LinkedIn Profiles that get found
Last week I promised to update “LinkedIn profiles that convert” with details on how you can improve the odds of recruiters and hiring authorities finding you in the first place.
However, it makes sense to separate this into a different article, such was the volume of discussion on my LinkedIn Live on Wednesday.
Today I’m covering how LinkedIn Recruiter Licence enables us to search for potential candidates, how this reflects other CV databases, and how this might help you improve how easily your profile can be found.
We do this sometimes at the same time as advertising, sometimes instead of.
I’m a member of a private recruiters group on LinkedIn. We’re all small independents, and it was set up for recruiters who both care about candidate experience and are skilled in their craft.
In preparation for my session with Simon, I asked them in our WhatsApp group what their common frustration with LinkedIn profiles is, and these were their replies:
"Headlines are always shit"
"CVs not matching LinkedIn profiles are a big no, especially in targetted roles like sales"
"Job titles that don't make sense"
"No personal profile"
"Don't have your current job title as 'looking for work', put the job title you are aiming for and change your headline to e.g. 'Software Developer looking for their next role in X where I can add X value'"
“Profiles in my domain all look exactly the same. It’s all job titles, qualifications and nothing to differentiate them”
These came as no surprise to me, given these are the most common issues I see too.
It’s worth pointing out that this exercise was solely on LinkedIn Recruiter.
Recruiters have many different ways of finding candidates:
Their own CV database of previously registered candidates
Subscription CV databases off the back of job boards (in the UK) like Indeed, Reed, Totaljobs, CV Library, Monster or more specialist ones in your area of expertise
ATS-style software that scrapes candidate data from LinkedIn and other sources (LinkedIn have tried hard to prevent this for commercial reasons, and failed)
Real-life networking, referrals
Headhunting through market mapping prospect companies and people in viable roles
However, when it comes to searching data, which is the backbone of anything technological, these are all based on the same tools: boolean search and filters.
It’s the same mechanism we might use to search through a high volume of applicants, and because CVs are not standardised, where rank-and-file automation hasn’t been very effective (this may change as AI tools are entrenched, and while this is a topic for another time, they will actually improve the odds for suitable candidates).
You’ll see, in the session, I used Simon as the guinea pig. Check out his profile here for context:
He’s updated his profile off the back of our session, to be more findable!
Simon is an exceptional Job Search Coach in the UK. He chose this title to define his services because, from his perspective, it’s the most relevant description of what he does.
However, if I were to ask you what does someone do who can coach you through finding a job, what would you answer?
My guess would be Career Coach or maybe CV Writer.
And if you searched on those terms for Simon, you wouldn’t have found him. Indeed, if you took the ‘lazy recruiter’ approach to sourcing you wouldn’t find him under “Job Search Coach” either.
Essentially LinkedIn Recruiter works much in the same way as Amazon. You run a general search, then filter by various elements - in this case by things like industry and location.
One of the key features of LinkedIn Recruiter is that we can filter by “Open to Work”, if you have that turned on in your profile, so it should be to your advantage.
I don’t use it personally, because I have better means of contacting out-of-work job seekers.
When I look at my dashboard, these are the basic search fields that come up
Job Title
Locations
Skills and Assessments
Companies
Schools Attended
Industries
Keywords
Personally I use Job Title, Location, Industry and Key Words for general searches, as well as Companies if I know some will be specific incubators for candidates.
There are advanced filters too; however, for the purpose of this article, it’s about getting the basics right.
These search fields map point for point with how you fill out your profile. Play around with editing your profile and you’ll see the same options.
Now, the problem with Simon is that he defined himself as a Job Search Coach in his headline.
If I search for this specific term as a Job Title, he won’t come up, whereas 37 other credible results do.
It’s only if I search on this term in Key Words that he comes up.
As an exercise, why not look for Simon on the standard LinkedIn search bar? It’s far more limited than Recruiter, but can show you somewhat behind the veil of what we do.
What if you were an HR Manager who was a 100% fit for a Head of People vacancy, yet the recruiter didn’t find you because you didn’t use that explicit job title?
As a recruiter, I would build up a Boolean String of comparable job titles, then expand or reduce depending on the volume of results.
Which might be:
(“HR Manager” OR “Human Resource Manager” OR “Human Resources Manager” OR “Head of HR” OR “HR Director”) etc
I’d use every iteration of HR above, but also every iteration of (“People Manager” OR “Head of People"), maybe even go old school with Personnel.
I do this because of the arbitrariness of job titles, and because an HR Director in one business might be a Head of People in another.
Then you have other curiosities like People Business Partner, which might be any and all of those titles.
Once I have a comprehensive list, I can save this for future reference, and build it iteratively if I come across any weird job titles in the wild.
If I need to further fine-tune, I’d bring in qualifications, memberships and skills that relate to that specific role.
MCIPD AND “Employee Relations” AND FMCG… might be an example, those these are separated on LinkedIn in individual fields.
If you’re wondering about the capitalisation - AND OR NOT and others are boolean operators that allow us to specify or separate data.
Oh and a geeky insight, sometimes I search on typos, because I know these aren’t searched for by many, but only if it’s a really obscure role to fill: “HR Manger”.
I just really want to find the right people.
It won’t help if you are a suitable candidate for the above ‘role’ and your job title is “Assistant to the Senior Manager, HR, Business Partnering”. A real one I once came across.
So here’s the first takeaway:
Ensure the keywords, job titles, skills and qualifications that reflect the job you want are explicitly stated on your profile and in the right fields
If you aren’t sure, print off all the jobs you’ve recently applied to where you are a 90%+ fit. What are the common terms? These should be on your profile - if and only if they are true and you have evidence.
To further muddy the water, each of those search fields above has additional filters, so that you can search on current or past jobs.
So if your current job title is “Looking for a new opportunity”, it might be true, but it might get you overlooked.
You’d probably want your current job title to be “HR Manager - looking for a new opportunity”.
And in that fuzzy weird title above, if it’s true, I’d go for something like “Assistant to the Senior Manager, HR, Business Partnering - (HR Manager)”
Now, you’d hope that recruiters aren’t “lazy recruiters” but if you cater for the weakest link, you also cater for more skilled recruiters, so getting the basics right is key.
As a real-life example, I asked a current job seeker what roles he is applying to.
His reply:
Compliance Assistant / Administrator,
Client Onboarding Assistant / Administrator,
Operations Assistant / Administrator,
Reconciliations Administrator.
On LinkedIn recruiter, I couldn’t find him on a lazy search for the first line. This was my reply:
When I did a search using your ideal job titles, you didn't come up for "Compliance Assistant" or "Compliance Administrator".
You do come up for "Client Onboarding Assistant" and Administrator because these are explicit in your profile.
So you may benefit from making sure the exact terms you look for in adverts are represented in your profile.
Simon and I plan to run some live searches in the next couple of weeks - let us know if you’d like to be a guinea pig!
The crux of being found is understanding what we search for. Give us what we need to find you.
The principles are the same for a CV, and these are principles you can use on Job Board CV Databases.
However
And this is a big however
Getting found is only the first piece of the puzzle, and when your profile is read, you need to convert interest.
This is why you need to get the balance right in how you present your information - keyword bombing looks bad and may disqualify you from further contact.
I recommend reading the three articles recommended by the links above
Principles of a good CV
Linkedin profiles that convert
Better use of job boards
That’s it for now. Let me know if you have any questions about this article - I can then update it with anything salient.
This Wednesday, Simon and I talk about doorknocking, an approach to looking for work that might not even need a findable CV. Join us:
Building Connections that Count
Good luck with your search this week!
Greg