How LinkedIn saved my career in 2014

LinkedIn has a powerful presence in professional work force. Almost 99% of work force has either a partial or a fully completed LinkedIn profile. People use this platform to post current jobs, blogs, contacts, networking events and much more on. Almost 2 years ago, I was in complete denial of all the above opportunities LinkedIn had to offer. In 2014, I kept on posting resume round the clock, revised them, formatted, ran resume through online tools and much more. After facing multiple failures to even get recognized by a recruiter, I absolutely gave up my hope to find a decent job or even expect a call from recruiter.I had exhausted all my resources to find a decent job. Period, felt like it was over. Nor my previous experience or minted graduate degree from private school is going to get me anywhere.

During that time I could not sit at home, I had to absolutely make a living between the job hunt. One morning I walked to a nearby grocery store to get a cashier job, I knew they would pay well and I will get a pretty good discount on groceries that will balance my budget. For that moment, I wanted to stick to that plan for working as a cashier, till I find something I really wanted.

I receive a call next day from nearby grocery store; they didn’t find my application to be a good match as I was over qualified. Frustrated with myself, I start back to my old routine of filling out application again and again received no response. That was the time, I desperately wanted to try any new method to find a perfect job. One evening, I wanted to take a break from everything including my boring routine of finding job. While I was scrolling through YouTube; I stumbled upon this guy Ramit Sethi- he spoke about achieving “dream job” and the program he had designed and training which can help job seekers to accomplish their goals. Obviously his program looked effective, but I was not ready to spend 100s of dollars. I still wanted to find any medium to dig into his free content available on Google. I was lucky to get some tips and I used other suggestions available on internet to find a job using LinkedIn.

Here’s how I did it and few simple steps to follow on LinkedIn if you want to try this platform.

1) Develop sharp “Archery Skills”

Top rule of practicing archery is to “Focus”. In the same way, prepare a list of target companies, you want to work for. In my case I was only targeting two companies. Second rule of archery is “Strength”, get a rough idea about your strength and weakness related to your professional skills, which type of job you would like to be in or which job will excite you to explore. Lets say, you are in healthcare- look for a specific area, do you want to be in management, healthcare finance, budgeting or in an operations project manager. Keep a specific target in mind- dont aim for all positions.

2) Follow and Catch

Follow your target company’s page on LinkedIn. The trick here is to find right professional who can help you to get the job or at least a phone conversation, which can lead to a substantial meeting or Skype invite. Prepare list of recruiters or specific department professionals, you can find them on companies page. Don’t try to catch marketing department head when you trying to target an IT job.

3) Develop detective skills

After you have list of target companies and target jobs you would like to hunt for. Your next steps is to contact a recruiter or department member to introduce yourself. For this step, you can definitely buy a business plan if you can afford but I didn’t. I am going to give you a pretty simple trick,to identify a business address of any professional member. If you can get hand on one business email id, figuring out the emails for rest of the members within the same company is a piece of cake. Let say for example my name is John Doe and my company email could be Johndoe@companyname.com or John.Doe@companyname.org or DoeJ@companyname.edu. There are several members on LinkedIn who are kind enough to leave email correspondence for visitors or new contacts. But if you cannot find the email, then follow the above trick.

4) Going on a date rule

After you have follow first three steps of above rules. Your time has come to impress your “Date” which means your professional contact in this case. Whenever you approach a professional contact on LinkedIn, always assume you are going out on a date or asking out a girl/boy for first meeting. Simple rules- don’t be creepy, don’t sound like a rouge or a nervous. Our goal is to not to over say things which can ruin your chance for an opportunity. Writing a professional email wont come that easy. You will need to practice to write, re-write and re-write the draft before you send out that email. That email can either make or break your career opportunity or put your name in do not contact list forever. I am going to attach few sample email draft at the end of this article for you to refer.

5) Dont act like a unregistered “Drone”

There are few no-no’s when you contact a professional on LinkedIn. Rule 1: never send out mass invitations without addressing a specific person. Take time to prepare and format each email carefully and dont make mistake while writing name or any grammatical mistake. Rule no 2: Never send email on Monday or Sunday evening or Friday afternoon. For everyone, Monday is the most busiest day of a week and nobody is interested to take over any new work when they are swampped with other emails sent between Friday and Sunday. The trick is to send out email or LinkedIn request with an introduction on “Wednesday”. Moreover, don’t send any emails on Friday as people are more focused to rush home and get weekend started, they might forget about that your email and you will never get any response.

6) Stop stalking

 After you have successfully completed all the above steps. Now is your time to practice Meditation and patiently wait for one of the professional to contact you back. I must have sent over 400 invitation with an introduction and over 700 emails- my success rate was 0.05% but 1 out of 700 proved to be hit. The reason for a LinkedIn request or a professional email is to introduce yourself. You don’t need to beg for a job right away, LinkedIn should be used a professional platform to network which can generate tons of opportunity for you. Don’t sound obnoxious job seeker and brag about your previous experience or your minted graduate degree. Be considerate about opposite person, clearly state why you are looking for a job, why did you leave or got fired from a previous job.

Closing Statement: Remember don’t stalk professionals, Don’t sound creepy , Improve your draft or LinkedIn request message, use professional picture not a selfie taken in a bathroom.
I wish you all the best and I promise you there are several professional out there who are willing to help and become trailblazers for new graduates and current experienced professionals.

Connect Deeper with me!

If you like my article- please take a look at my website- www.smartliving24x7.com. I am a new blog writer only looking for motivation and positive criticism. All the suggestion or any opportunities are welcome at smartliving24x7@gmail.com

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“Um”…”Uh”…”do you know what I mean”.... Kill your filler words now !

Very often you will hear, people forcefully plugging filler phrases or words like “do you know what I mean”, “Uh”, “Ummm” or many more, when they cannot figure out right content to shape the conversation. Even if you are not the most observant person, you will still notice it is a clear communication barrier which is weakening the credibility of a speaker and its content.

At dinner table with your friends, no one is concerned about how much you ramble or how effective your speak. It will struck you hard, when you are on a business conference call or on a presentation. Let's say at work, when you and one of the team member decides to jump into a debate over a project’s progress and to support your argument, you start stating facts but every additional minute you speak without organized content and with filler words, you are losing the attention of your audience. Your message has lost is essence and it sounds weak because the your thought were not organized or content was not communicated effectively.

Not everybody has skills to be speak effectively in a calm state of mind and definitely it does not come easy to all. Do you remember the 48 minutes stretched speech by Bill Clinton in 2012 vs. the epic 270 words effective address by Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg in November 1863? Which one made more impact? Certainly, Abraham Lincoln gave a powerful delivery with fewer words and created history while although Bill Clinton had an effective content to pass along, he lost attention of half of audience when he rambled for over 30 minutes.
When you write a business proposal, a research paper or a simple email at work, you have an opportunity to correct, delete or format your content. But when you need to make a phone conversation, or a presentation or conduct a virtual meeting, you are more than likely to make a mistake of using filler words and rambling the same content over and over again.
Communication skills should not be taken for granted, it requires practice and no one is a born with perfect skills- everybody learns a bit of everything everyday from professional and personal experiences.

Here are some pointers to follow if you are considering to improve your communication skills..

Charity begins at home… Practice…Practice…Practice…

If you want to be successful at work, you need to start at home. The first step is to remain calm, when you get hyper or become excited, you tend to speak fast, use sloppy language and ramble the same message. The trick here is to pause, think and act.
In this book “Pitch Perfect” by Bill McCowan, he says “Think about your brain and mouth as two cars,” Your brain is the lead car and your mouth is the car behind it. “Keep a safe verbal distance. Pause when you need to. Don’t tailgate.” Follow this simple rule and you will notice a terrific change in your speech over the time. The best example to support Bill's theory is to watch Julia Child’s cooking videos. Julia Child had a distinct quality explaining techniques about cooking. She had an organized mindset; she would go in depth to explain the techniques but she had practiced an art to hold her audiences attention by speaking in a calm mind and with an organized content.

Pitch Perfect: How to Say It Right the First Time, Every Time

Go on Diet

In workplace, it is very common that mostly in every team, we might have one John Doe during presentations, who usually eats everybody else time during those full packed agenda meetings. Then rest of them are desperately looking at their watch and eventually have to rush through rest of the presentation. The first primary clear signal is, that John Doe haven’t practiced or recorded their presentation minutes.
If you are one of the John Doe at your work, then consider to go on a crash words diet, it is very simple concept, Imagine yourself walking through a grocery isle, closely watching all the ingredients and calorie count printed on the box  or the way you count calories, while picking up a sandwich or yogurt at a café. In the similar way, you will need to carefully organized the content of your presentation which covers the points but it also concise enough so that you can leave some time for your audience to ask questions.

I would also suggest Watch the Ted Talks by Regina Hartley, she is one of the best example, how to speak on a public podium. She was able to create an impact on the audience by carefully carving her words in exactly 10 minutes.

Boil down the message: over-talking does not make you smart
The way over-eating can leave your stomach bloated and in suffering, in the same way- rambling non-stop during presentation or even in a simple phone conference, can give a serious headache to your listeners. There are several ways to improve 1) Decide- what do you want to exactly convey to your listener 2) Support- Do you have supporting content to prepare your presentation or agenda 3) Review- review the content and try to eliminate unwanted information 4) Practice- Practice Practice and more Practice.

In the end, don’t get stressed or frustrated over this, communication skills cannot be changed over the night. It is more like fermenting the best wine in the vineyard, slow and steady should be your approach.