(Or how I messed things up and turned it all around in 24 hours)
Of course I knew that Linked-in was a really powerful tool. You would have to have had your head in a bucket to have missed its rapid ascent over the past 12 months. (As someone said once, it’s like Facebook for grownups).
What I didn’t realise (and should have) was how you could get something wrong and get some pretty bad and unintended consequences and thankfully, how easily it could be fixed for a great outcome.
First, I’ll set the scene. Client: senior executive of multinational company, departing with an impressive golden handshake. As a high powered and communicative executive who has made a career out of building strategic relationships, he just doesn’t know any other way but full steam ahead! So armed with a next generation branded resume and a knock-em-dead online portfolio (that would be from me!), he has been making the rounds networking.
Which leads us to the next step of his job search arsenal: Linked-in.
As the client was considering doing some consulting in the future and had set up a business name, I suggested we use this on his profile so that headhunters looking for a passive candidate would come across him. (My long-held theory was that the longer a person is unemployed, the harder the it is to generate interest).
The consequences of this one suggestion were entirely unexpected. The client’s phone and email started to run hot. “Oh I see you’ve got a new gig already!” people were saying. “That’s great!”.
One-by-one the client had to explain — “Oh no, I’ve just started a new consultancy company, just me looking for something”. For every person who contacted him, how many saw that he was employed and therefore stopped having him on their radar to look out for new opportunities? This was not a good thing at all. We were unravelling all the good work done at the coalface in networking, by spreading the wrong message at the “back end”.
Remedy. Clearly a re-think was in order. I spoke with leaders in the field of executive recruitment both in Australia and internationally. Everyone concurred. As it is natural for a senior executive to have months between jobs, no eyebrows would be raised that there was a period unaccounted for.
What was important, was to get across that he was after his next big gig; get the message out to the widest group of people possible. So that’s what I did with the new philosophy of making every post a winner.
First, the title. As it is right under the name area, this is a golden opportunity to provide a brand statement and state your case.
This is what we did. Under the name advertising: CIO, IT Executive. Organisational transformations, $MM budgets, large scale operations. Ready for new challenges. Suddenly this is a one line statement selling his talents instead of a job title.
Next: Generate expectations:
The next strategy was to reiterate the current situation. As Linked-in forces you to include a business name, we decided to choose “a compatible organisation” so that it made sense following the word “at”. In the job title, we wrote “ready for next opportunity in large-scale technology operations and organisational transformation”.
This automatically added itself under experience. So now the experience area looks like this:
In the contact settings area, we offered more:
Feeling a lot more positive, we submitted the changes and waited.
It didn’t take too long.
Less than 12 hours later, the first email arrived from a former colleague. “Saw your Linked in profile was updated”, she said “And just wanted to touch base. I have just started a new project and would like to talk…..”
Of course it’s too early to see if it goes anywhere. The fact is though, that the new strategy worked in communicating the new message.
The power of Linked-in is awesome. But it can be monumentally messed up when the audience is misjudged! Fortunately it can also be fixed in a blink of an eye to get a substantially better result.
Do you have an amazing Linked in story where results were achieved so quickly from a few minor tweaks?
Gayle, really great example of the power of LinkedIn. I like the way you leveraged to communication power of LinkedIn’s message update feature. I know when I started my own business I had several emails within 24 hours from my contacts.
Rgds
Michael
Gayle, really great example of the power of LinkedIn. I like the way you leveraged to communication power of LinkedIn’s message update feature. I know when I started my own business I had several emails within 24 hours from my contacts.
Rgds
Michael
Hi Gayle
This is a good example of how important it is to present your situation with clarity.
Thanks for detailing the case so well!
Hi Gayle
This is a good example of how important it is to present your situation with clarity.
Thanks for detailing the case so well!
Awesome Gayle thanks for sharing… love that story! Of to jazz my linked in profile now!
Awesome Gayle thanks for sharing… love that story! Of to jazz my linked in profile now!
Gayle
That was a wonderful post – really drove home the point.
Now , I have to rework my linkedin profile.
Hi Gayle,
I love this idea, but Linkedin is asking me for a website for the ‘company’ I am using…this doesn’t make sense…did they change something?
Thanks!
No, it’s the same Bryan. Where it says “company” you just put in either your name, or like I have mentioned in my blog “compatible company” then it will say “Bryan Bertsch @ Compatible Company”
Hi Gayle,
I love this idea, but Linkedin is asking me for a website for the ‘company’ I am using…this doesn’t make sense…did they change something?
Thanks!
No, it’s the same Bryan. Where it says “company” you just put in either your name, or like I have mentioned in my blog “compatible company” then it will say “Bryan Bertsch @ Compatible Company”
Thanks Gayle!!
Thanks Gayle!!
I hate that “At”.
Unfortunately, it’s locked in and you have to find a creative work around. My work around is “Independent Training Consultant AT Columbus Ohio”…not grammatically correct but I think the overall message still gets across. I also considered using “Independent Training Consultant AT my office or yours”…
Excellent Post.
I hate that “At”.
Unfortunately, it’s locked in and you have to find a creative work around. My work around is “Independent Training Consultant AT Columbus Ohio”…not grammatically correct but I think the overall message still gets across. I also considered using “Independent Training Consultant AT my office or yours”…
Excellent Post.
Hi Robert, I know what you mean, that silly “@” does get in the way! So hard to fly like an eagle when things are inflexible! (grin). The Columbus Ohio idea works for me.. and I think the “@ my office of yours” is very creative thinking! Kudos to you, I like that! Thanks for dropping by!
Hi Robert, I know what you mean, that silly “@” does get in the way! So hard to fly like an eagle when things are inflexible! (grin). The Columbus Ohio idea works for me.. and I think the “@ my office of yours” is very creative thinking! Kudos to you, I like that! Thanks for dropping by!
Hi! I was surfing and found your blog post… nice! I love your blog. :) Cheers! Sandra. R.
Hi! I was surfing and found your blog post… nice! I love your blog. :) Cheers! Sandra. R.
Hello,
I followed 2 links to get to this story from Jason Alba’s blog post today.
What ever happened with the “fix” you tried. Did it work? Would you still recommend it? An update would be great.
@23463b99b62a72f26ed677cc556c44e8:disqus Hi. Yes the fix did work and the network ramped up again almost immediately. Friends, past colleagues and recruiters quickly found he was on the market and he received several offers for interviews and calls for coffees/chats. Within a month of working his network, he scored a highly paid consultancy role and about two months after that a permanent executive position. What we will never know is how many people believed he was no longer on the market and faded away. We will never know whether any of those people could have been influential in his career or if he could have found a job earlier.
Thanks for the update!
Gayle,
Awesome share, appreciate you providing a “behind the scenes” look at what/how you accomplished this.
A great benefit for both career services professionals and jobseekers alike.
Came to this post via @JasonAlba:twitter and his post on @jibberjobber:twitter blog.
Thank you!
Bryan Lubic
@SDSUGradBusCMC:disqus