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Do You Know These LinkedIn Secrets, with 
Meg Guiseppi

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Build it and forget is not a good strategy for your LinkedIn profile, especially if you are job hunting. Job seekers need a strong, robust presence to demonstrate their capabilities, and communicate what makes them stand out above other candidates. If your profile is not updated, it may appear you are out of touch with the new world of work.

This week’s guest, Meg Guiseppi, says making use of LinkedIn’s less-known features can elevate your profile by way of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Completing these sections gives you more content, more searchable keywords, and it passively promotes you.

Meg’s tips for maximizing your LinkedIn profile:

  • Provide the information your intended reader will be looking for.
  • Make it as easy as possible for employers to know what you need them to know about you.
  • Blend your soft skills with your hard skills to tell a good story about yourself.
  • Use your personality to differentiate yourself and communicate what you have to offer.
  • Use LinkedIn’s Pulse publishing platform.

This Week’s Guest

Meg Guiseppi is the CEO of Executive Career Brand. She helps C-suite and senior-level managers with executive job searches. Meg is the Personal Branding Expert at Job-Hunt.org and is the author of several books, including 23 Ways You Sabotage Your Executive Job Search and How Your Brand Will Help You Land.

Resources from this Episode

 

Transcript

Mac Prichard:

Hi. This is Mac from Mac’s List. Before we start the show, I wanted to let you know about my new book, Land Your Dream Job Anywhere. I’ve been helping job seekers find meaningful, well-paying work since 2001, and now I put all my best advice into one easy-to-use guide. My book shows you how to make your resume stand out in a stack of applications, where you can find the hidden jobs that never get posted, and what you need to do to ace your next job interview. Get the first chapter now for free. Visit MacsList.org/Anywhere.

This is Find Your Dream Job, the podcast that helps you get hired, have the career you want, and make a difference in life. I’m Mac Prichard, your host, and publisher of Mac’s List. I’m joined by my co-hosts Ben Forstag and Jessica Black from the Mac’s List team. This week, we’re talking about LinkedIn secrets you need to know to get the job you want.

At the end of 2016, LinkedIn had 476 million members. As a listener of this show, the odds are good that you’re one of them. Setting up your LinkedIn profile, however, is just the first step. To make the most of LinkedIn, you need to know how successful people use it. Our guest expert this week is Meg Guiseppi, and she knows all about LinkedIn. She and I talk later in the show about LinkedIn secrets you can use to get your next job.

LinkedIn, like any social networking site, can attract scammers. Ben Forstag has found a list of the top five LinkedIn cons you need to watch out for. He tells us more in a moment.

What’s the best way for a new graduate with a master’s degree in Public Administration to get a job? That’s our listener question of the week. It comes from Kelly Matthews in Boston, Massachusetts. Jessica Black offers her advice shortly.

As always, let’s check in with the Mac’s List team. Jessica, Ben, this week we’re talking about LinkedIn secrets. These are those hacks, tricks, and shortcuts that make us stand out on LinkedIn, and help us get that next job. Do you two have a LinkedIn secret you want to share on the air?

Ben Forstag:  

Well, I will share my, quote, “secret,” because it’s not something that I discovered on my own. It was actually something that was shared previously on our podcast by … our guest was Arnie Fernig, and I think this was back in one of the episodes in the teens, somewhere there.

Mac Prichard:

Yeah. He’s the job hunter. He operates actually out of Boston, where our listener question comes from this week.

Ben Forstag:  

Absolutely. The best piece of advice I got from that show was to put your contact information in the first line of your summary, because one of the ways LinkedIn operates is by encouraging you to upgrade to their premium service so that you have an easier way of contacting folks, and so it’s not easy to find people’s email addresses unless you’ve upgraded or you’re already in contact with them. The way to get around that is just to put your name and email information or phone number if you want to do that right in the first line of your summary, and that way it’s really easy for anyone who looks at your profile to know how to get in contact with you outside of the LinkedIn platform. I think that was a great idea when I heard it. It was kind of one of these like, “Oh, my. Why am I not doing that?” As soon as I made that change, for good or ill, I started getting more people reaching out to me outside of LinkedIn, which for me, in my everyday workflow, is much easier.

Jessica Black:

That’s a great tip.

Mac Prichard:

Yeah. I like that tip a lot because obviously the three of us use LinkedIn every day, but can you imagine if you sent out a resume and didn’t include your email address or your postal address or phone number, and you just hoped that somehow people could track you down? While LinkedIn isn’t a resume – it does so much more – you want to make it easy for people to find you and connect with you.

How about you, Jessica? What are some of your secrets?

Jessica Black:

Yeah. Well, also not necessarily secrets, quote-unquote “secrets,” but I think …

Mac Prichard:

Hacks and tricks are fine.

Jessica Black:

Hacks and tricks. I would call this a tip: connecting. Connecting with people. I think that … I know for me, with Facebook, I’m really selective with who I become friends with, because I won’t become friends with just anybody.

Mac Prichard:

Sure.

Ben Forstag:   

One day you’ll friend me, right?

Jessica Black:

We are already friends on Facebook, but with LinkedIn, it’s a little bit different. It’s sort of, you can connect right upon meeting someone, or even if you are sort of vaguely connected. It’s completely acceptable – and actually encouraged – so I think that that was a big revelation for me in my early LinkedIn days. I sort of used it in that way of Facebook, of being very selective with who I was connected to, and after I started just connecting with a lot of people that I’ve met over the years, people I worked with, even if it wasn’t directly worked with, but in the same company, that sort of thing – I think that really helps a lot.

Mac Prichard:

Those are great tips, and I know I expect Meg will touch on those too, because I know one thing I’ve seen her write about is the people who just set up a very simple LinkedIn page and then they just assume they’re done, and they never come back.

Jessica Black:

Yeah. One more thing related to that, that, again, I learned sort of later in my LinkedIn life, is to ask to be recommended for the work that you’ve done, and then recommend other people. Not just receive them, but also give them. I think that helps your rank a little bit. I don’t know all the details of the ranking process, but I think that that’s part of the completion of your profile as well, and it really does help.

Mac Prichard:

No, you’re absolutely right. I’ve read that the algorithm that LinkedIn uses for ranking, you will rise higher if people do exactly what you’re suggesting, which is complete that profile.

Jessica Black:

Yelp is so popular for that reason of other people being able to read quote-unquote “reviews,” and it’s almost that same idea of having someone else sort of speak highly of you that you have a leg up to the traditional reference process.

Mac Prichard:

That’s a great point as well, Jessica, because I know … You know, many of us today, when we shop online, the first thing we do is check the reviews.

Jessica Black:

Yeah, absolutely.

Mac Prichard:

Employers and hiring managers do the same thing when they go on LinkedIn to check out candidates. Those are great tips and secrets, and you know, gosh, mine is something I already touched on. It may seem obvious, but it’s check LinkedIn regularly. I go to it every day, at least once a day.

Jessica Black:

So do I.

Mac Prichard:

The reason that benefits you when you’re … Either developing your career or when you’re job hunting is you never know who might send you a message or send you an invitation. I’m always surprised when I send out LinkedIn invites how many people I don’t hear from for, say, two or three or six months, and then they’ve accepted my invite, and I suspect it’s because they’re infrequent visitors, and they may be missing out on opportunities by not going to LinkedIn regularly.

Jessica Black:

And it helps you stay current with what’s happening in your connections, in the world of your connections, based on that “news feed” sort of feature – you can see what blog posts people are publishing, or what kind of new jobs people have, so that when you run into them in person, you are current on what’s happening in their life, and have a talking point, which is kind of a nice feature too.

Mac Prichard:

Yeah. Great point. Well thank you both, and I’m looking forward to our conversation with Meg, but first let’s turn to you, Ben, because you’re out there every week exploring the internet and poking around the nooks and crannies of a very big global network, looking for those websites, books, and tools we can use in our job searches and careers. Gosh, Ben, what have you uncovered for us this week?

Ben Forstag: 

Don’t hold this against me, Mac, but this week I was exploring the dark side of the Internet.

Mac Prichard:

I saw that. Were you using your incognito tab?

Ben Forstag:   

I was. Doing it late at night, when no one else could watch. No- so this week, since we’re talking about LinkedIn, I thought it would be worthwhile to talk about the dark side of LinkedIn. You know, whenever anything is popular and people start using it, inevitably people with more nefarious intentions make their way there and try to use it for their own ill-gotten gains. This week I want to talk about the five most common LinkedIn scams, and this comes from a company called TripWire, which is actually based here in Portland.

We actually had a listener question several weeks ago about this topic, because companies were contacting her and she wasn’t clear if it was a real offer or not.

Mac Prichard:

I remember that question, yeah.

Ben Forstag: 

Yeah. That’s one of the common scams that happen on LinkedIn. There are five basic ones. One of them is the fake paying job offer from, quote, “recruiters.” Sometimes those involve something like, they’ve got the job for you, you just need to give them $100 to grease the wheels or whatever. Another common scam is the advanced fee, slash, fake inheritance, slash, Nigerian prince scam that we’re all probably pretty used to at this point.

Mac Prichard:

Yeah. I actually was represented in Congress when I was growing up in Iowa by a fellow who fell for this scam.

Ben Forstag: 

He’s the one. I keep wondering who falls for these things.

Mac Prichard:

Yes.

Ben Forstag: 

Third, here, are illegitimate invites from fake accounts, which I get I’d say at least once a week. Usually they’re pictures of attractive famous people, and for some reason also the first name is always written in all caps. That’s one of the giveaways that these are fake accounts. The fourth scam are dating and romance scams, so if someone is reaching out to you with romantic interests on LinkedIn… that’s not the right platform for that, and, yeah, it’s probably not a legitimate message. The fifth one is something I’ve never heard of before, but it’s called spear fishing and whaling attacks.

Mac Prichard:

I saw this on the list. I was intrigued. Tell us more about this, Ben.

Ben Forstag:

This is basically someone just shooting you a message, and all they want to know is if you reply. Because if you reply, it means this is a real account with a real human being on the other end, and what they do next is they take whatever information they have about you and they throw it into a database and says, “This is a real live account with a real person on the other end of it.” You see this a lot in emails as well, where they send you an email and all they’re looking for is for you to reply with anything, which just shows them, “This is not some junk email account that no one checks. There’s a real person there, and so now we can market things to them later on in the future.”

The blog post that I have today goes into all of these topics ad nauseum, and I suggest you spend a little time just looking through these, because no one wants to be the sucker who falls for one of these scams. Again, it’s called A Guide on Five Common LinkedIn Scams, and it’s available from TripWire.com, and we will have the URL in the show notes.

Mac Prichard:

Okay, well thanks Ben. If you’ve got a suggestion for Ben, he would love to hear from you. Please write him and we may share your idea on the show. His address is easy to remember. It’s Ben@MacsList.org.

Now let’s turn to you, our listeners. Jessica Black joins us to answer one of your questions. Jessica, what’s in the Mac’s List Mailbag this week?

Jessica Black:

Yeah, we have a good question from Kelly, who comes from Boston. We’ll listen to her question right now.

Kelly Matthews:

Hi, my name is Kelly from Boston, Massachusetts. I recently graduated with a master’s degree in Public Administration, and I wondered what tips you might have to land my first gig.

Jessica Black:

Thanks, Kelly, for your question about how to land your first gig after your master’s degree. Congratulations on that, by the way. I mean, my advice is pretty general, in terms of using the connections that you’ve made through the master’s program and your network there that you’ve made, and then leveraging the work that you’ve done with whether it’s internships, those types of things. I don’t have anything directly related to a public administration degree, but maybe Mac, you could weigh in a little bit on that?

Mac Prichard:

Sure. I’m happy to. In fact, I have a master’s in Public Administration.

Jessica Black:

That’s why I asked, yeah.

Mac Prichard:

I found that the people in my program who got the most satisfying jobs and got them the soonest were the ones who were clear about what they were interested in doing, and they had a clear goal. They actually followed your advice, Jessica, which was to tap into the resources that the career services office offered, even if they had left to move back home. Perhaps they had been there, come from out of state to study, but they stayed in touch with career services. The other thing they did besides having a clear goal and taking advantage of the university resources was they worked the network as you recommended, both among students and faculty, and they let people know what they wanted to do and where, and they got introductions, recommendations, and advice about how to do that. It’s been a long time since I earned my master’s, but I’ve also noticed that the people who have stayed in touch with faculty and students in the 25 years since I graduated, and there are a fair number of them, have continued to benefit from that network, and they’ve also made a point of serving that network. It hasn’t all been about taking.

Jessica Black:

Yeah. That’s great.

Ben Forstag:

I’m one of those weirdos who didn’t study anything really meaningful or important or employable in grad school?

Jessica Black:

What did you study?

Ben Forstag: 

Comparative politics, which is political theory. But I would offer similar advice to Mac, which is use your alumni connections and the resources at your university. We’ve talked in the past about how the career services departments are often the loneliest places on campus, because people don’t take advantage of them, but if there is ever any institution that has a vested interest in you landing a great job, it’s the university you went to. This goes to their own internal rankings. It’s important to them to recruit future candidates, and so they will work with you, and many organizations will bend over backwards to help you find a great position there.

The other piece is the alumni network. There’s been consistently proven data that you have something like a 25% greater chance of getting a job if you share an alumni connection with the employer. Alumni networks work. They matter, and it’s just further proof that you don’t need to have a strong connection with anyone. It could be the thinnest of threads. You both went to the same school separated by 40 years, but that’s enough to get your foot in the door often.

Mac Prichard:

Yeah.

Jessica Black:

Yeah.

Mac Prichard:

Great advice. Alums love to hear … I’ve found when I’ve reached out to graduates, they love to hear from people who were at the same institution.

Jessica Black:

Yeah, I agree.

Ben Forstag:

Any Iowa Hawkeyes should give you a call?

Mac Prichard:

They should, and coincidentally I had an email from somebody this week who was an Iowa grad, and I would have responded anyway, but I made a point of noting the connection.

Ben Forstag: 

Nice. Great.

Mac Prichard:

Well thank you both, and thank you Kelly for the question. If you have a question for Jessica, please write her. Her email address is Jessica@MacsList.org, or call our listener line. That number is area code 716-JOB-TALK. That’s 716-562-8255. If we use your question on the show, we’ll send you a copy of our new book, Land Your Dream Job Anywhere, and we’ll be sending Kelly’s out this week, so we look forward to hearing from you and we’ll be back in a moment, and when we return, I’ll talk with this week’s guest expert, Meg Guiseppi, about LinkedIn secrets every job seeker needs to know.

Most people struggle with job hunting. The reason is simple. Most of us learn the nuts and bolts of looking for work by trial and error. That’s why I produce this podcast, to help you master the skills you need to find a great job. It’s also why I wrote my new book, Land Your Dream Job Anywhere. For 15 years of Mac’s List, I’ve helped people in Portland, Oregon find meaningful, well-paying, and rewarding jobs that they love. Now I put all of my job hunting secrets in one book that can help you no matter where you live. You’ll learn how to get clear about your career goals, find hidden jobs that never get posted, and ace your next job interview. For more information and to download the first chapter for free, visit MacsList.org/Anywhere.

Now let’s turn to this week’s guest expert. Meg Guiseppi is the CEO of ExecutiveCareerBrand.com. She helps C-suite and senior level managers with executive job searches. Meg also blogs at Job-Hunt.org, and is the author of several books, including 23 Ways You Sabotage Your Executive Job Search, and How Your Brand Will Help You Land. She joins us today from Sussex County, New Jersey. Meg, thanks for being on the show.

Meg Guiseppi:

Oh, I’m delighted to do this, Mac. Thanks so much for inviting me.

Mac Prichard:

Yeah. It’s a pleasure. You do so much great work, but I’ve been especially impressed by your work on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is one of our favorite topics at Mac’s List, and so it’s a pleasure to have an expert who can share some of your best LinkedIn secrets. First, let’s cover the basics, Meg. We see a lot of people set up a simple LinkedIn profile and then never return. Why is this “build it and forget it” approach a problem?

Meg Guiseppi:  

It’s a problem for a number of reasons. First of all, the impression that it would make on someone who would be assessing you for a job or to do business with you. LinkedIn is known to be an important tool for job search and for career management, and if you’re in a job search and you’re not … If you don’t have a strong, robust presence on LinkedIn and you’re not active there using the various features, you’re going to look like you’re not social media savvy, and that you’re out of touch with the new world of work. That can be a deciding factor in whether or not you’re considered a candidate of interest to them. You really do need to be active with LinkedIn and use all that it has to offer.

Mac Prichard

Now I know that when you work with people who are updating their LinkedIn page, you encourage them to think about the employers, the specific companies or hiring managers they want to reach. Why is it important to have a strategy like that in mind, Meg?

Meg Guiseppi:  

That’s a critical first step, really, in writing the content for any of your personal marketing materials, be it your LinkedIn profile, your resume, or your bio, or any of those things. You need to provide the information that they’re going to be looking for, and the only way that you can really do that is by narrowing your search to a good number of let’s say 10 to 15 employers who you find will be a mutual good fit for you. You know, that you’ll be a good fit for them, they’ll be a good fit for you. They’ll help bring you the career fulfillment that you’re looking for. It’s really about then targeting a number of employers, and then researching them to find out specific needs that they have right now that you’re going to be uniquely qualified to help them with, and also to find out what skills and qualifications of yours are going to be important to them. Then with that kind of knowledge, you can start building content that’s going to resonate with them. That’s really what it’s all about.

Also something to think about is that you want to make it as easy as possible for these people assessing you to find out what it is you want them to know, you need them to know about you. You can only do that by learning about those companies that you might want to work for. If you start with that kind of a basis, then you’ll also know how to define and build your personal brand so that you can pull together the hard skills, or areas of expertise of yours, along with your softer skills or people-type skills, and blending those together so that you can really tell a good story about yourself.

Mac Prichard:

Don’t simply repost your resume. Think strategically about the 10 or 15 or 20 companies or employers where you want to work, and what matters to those people, and construct your content around that. What about showing your personality on LinkedIn, Meg? What are some of the advantages of doing that?

Meg Guiseppi: 

Well, for one thing, what you really need to do in job searches is differentiate the value that you offer. By not being afraid to show a little bit of your personality in that content on your LinkedIn profile, that alone, or that in itself I should say will help to differentiate you, because a lot of job-seekers still are not doing that. I think maybe they don’t give themselves permission to be able to speak about their personality in some regard. I mean, you don’t want to go over the top with it, of course, but doing that helps people connect with you better, get a feel for the kind of person you are to work with, how you’re able to get things done, and maybe be able to picture you a little bit better on the job. It’s very helpful information.

Another thing too is that, now, think about these people who are assessing people and they’re looking at their LinkedIn profiles and resumes, and it could be pretty boring stuff. If you can write more interesting content, that will help to make people want to meet you, maybe call you in for an interview, so it does nothing but help.

Mac Prichard:

Are there examples that come to mind that you’ve seen with your clients who have done things, sort of made their personalities stand out on their LinkedIn pages?

Meg Guiseppi:  

Actually I went back and looked and pulled a paragraph from a client of mine’s LinkedIn profile summary section. I think he probably won’t mind, and I don’t know if you can identify him from it. He is a finance management executive, so here is just one short paragraph. “Having a passion for the performing arts and 20 years’ experience acting and producing makes me a unique financial advisor with a creative side. A diplomatic servant-leader, I know how to strike a balance between the free thinking process and organization and structure.”

Mac Prichard:

You really get a sense just from that brief paragraph of something that’s very interesting about this fellow.

Meg Guiseppi: 

Yeah, and that could become a topic of conversation, this acting and producing. That makes him a more interesting candidate.

Mac Prichard:

Yeah. Terrific. Well, we’ve talked about some of the strategic choices that people should consider making. Now let’s switch to tactical topics. When you think about LinkedIn has so many different options, and having a complete profile we know is important. Let’s go through some of those features. There’s some sections that aren’t used very often. One that comes to mind are organizations, or honors and awards. How can using a section like that help someone?

Meg Guiseppi: 

One way that it helps a lot is that … One thing we haven’t really touched on is search engine optimization, which is all about using the right keywords and keyword phrases, and plenty of them, in your profile so that that helps boost your search engine ranking with LinkedIn. What that means is that when people search those particular relevant keywords and phrases on LinkedIn, if your rankings are higher, then your profile is going to land higher in those search results, which means then probably more people will see your profile. You do want to … In those extra sections, organizations, and actually pretty much all of the extra sections that are available to you, that’s an opportunity to get more of those relevant keywords into your profile, so that makes you more findable, let’s say.

Mac Prichard:

What do you say to listeners who might think, “Gosh, if I fill out every section it’s going to be very long. Employers may not be interested in that. It might seem too self-promotional.”

Meg Guiseppi: 

That’s not a good way to think. If they don’t want to read the whole thing, they won’t read it all, but it will be there kind of working passively for you, helping you with the search engine optimization or SEO, as I was saying. Really more content means more keywords and better findability, more visibility of your profile. It just makes sense to really fill out with as much content as you can do, and use a lot of those keywords so that LinkedIn is working for you in a passive way, beyond the kind of proactive way that you use LinkedIn by using all these features and things, which I’m assuming we’ll talk a little bit about too.

Mac Prichard:

Sure. What about privacy settings, Meg? What privacy settings are available on LinkedIn, and how should people approach those?

Meg Guiseppi:

Well, that is an issue for some people who are fearful of putting themselves out there, let’s say. If you close off in any way, you know, using the privacy settings, close off the visibility of any of your content, then it’s not … People won’t … Not everyone who you might want to see your content will see it, and that also can hurt your search rankings within LinkedIn. It’s better to be wide open with it. I know that that could touch on the issue of confidentiality, you know, confidential job search for some people, but there are ways to keep that quiet, let’s say, on your online profile.

Mac Prichard:

Let’s talk about that for a moment, because I’m sure you’ve heard from your clients, and we certainly have heard it from listeners that there’s a concern that if I’m regularly updating my LinkedIn page, or suddenly I add lots of new content, my colleagues or my boss might think I’m looking for work, and that could come back to haunt me. What are your tips about doing, say, an undercover job search?

Meg Guiseppi: 

That can certainly happen, that people may notice your activity. I mean, you can turn off the setting, turn off and then on again the settings so that as you’re adding new content, and I suggest that you kind of do that slowly over maybe like a one-week period or so, so it’s not suddenly a brand new profile, but you can turn off those settings so that people won’t be notified that you’re making changes, but what I suggest is that, you know, even so, even if you do whatever you can to not alert everyone that you have a brand new profile or new content, I still suggest that you have a ready answer for when that comes up, because it is likely to come up.

You know, if you do a good job on getting new content up, it’s going to look like a different profile, and some people will notice it. I suggest putting together just a brief … You know, you don’t want to over-talk it, but just a brief reason for why you’re adding new content, and always make it understood that you’re doing it to promote your company, your employer. You know, it’s not about your job search. In fact, it will help promote your employer if you have a more up to date profile with relevant keywords, because they’re going to be the same kind of relevant keywords that promote the company.

Mac Prichard:

Let’s talk about publishing, because once you’ve filled out the profile and you’ve thought strategically about the employers and managers you want to reach, and you’ve used the right keywords that are going to get you in front of those folks, what are your best tips about publishing, taking advantage of LinkedIn’s publishing features?

Meg Guiseppi:

I’m assuming you mean the Pulse Publishing Platform?

Mac Prichard:

Both Pulse and status updates, and there are a lot of different ways of pushing out content, as you know.

Meg Guiseppi: 

Yes.

Mac Prichard:

Can you walk us through some of those and just the advantages to people and their career and their job search when they do take advantage of those?

Meg Guiseppi: 

Yeah. Well, I just mentioned the Pulse Publishing Platform, which still I’m finding with my clients, people still are not aware of that. It’s really a very powerful tool to use, and it’s in effect, it’s almost like having your own blog, blog site, but you don’t have the same kind of hassles that you do maintaining a blog site of your own, or a blog of your own. What that helps you do, whenever you publish content online, and with the Pulse platform that would be articles about your areas of expertise. You would write articles about those particular areas. That helps to show, you know, position your subject matter, expertise, and your thought leadership, and it gives people more information about you, and that’s only going to help you. People are searching online once you become someone of interest to them. They’ll be searching your name, looking for information about you, and the more that you have, the stronger your online presence, the more valuable it makes you appear to be as a candidate. That’s very helpful to you.

The other thing about Pulse and the other things, the other publishing, ways to publish on LinkedIn, which as you mentioned one is sharing updates … What are some of the other ones? Anyway, those two and then the other ways that you can, is that you’re staying top of mind with your network, which is an important thing to make sure that that’s part of your job search strategy, is to remind people of the value that you offer, about what your brand is about, so that when leads and opportunities come their way, they’ll think of you and hopefully connect you with that opportunity. You’re doing that kind of in a gentle way, along with reaching out to people one on one and networking with them, but using these publishing opportunities is kind of a gentler way. It’s not as harsh for maybe some people who have difficulty with that.

Mac Prichard:

Let’s talk about connections. What’s your best advice, Meg, about how assertive people should be in reaching out to others and connecting on LinkedIn? How should they handle unsolicited connection invitations from people they may not know?

Meg Guiseppi:  

Well, the 500 and over, having 500 and over connections is kind of a magic number on LinkedIn. Once you reach that threshold and have 500 or more, it is said that your search rankings within LinkedIn are boosted higher. That would be a good number to try to reach. I don’t know how many of us know 500 people. That’s probably rare, but I can tell you that my strategy for myself is to, anyone who reaches out to me and wants to connect with me, as long as I don’t feel they’re a spammer or someone who is going to be nagging me constantly to buy something from them, I’ll usually connect with them. Then the idea, too, is that the more connections you have, the wider you’ve cast your networking net, leaving yourself open to more potential leads and opportunities. That just kind of makes sense, to expand that beyond just the people that you really know well.

Mac Prichard:

Great. Well thanks, Meg. That’s excellent advice. Tell us, what’s coming up next for you?

Meg Guiseppi: 

Well, I think you kindly mentioned that I’m the personal branding expert over at Job-Hunt.org, and I’m actually celebrating my tenth year doing that this year.

Mac Prichard:

Terrific. Congratulations.

Meg Guiseppi:

Thank you, and I love doing that. It’s another powerful site like yours is, and so I continue writing articles for that site. Thank you also for mentioning my ebooks. I did just update all three of my ebooks, so they have relevant and current information for 2017. I’m working on a third … I’ve just started working on a third, even more comprehensive job search guide that I’ve tentatively titled Think Like a Professional Job Search and Personal Branding Strategist. Something like that. I want to work people through the way I approach this when I work with clients.

Mac Prichard:

Terrific. Well we’ll be sure to include links to your books in the show notes, and I know listeners can also find you on the internet at ExecutiveCareerBrand.com. Meg, thanks for being on the show today.

Meg Guiseppi:

Oh, thanks so much Mac.

Mac Prichard:

You’re welcome.

Okay, we’re back in the Mac’s List studio with Jessica and Ben. That was a great conversation with Meg. What were some key points the two of you heard Meg make?

Jessica Black:

Yeah, it was a great conversation. I really liked her point about using LinkedIn to tell a story, especially I think she was meaning it to be sort of in that summary section, but using that space to really make it your own and carve out some of your own personality as well, and showcase beyond just your skills and accomplishments, which are really important, but to sort of capture people’s attention in a different way. I thought that was really great, and especially for folks who are either starting out their careers or changing careers, or maybe have a varied work history, being able to use that space to weave all of your history together or your interests and your goals going forward of why you’re seeking whatever industry you’re moving into, or kind of like I said, weave that all together to showcase, you know, the thread that brings it all together. They may look varied on paper, but there’s this thing that’s holding it all together, this glue, so I thought that was really interesting.

Mac Prichard:

How about you, Ben?

Ben Forstag:   

I liked her emphasis on using LinkedIn as a publishing platform, which I find myself now, when I go to LinkedIn every morning, at least once I click on an article and read through what someone else has posted. I think what separates an influencer or someone who stands out in their profession is the willingness to kind of take the time to share their thoughts in a meaningful, cohesive, interesting way, and it resonates with me, certainly. It’s probably something I should be doing more of myself on LinkedIn.

Mac Prichard:

I do think publishing helps, as Meg said, with your LinkedIn rankings, and while we didn’t talk about this, I know many of the people I chat with about LinkedIn have this hope that if they put a profile up, all they have to do is sit back and wait for the recruiter or the hiring manager to find them, and people do get contacted by hiring managers or recruiters because of LinkedIn. It doesn’t happen often, but the people I know who do get contacted are doing things like publishing, but they’re also telling a story, as you’ve pointed out, Jessica. It’s not a resume. It’s a spot online where you can describe what you do professionally and why it matters, and what you offer others.

Jessica Black:

Yeah, and really honing in on your brand. I think that what you’re saying, Ben, is really important, of adding to your content expertise and just demonstrating that on a regular basis is really great.

Mac Prichard:

Yeah. Well, great. Well thank you both, and thank you Meg for joining us this week, and thank you our listeners for downloading today’s episode of Find Your Dream Job. If you like what you hear, please sign up for our free weekly newsletter. In every issue, we give you the key points of that week’s show. We also include links to all the resources mentioned, and you get a transcript of the full episode. If you subscribe to the newsletter now, we’ll send you our Job Seeker Checklist, and in one easy to use file we show you all the steps you need to take to find a great job. Get your free newsletter and checklist today. Go to MacsList.org/Podcast.

Join us next Wednesday, when our special guest will be Christina Canters. She’ll give us tips for how you can best explain what you do for a living. Until next time, thanks for letting us help you find your dream job.