Yesterday Linkedin announced their new search platform, which refines your ability to search for potential hiring managers, customers, business partners and colleagues. The new search platform offers many enhancements to search functionality by expanding the number of data fields available to query. While doing so, it also expands your opportunities to be searched and found.
Key enhancements:
- Search people by keyword. Type in any text string and Linkedin will search profiles to find those that contain the string. This is a great feature for building your list of prospective employers or clients.
- Refine search by name, title, company and zip code.
- Assign search criteria to current or current and past jobs.
How to leverage this information to increase your chances of being found:
- Be sure that the keywords associated with the job or service you want to be hired for appear in your profile.
- Designate a professional headline (basic information data field on your profile) that supports what you want to be known or hired for. This professional headline is the description that appears under your name in a query search. Make sure it speaks clearly to the people you want to view your profile.
- Don’t list a temporary job as your current job if it doesn’t utilize the skills and expertise you wish to employ in your long-term work. Why?
Instead, describe any interim work in your Summary, where you have the opportunity to position this work how you want it to be perceived.
