A LinkedIn message in 2014 changed Catherine Quinlan’s life. The communication on the social media site led to her moving to the other side of the world and later changing career. A recruiter in New Zealand had come across her profile and asked whether she would be interested in a direct marketing role with a charity that provides air ambulances. After a Skype interview, she was offered the job and within two months was on a plane.
“The recruiter told me they were struggling to find someone, having advertised extensively in New Zealand and Australia,” she said. “Mine was one of the profiles that came up after a search using tags and keywords relating to skills and job titles.”
Life Flight Trust wanted someone with a plenty of experience in individual giving and direct marketing who could hit the ground running. Quinlan had been working as a direct marketing officer at Trocaire, an Irish international aid charity, for six months when she was offered the role. She had previously been direct marketing manager at Irish Guide Dogs for the Blind for two years.
The year at Life Flight Trust turned Quinlan’s career around. “Part of my role was to do all the internal copywriting,” she said. “This was completely new to me. I signed up with NZ Writers College and found I adored writing. The experience gave me the skills and confidence to set up my own copywriting business when I came back to Cork.”
To make a scenario such as Quinlan’s more likely, it is important to raise your profile on LinkedIn. According to Darain Faraz, LinkedIn’s head of global communications, you get out of the platform what you put in. “A lot of people have a presence, but they aren’t active or don’t have a complete profile,” he said. “To be successful, you have to engage with the platform and remind people that you’re there, by posting. You need to have a voice.”
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People tended to forget that their profile photo is one of the most important features. “If you’re looking to be found by a recruiter, having a good-quality profile picture will make that much more likely. It should reflect who you are professionally, or the kind of role you would like to secure — if you want to work in a cool tech company, a suit probably isn’t the way to go, for example.”
There are more than 1m LinkedIn members in Ireland, which makes it important to stand out from the crowd. Faraz suggests uploading examples of your work, such as presentations, articles and images, highlighting accomplishments you are proud of.
“Be strategic. Join specialist groups and ‘follow’ companies on your work-target list
Listing skills made your profile 13 times more likely to be viewed, Faraz said. “Make it easy to digest what it is you do. Include a mixture of high-level and niche skills. The more skills you have listed, the more times people can endorse you, and the higher you will appear in LinkedIn searches. Recommendations are also brilliant to have. They are a powerful tool when contrasting candidates. You will usually get endorsements or recommendations by giving them first.”
LinkedIn has turned the traditional recruitment model on its head, according to Faraz. About half of LinkedIn’s revenue comes from recruitment and it has a huge number of recruitment companies as clients.
“In the old days, you put an ad in the paper. What happens now is that LinkedIn can give employers a list of ‘passive’ candidates who might be tempted — such people are far more desirable than someone desperately looking for work.”
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Alison Moore is one of the “passive candidates” Faraz is talking about. Having worked at the courier services company DHL for 15 years, she was happy and not looking for a new job. She had started in customer services and moved up the ladder until she became brand communications and marketing manager in 2014. Then, just before Christmas last year she received a LinkedIn message from Gary McCabe, HR director at logistics company Kuehne + Nagel. He told her there was a new role available in the company that Moore could shape.
“This made it sound interesting,” said Moore. “I wanted to check it out and felt that I would regret it if I didn’t. So I went for an interview and gave it 100%.”
After the interview, McCabe rang to say that Kuehne + Nagel had intended the role to be a low-ranking one, but after meeting Moore, decided it should be more senior. She took up the role of marketing and communications manager at the company in April.
“I see this as a great stepping stone to cut my teeth in the company and get to know the business. There are huge opportunities here and the company is constantly recruiting and expanding.” Another recruit approached through LinkedIn, Carmel Brady, is set to start as bids and tender manager at the company this month.
Human resources staff have become smarter in the way they use LinkedIn to root out prospective candidates, according to Anne Fanthom, managing director of Recruitment Plus. “Keywords are much more significant,” said Fanthom. “Update and amend your profile regularly. It’s important to be strategic. Join specialist groups where you can be part of conversations with those with similar professional interests and ‘follow’ companies on your work-target list.” Fanthom and Faraz both say you should connect only with people you’ve met, had professional dealings with or who could further your career. “Once you reach 50 connections you will begin to feel “the network effect”, said Faraz. “It’s not a numbers game,” he said. “You have to be discerning about whom you connect with.”
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Joy Redmond, who runs marketing agency Contenta and is head of research at video interviewing company Sonru, has 1,000 LinkedIn connections. She has been working in the web industry since 1996 in marketing communications roles in high potential start-ups, technology and web companies. “I regularly get approached on LinkedIn for freelance research and marketing work,” she said. “I worked with a Dutch client who wanted a ‘local’ and am now a regular with a tech company in Kilkenny. I get some good traction on my posts, so I think that works as well as the wording in your title,” said Redmond.