USING THE POWER OF LINKEDIN TO FIND THE RIGHT PEOPLE

Of course, we all understand the power of networking. At Harrison Careers, we spend a lot of our time coaching our clients on how to effectively leverage the power of LinkedIn to identify the correct people for them to network with.

We’re not the only ones who can advise you on how to use LinkedIn to find the right people. In fact, a Google search of “find people on LinkedIn” gets me 7.3 billion results. (Yes, billion!)However, we are experts who have spent many hundreds of hours figuring out how to harness LinkedIn’s power, so here is our advice to help you!

1.    Premium.

We think LI’s Premium service is worth it if you are seriously job searching. We like Sales Navigator Core the best (which currently runs at about $90 per month). We have tried the Recruiter versions as well and do not like them as much.

2.     Annual.

  If you pay annually (it’s cheaper) and cancel during the year, LinkedIn will give you a pro rata refund, which is fair.

3.     Filters.

It’s all about the search filters! They are so useful. This article is too short to discuss specific filters, but we are constantly surprised by how filters that we ignored for years can be incredibly useful if you think about how they can solve your specific problem.

4.     Key Words.

The Key Words filter is the most useful of all. But you really ought to spend the 20 minutes to properly understand Boolean searches. Google “LinkedIn Boolean search” and invest the time. As an illustration, there is a big difference between typing software engineering (10.4 million results) and “software engineering” (2.5 million results) into the LinkedIn search bar.

5.     InMail.

People often do not accept your LinkedIn connection request. Use your InMails to message them. There is a good chance that they reply to your message. If they don’t reply, LinkedIn will give you back your free InMails. We find that InMails get a better response rate than emails.

6.     Connections.

If someone is your 1^st Connection, you can nearly always see their email address in their LinkedIn Contact information. Did you already know this?!

7.     Have a Plan.

You can read hundreds of thousands of articles like this one about your LinkedIn strategy. Decide your LinkedIn strategy and stick to it for a period of time. Then assess if it has worked. Don’t expect immediate results. Relationships need to be nurtured. You may find that the reward of your networking takes years. The better your networking system, the greater chance you have of executing your LinkedIn networking strategy without having to devote precious brainpower to re-thinking it all the time.