April 2015

 

Hello!
Welcome to Driving Your Career Starts NOW/The Newsletter, showing you how you can direct and manage your career.

Be in charge of your career. Don't wait for someone else to do it for you. Your career is the treasury that funds your life, there's no parking allowed: drive it now!

         - Joanne Meehl, aka The Job Search Queen -
    Now celebrating 
12 years 
shortening job searches! 
If it's a networking meeting, don't bring your resume

Joanne on LinkedIn Pulse: Too often, candidates take their resumes with them to networking meetings. These are meetings with a new contact within a target company, or a contact who knows a lot about your target companies. 

Aren't you supposed to take your resume with you? Isn't that what everyone tells you to do, and what the person expects?

NO, and here's why.

 

Does your LinkedIn "headline" make you findable?

LinkedIn logo
Your LinkedIn headline is that line just beneath your name.

 

It is the most heavily weighted line in your LinkedIn profile. It's where hiring managers and recruiters first look to see if you match their opening. Their search tools also look there for matches. This is primo location for your keywords, so don't waste this space. Is your headline what they are looking for?I can guarantee you they are

not looking for these or similar words in your headline:

  • Unemployed
  • Professional seeking new position 
  • Intern

This one is a good try but is a weak headline:

 

Experienced Retail Professional seeking new opportunities

 

Why is it weak?

 

Let's see why, word by word:

Experienced = What does this mean? Does it mean "successful"? If so, say so.

Retail = This word covers such a large area that it says little. Does the person mean Merchandising? Retail Operations? Channel Marketing? We don't know. Be specific.

Professional = With 80% of LinkedIn members being "professionals", this, too, also means little. 

Seeking new position = Sometimes recruiters do look for this phrase because it signals that the person is available. However, they will find it easily in your Profile's Summary, so use it there instead. Don't take up space in that valuable Headline for it.

 

Things keep changing on LinkedIn but the current practice for headlines is that one should use a mix of specific titles and specific functional areas. So the candidate above, who is a Merchandising Operations Manager who's heavily involved in analytics, should instead use this or very similar:

 

Merchandising Operations Manager | Retail Analytics Manager | Retail Operations | Merchandising Analytics

 

Use the whole space that LinkedIn gives you so that you load up your Headline with vital keywords. My clients do this and like them, this is what will make you findable
________________________

 

Want an hour-long, live review via phone of your LinkedIn profile? Sign up here.

 

Joanne's latest blog on SkyWater Search Blog site

Skywater weight lifter
SkyWater Search is one of the largest executive recruiting firms in the Minneapolis area and voted one of the best companies in the region to work for. Joanne is a guest blogger on SkyWater's blog. See Joanne's blogs there, especially this one, about pointing out your strengths ON your resume while in an interview. 

 

Our 12th BIRTHDAY SPECIAL! Act now:

To celebrate Joanne's 12th year in business, she's giving YOU the gift!
Cake and present
Download the Sample Thank You After an Interview guide free only to newsletter recipients like you for a limited time. Learn why you should not use a handwritten note. (You'll just have to give us your email address.)

 



 

  • Life is a great big canvas, and you should throw all the paint on it you can.
  •  
- Danny Kaye

YouTube
See Joanne's videos -- all short and content-rich
 
Connect

Next Face2Face Mpls  meeting is this Thursday, April 2nd!
Cluster networking and
*What Is Your Story?* featuring sports writer and book author Sean Jensen.
All info is at the F2F site.
Career Tip from Joanne: 
Yes, use a cover letter. Not the rambling, multi-paragraph, let-me-repeat-everything-in-my-resume kind but one that points out the match between YOU and the job. That's the kind they read.


The Blog: People say they learn a lot when they read the blog (and newsletter). I give a ton of info in each blog so take a look at the latest AND the archives.

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The Job Search Queen and The Resume Queen are trademarks held by Joanne Meehl