Pro Tips for Candidates

Your LinkedIn Profile Matters

It's often the first place we look.?Ensure that your experience and headline are compelling and accurately reflect your professional background. Don’t make it hard for us to learn who/what/where/when.?Include keywords that align specifically with your experience.?

Smart Phone Tip: Review your profile on your smartphone; if it takes endless thumb scrolls to answer those questions, reconsider what’s essential. ?

LinkedIn Tip:?Upgrade to the premium version; the search engine is much more robust and is worth it.?

Resume Best Practices?

Remember, the first page of your resume is prime real estate. Make it count by highlighting your most significant achievements and roles. Be concise and to the point. Avoid inserting an Objective. Summaries are valuable provided they’re about your experience and not self-reported accolades.?Don’t forget the white space.?Too much content can dilute your message.?Content that runs border to border, left > right and top > bottom, is a challenge to read and understand.?

10 Second Tip: Ask someone to look at your resume for only 10 seconds, then see how much the gleaned.?

Approach your Job Search like a Recruiter

In our experience, candidates tend to rely exclusively on their network.? That’s fine to a point, but often not enough. Recruiters do that too, but they also recognize the importance of knowing their target companies.? ?

Research Tip:?Spend one day identifying companies (local first, outliers second), not people.?Add to a spreadsheet, THEN start researching who’s on first, and who’s on second. Company websites, LinkedIn, industry directories, Business Journals are all good sources, some free/some requiring a nominal subscription.?(Make the investment). Build your spreadsheet to use as a tracking tool with a comments column on who you’ve attempted to reach (and how). ?You’ll find yourself adding to the list every day.?It will help preserve your sanity as evidence you’re covering the bases.?