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Today’s post is a guest post by Joshua Waldman (http://CareerEnlightenment.net)

Everyone is on LinkedIn these days. Let’s face it. Almost
every CEO from every fortune 500. Last count was over 60 million users.

In contrast, job boards only have about 3.5% of available
jobs. This is common knowledge in the career industry, but why do so many
people spend so much time on job boards?

The answer is because it feels safer. LinkedIn is really all
about networking. And socializing in an unfamiliar environment can be
frightening. I know, I’m an introvert. I totally understand why job seekers try
to spend as little time as possible in front of LinkedIn.

So what I want to offer 3 of the most common mistakes in
using LinkedIn and how to avoid them. My goal is to help job seekers get over
any unconscious resistance to using the most powerful job finding tool ever
invented.

And if you want to register to a free webinar about how to proactively get job interviews using LinkedIn on 12/22, Click Here to Register.

Mistake 1: Not Having a Brand

Shoe companies have brands, not people!

Wrong.

Looking for a job is just another sales situation. You are
your product. And everything about you is going to either sell you, or turn
people away.

It’s really just a choice you have to make inside.

Just like how we make buying decisions emotionally,
sometimes based on silly things, like the color of the packaging. So too do hiring
managers unconsciously make decisions about our candidacy.

If your Resume doesn’t quite match your LinkedIn profile,
and that doesn’t match what your referral said about you, then you are in big
trouble.

The risk of being inconsistent is huge, and it helps to have
defined “who you are” long before you put yourself out there.

The second part of branding is knowing your audience. What
are their 2 biggest problems right now, that you could potentially solve?

The trick is to align the “who you are” with the “what they
need”, so that there is a nice overlap.

This, my friends, is your personal brand. It will define
your strategy, your writing style, your colors, photos and everything else
about you online.

Most people crank out their LinkedIn profile without doing
this step first.

Mistake 2: You are NOT Your J-o-b

“Systems Engineer”

“Marketing Executive”

“Fundraiser”

These appear under someone’s name in their LinkedIn
profiles. And they tell us nothing about who this person really is.

They are a commodity.

Quick story. I had a client, a network engineer, who wanted
to work for a very large shoe company. No, not Nike, but good guess.

He knew they had 2 problems. First, they had no internal
network. Second, their external network was so broken that it was affecting
supply chain.

So in order to really appeal to this company, we needed to
directly address their biggest challenges- challenges that he had the capacity
to solve.

So his headline went like this, “Powerful Intranet builder|Supply Chain
thought leader|Project management guru”

You have 120 characters to tell the world who you are and what value you bring.

And every communication you generate on LinkedIn will have
this professional headline attached to it.

So choose wisely.

Hint: don’t use your job title as your headline

Mistake 3: Don’t Look Like an Axe Murderer

Every single time I speak about social media in the job
search, someone always comes up to me afterward to ask me this question, “But
I’m just not that comfortable putting my picture up”. They are either too young
or too old or too something.

Yes, ageism, racism and sexism are very real. It’s sad and
terrible that they still happen in our society. But using a black and white
photo, or zooming way out to try and hide something about ourselves is not going to solve the
problem.

The only thing we can do is put some time and effort into
our photos, to reflect who we are honestly. And to make a nice looking photo.

All too often, people will put up a mug shot, and wonder why
they aren’t getting call backs.

This really happened to a friend’s client. And the day he changed
his photo, he got a job offer. No exaggeration. (I can hear the HR people
cringing from this story, but it’s true).

So the lesson from this is that it is worth getting a
professional headshot taken if you are serious about getting a job.

So When Do I Start Getting Job Interviews from LinkedIn

Join me for a free webinar this month (on 12/22) where I’ll share 4 easy steps you can take tonight to get you a job interview by next week.

No one wins a beauty contest for having the nicest LinkedIn profile.
We’ll discover some great strategies for proactively researching
companies and getting interviews.

There are limited seats, so please make sure you sign up for this Live Event right away, Click Here to Register.

30 Day Blogging Challenge – day 19. Tomorrow’s post: “Personal Branding Links”