Getting noticed by the recruiters

Your LinkedIn Profile

Let’s start with your LinkedIn profile. There are three logical steps: Discover, Click, Contact. 

1. Discover: You need to show up in their search results.
   1. Easiest way here is to have the right keywords sprinkled around in the right sections. If you are good at something, or are seeking a certain kind of position, make sure to have that highlighted.
2. Your profile needs to be “clickable” / attractive.
   1. To do this, Make sure to have a high quality image which has your face, and no one else in it. Image should preferably be high resolution, with full smiling face showing.
   2. Make sure to have a great headline, what makes you top of your game.
3. Once clicked, it needs to “reel them in”.
   1. Have a fully filled out objective, up to date education, current employment, and past experiences.
      1. No fillers & fluff. Talk about your impact, and get straight to it. Example: It’s much better to say “Designed Product recommendation engine” Instead of “Passionate & self driven team player worked closely on the engine which recommends related products to customers”
      2. Use bullets or numbers instead of Long paragraphs.
      3. Be concise in writing your technical skills. E.g. Python 2 and Python 3 should just be Python. Just like “Microsoft word, Microsoft excel, Microsoft Office 365, Word Online etc can all be clubbed as “Microsoft productivity suite”
   2. Have good recommendations.

Your Google presence

Search yourself on Google and see what shows up, your first few results do not showcase how you want recruiters and potential employers to see you, then this is something that needs to be fixed !
One easy & free way to fix it is to get those unwanted results buried in second or third page by creating new content that takes the prime spot. It’s easier than you think – Start writing up a few blogs / notes / posts on sites which shows results on Google sooner than your own website. Start with Facebook / Twitter / Medium / Quora or other sites. Remember: those sites should have your full name in your profile! 

Being pro-active

Reach out yourself to the recruiters with a one or two line polite message asking them how they are doing, and then a line about you, typically – which has your elevator pitch!
Get referred / introduced – Ask your friends and contacts to see if they know someone in that dream company of yours’. You can also do this yourself via advanced LinkedIn search. More on this in our next blog!