and Get endorsed!

LinkedIn lets you add upto 50 skills to your profile. Don’t be afraid to use up all 50, whether relevant or irrelevant. You can even use synonyms!

The next step after adding your skills is getting them endorsed. Ask your connections, friends, and colleagues to endorse your skills, and you can do the same for them. Endorsements act like social proof of your skills and look impressive on the profile.

8. Build Your Network.

The basic idea of LinkedIn is to be a social networking site for professionals. The whole concept behind it is based on building a network.

Networking on LinkedIn is especially important if you are on a job hunt. Creating connections will help you get discovered more easily. So before you start the job search process on LinkedIn, make sure you have built a well-diverse network.

Also, sending connection requests to people you don’t know is okay. You could accompany your request with a welcoming connection message. Let them know your motive for connecting with them and talk a little about your area of interest.

Once you’re done prepping your profile as a job seeker, it’s time for the real deal: Use LinkedIn to find a job.

5 Steps to An Effective LinkedIn Job Search

The points mentioned above answer more of “How to make yourself be found on LinkedIn?” than “How to find a job on LinkedIn?”. An inactive profile is not as appealing to recruiters; hence, setting up your profile before the job search becomes important.

The LinkedIn Job Search tool is one of the easiest and simplest to use. It is one of the most widely used Job boards; hence, you’ll be able to find jobs from diverse areas.

Let’s now delve into the steps to finding a job on Linkedin:

Step 1: Use the Job Search tool.

On your home page, you’ll find a Jobs icon; click on it.

Step 2: Conduct the Search.

After clicking on the Jobs icon, you’ll find a Search Bar on the top left side of your page. You can search for jobs using Job titles, skills, companies, or even keywords.

Step 3: Filter your Search.

For example, you search the query “Content Writer” and add the location where you want to work. The next best step would be to add filters to your search to get a customized set of results.

Step 4: Screen Jobs.

Scroll through the jobs and read the Job Descriptions carefully. Pay attention to the job responsibilities and requirements. Avoid applying for jobs where you don’t qualify for the requirements.

Before applying for the job, another necessary step is to research the company you’re applying for. Applying for a company that might not be a good fit for you is a mere waste of time.

You could compare different companies under the same set of filters on Vantage Lens. The results acquired contain data from LinkedIn, Glassdoor, and Google Reviews.

Here’s an example:

Step 5: Apply for the job.

LinkedIn provides you with two ways to apply for the job:

• Easy Apply: Apply for the job on LinkedIn itself without any redirection.
• Apply: This option redirects you to another website or a third-party job board to externally apply for the job.

When you click on the Easy Apply button, a window opens asking for basic information like Email and contact details along with your resume.

You’ll find a “Submit Application” button at the end of the window, and you’re done.

Even though there is no fixed number to how many jobs you should apply for in a day or a week. Apply for as many jobs as you can. This will increase your chances of getting a job that qualifies your requirements. Industry experts claim that submitting 10-15 job applications weekly is a safe strategy.

Additional Tips

“The average person puts only 25% of his energy into his work. The world takes off its hat to those who put in more than 50% of their capacity, and stands on its head for those few and far between souls who devote 100%.” - Andrew Carnegie.

Apart from setting up your profile and applying for jobs via LinkedIn Job Search, you can do some additional things to increase your chances of getting a job.

Share posts on LinkedIn.

Being active on LinkedIn is a huge plus when you’re on a job hunt. You’ll find that most active LinkedIn members have a good network of connections, finding relevant jobs easier.

Sharing posts does not have to be a headache. You could share your past achievements, any blogs you’ve written, any design you’ve worked on, or simply personal motivational experiences or stuff related to growth.

Aside from sharing your own posts, you should also engage with relevant content. React, comment, and repost content on LinkedIn that seems appropriate to you. Doing this will keep you up-to-date with the latest advancements and improve your visibility on the platform.

Join groups.

Conduct an Advanced Search on LinkedIn and join relevant groups to your area of expertise. This activity will increase your reach to people from the same industry.

Answer questions in the groups, participate in group discussions, ask questions yourself, connect with more people from the group and shoot up conversations with them about your niche.

Being active in professional groups is a great way to get noticed.

By being active in LinkedIn Groups or creating your own, you can build relationships, grow your business, and get insights into what others in your industry are talking about.” - Alfred Lua.

Publish articles.

Read a few articles published on LinkedIn Pulse that are relevant to your niche. Follow up with the latest news in your industry and improve your awareness.

Use this information to write articles of your own and publish them on LinkedIn. You could add your own knowledge and personal experiences, and tips. Articulating your professional knowledge is appreciated by most recruiters.

Something critical in any industry is establishing yourself as a thought leader. Businesses are looking for candidates who are experts in their fields. An article outlining your expertise allows you to position yourself as precisely that.” - Salina Yeung.

Use Hashtags.

A lesser-known fact about LinkedIn trends is hashtags. If you use them correctly, they could make many things easier for you.

You may have seen updates on posts with several hashtags grouped together. Know that these hashtags are not randomly put together. Each hashtag has a special purpose.

Similarly, there are hashtags dedicated to finding a job on LinkedIn too! Here’s a list for you:

• #hiring
• #jobsearch
• #joblisting
• #job
• #recruiting
• #jobopening
• #careers
• #employment

Source: How to Find Your Next Job Through #Hashtags

Connect and talk.

Here’s an easy way to find who to talk to

1. In the Jobs section, search for companies in your industry.
2. Go to the companies' profiles and open the “People” section.
3. After scrolling, you’ll find a “People you may know” section. Here, you can find people who work in the same industry as you and in HR.
4. Connect with them and let them know about your skills and experience and that you’re open to work.

The benefit of having more connections on LinkedIn is that you will benefit from high-quality connections with high status, making them believe that you have been in business long enough to trust you. Moreover, it also helps you attract professional clients. To be able to do that, you need to have a strong digital marketing strategy and be involved in different industry activities.” - Philippe Weickmann.

#OpenToWork

How to enable this?

1. Open your profile and click on your profile photo.
2. Click on the Frames icon.
3. Select the #OpenToWork option and click on Apply.

LinkedIn's Open to Work feature allows you to show up with priority in their searches since you are actively searching and open for work. This is excellent news if you are searching for a job since a recruiter (or hiring manager) can come across your profile and reach out, knowing you will be interested.” - Tammy Homegardner.

Summing Up

Linkedin has been a global hub for companies and can offer great opportunities while looking for jobs. Take some time to absorb everything you have learned in this blog. Don’t try to do everything at once. Following all the steps and suggestions mentioned above is not a day’s task. You could make this your week’s or month’s project.

Experiment with different suggestions and try out new things on the platform. There is no specific way that will guarantee you a job. Job Search is a long process, and you need patience. Finding your dream job could take you more time than you assumed.

Wishing you the best of luck in this new endeavor. Keep calm and have patience.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

1. How to conduct a job search on LinkedIn without your present employer knowing?

Conducting a job search on LinkedIn without the knowledge of your current employer can be a little tricky. First, you have to hide your profile updates. You can do this by: ‘Me’ icon > Settings and Privacy > Privacy tab > turn ‘Sharing profile edits’ toggle off. You can also customize the visibility of the posts your share that are related to job search. Also, you cannot use the “Open to work” frame on your profile if you don’t want your employer to know you’re looking for a job.

2. How to find who posted a job on LinkedIn?

To find the person who posted the job on LinkedIn, you would need the help of certain tools. For example, you can use the Advanced People Search on LinkedIn. Using this tool, if you search for the correct title within the company that has posted the job, you’re likely to find the person responsible. Another way is to detect a first-degree contact that works at the same company. You could simply ask them who is responsible for the job posting.

3. Can anybody view your job application on LinkedIn?

Any job application on LinkedIn is absolutely private. All the information you share during the job application is not visible to anyone. Your information is only visible and stored at the receiving end of the application. Also, no visible information exists that you have applied for a job in any company.

4. Is LinkedIn enough for a job search?

LinkedIn is like a search engine when it comes to job searches. Yes, applying for jobs through LinkedIn will send your application to the recruiter. However, you can always go the extra mile by following the company profile and applying directly on their career page. You can also mail your application to the relevant person working in the company.