Read This Before Starting Your LinkedIn Job Search
Has this scenario played out for you recently?
You decide that it’s time to start exploring the market for a new job, so you do a quick brush up of your LinkedIn profile, and change the “Let Recruiters Know You’re Open” setting to “On”.
The next thing you know, your inbox is inundated with emails from recruiters pitching openings across a variety of roles, most of which have no relevance to your background. After a day or two, you are faced with a dilemma: You can turn off the setting and close the pipe of email flow from recruiters, or you can set up a filter in your inbox for the recruiter emails.
Either option isn’t great because if you turn off the recruiter setting it means potentially missing out on a good job opportunity, but if you create a filter, you may miss a legitimate opening in all the clutter.
What to do?
As a recruiter, I’m always amazed that the majority of job seekers don’t put more information into the “Note to Recruiters” section. LinkedIn allows a limited 300 characters to tell recruiters what you want to do next. (note: this is NOT the summary section where your current boss or colleagues might be viewing your profile).
Like you, recruiters hate wasting time, yours or theirs. Recruiters are under pressure to find well-suited candidates for their openings. They want nothing more than to impress their hiring managers with a well-matched candidate.
After looking at a candidate’s profile on LinkedIn, recruiters are often left guessing as to what the candidate is looking for in their next role. Not wanting to lose a potentially good match, a recruiter will send an email with a quick pitch, with just enough information to hook the candidate into replying.
What ends up happening is that candidates are frustrated with receiving too many poorly matched jobs, and recruiters are left to guessing why candidates aren’t responding to them.
With the proliferation of automated emails and AI bots entering the recruiting space, this cycle is only going to get a lot worse.
Luckily, there is a simple answer. When you decide to start your search, before you turn on the “Open” setting, take the time to review what you like and dislike about your current and previous jobs. This will help you determine what type of job you want to pursue next.
For example, if you are a software engineer, do you prefer working for smaller or larger companies? Do you want to narrow your search to a specific industry? Does employment at a startup excite you or do you prefer the stability of a more established company? What programming languages do you know already and what languages would you consider transitioning into?
Once you’ve answered these questions, try to succinctly describe your ideal job in the "Note to Recruiter" section on LinkedIn so that recruiters searching LinkedIn can be on target with their suggestions. This might take more time in the outset of a search, but it will go a long way to helping you guide the right recruiters and openings to you.
There’s so much more to talk about with regards to improving your LinkedIn profile, which I will hopefully write about in coming weeks. But for now, just improving that one section will hopefully go a long way to improving your job search experience and saving your inbox.
If you are a software engineer considering a move, I’d be happy to help you out with this section. Please feel free to message me on LinkedIn.