"Open to Work" on LinkedIn? You're Being Ignored

Why simply being open to work and submitting dozens and dozens of applications is simply not enough to be successful. And what I'm thinking about is if I were to just simply post over and over and over on LinkedIn and make videos over and over that said, I'm a career coach, I'm open for business, and that was all I did, then I wouldn't have any Clients coming to me, I wouldn't have any activity in my business because that simply on its own is not enough. And that's what I see many people doing. So in this video, I'm going to show you what to do instead and some very specific, clear examples of how you can set yourself apart from people and be at the top of the attention of people's minds very fast. So stay tuned. All right. So as I was saying, it's very common for people to get laid off or be looking for a job, or if they're openly looking for a job or not, just to simply go around posting, I'm open for work, I'm open for work, I'm looking for this, I'm looking for this, and that's it, right? And that paired with submitting, submitting, submitting, submitting applications. So like I said, it's like me saying, I'm a career coach, I'm open for business, I'm a Kirkos. I'm looking for business. It's like nobody really cares about that. And even if someone did care, it kind of washes over them like wallpaper. Like they don't pay attention to it. It doesn't catch their attention or grab them in any way, shape, or form. You're like, yeah, another person looking for work. Oh, I know that person. I might know that person. Yeah, that person's great. They're looking for work. But it's like hearing someone when they come to you and say, uh, I'm looking for this kind of work. Tell me if you hear anything, right? And then the person's like, yeah, yeah, I'll tell you if I hear of anything. But they're not really serious or invested, or they're not really going to keep you top of mind. It's just kind of like a wallpaper thing. Like I said, wallpaper just kind of blends into the background, and you just—you know it's there, but you don't really pay attention to it. So it's also similar to saying something like you have a storefront and you say, "Hey." Our store is open, but you don't display any specific products in the window, so they don't even know what the store is. So maybe you are saying something like, oh, I'm open for project management work or something like that, but there's a bazillion different ways to approach project management and a bazillion different ways that you solve problems for people. So it's still not specific enough, right? Same with like if you open a restaurant and you say, hey, we serve food here, and it's like, Okay, great. What kind of food? Is it Indian food? Is it Chinese food? Is it Mexican food? Is it pizza? Like what kind of food? And how do I know if I'm interested in it? Right? And even if you just say we serve food, you're going to get a very different bunch of people coming in. Right? So what we want to do is give you a very specific way to stand out and just watch if that's what you're doing, because a lot of people are doing that. They're just saying, I'm open to work. I'm open for project management work. I'm open for this. And so when you— when we see posts that say open for work, looking for new opportunities, available immediately, meanwhile hiring managers are just scrolling right past you, just as if you were a restaurant that said I serve food or a storefront that said I'm open. They're just scrolling right past you. Why? Because they can't tell what you actually do. They can't tell if it's relevant to them, if it's interesting to them, if it's going to meet a need they have. So the The reason I'm making this video is I watch talented professionals announce their certifications, their experience, their previous positions. I see their headshots. I see the seeking opportunity banners over and over, yet I don't have any impulse to recommend them. I'm not thinking, oh, they, they're great at what they do. They've got some great results. I don't have any impulse to move forward and help them even if I could. I'm— it's a lot of work for me to— I'm just kind of glazing it over being like, yeah, I know another person's looking for work. Yeah. So why showing your professional trophy case doesn't actually demonstrate how you solve problems. So your application is just documents. It's not a presentation of yourself. There's no substance showing your unique perspectives, insights, or problem-solving approaches that are different from anybody else. So your authentic style remains hidden behind, behind like a formatted set of bullet points or a list of qualifications, which everybody applying for those jobs could have a similar version, probably does have a similar version of qualifications. So it's a fundamental problem because your attempts to prove your yourself with qualifications actually can turn employers away because they're not feeling that your credentials have any relevance to them, right? So they're not feeling that presence, like that professional resonance that you have, because it's very specific to you. So my recommendation is to stop talking about wanting a position and start showing your thinking process. So employers need to see how you approach challenges. Not just that you want to be hired. So a great example is how I do it with my business, and I attract people all the time because of this. It's because people will say, oh, I love that story you told. I love how you approached that mindset. A very common one that I have is I say, I don't believe we need to be working hard to prove ourselves. I don't believe we should be trying to convince people of our value. I believe we should be owning our own value. Doing our own work on ourselves, impressing ourselves first, and then naturally speaking about it from that place. So I love to bring people back to that and get them feeling really good and confident about themselves. So then when they do go out there, they don't need to prove or convince or overexplain. That's not something that all career coaches do. There's a very clear line there because I know that was when I post, I get— I've had career coaches say, yeah, but you still need to Prove yourself as the best candidate. You still need to do this. You still need to do that. And I said, you know what? That might be your approach, and that might be work work for your clients. But that's not how I do it. That doesn't feel empowering to me, and that attracts very specific people to me. Instead of me just saying, I'm going to help you get a job. I'm going to help you get promoted. I do it in a way that resonates with certain people. So you have the same ability. You will approach a project. You will approach how you Approach your work or the task you've been given in a very unique way. So when people are considering who they want to hire, the decision makers are looking for people who can identify issues that they didn't even realize existed. So I do that a lot in my content. I provide blind spots. I show you, oh, you've been doing this. This is where you haven't been thinking about it in the correct way for you to get success, right? This is where you might be getting tripped up. And I provide these insights for people, and they start to realize, oh, I like her way of thinking. I like her. Approach, and then they're drawn to me specifically versus somebody else. And so this works so well. I've used it so much in my own interviewing process to get hired, to run my business, to attract the amazing clients I work with. And I want to pass this on to you because when professionals like you can define and explain specifically in, in the fresh way that you approach something to a hiring manager, it's like a breath of fresh air. So Giving people a taste of your expertise, a sample of your thinking that makes them say, hmm, I never considered that perspective, or we should be asking that question. The uncomfortable truth here is your availability is not interesting. Your expertise is. So many job seekers believe that adding professional certifications or more accolades to the resume is going to make it more attractive to somebody. But the truth is that that doesn't make it more personal or more intimate. What it does is it just stacks up more qualifications, which a lot of people are in a rush to get there. Everybody's trying to get more certifications, more education, thinking that that's what it is that gets you the job. But really, if you're competing on that, it's like everybody's competing in the same rate, in the same kind of race, and they will— like, someone will always beat you with more certifications, right? But what they can't beat you at is your original thinking and your way of doing things. And you might be thinking, well, I don't have a particularly original way or whatever, What you do is just that you need some help to bring that out because you obviously have results. You've done things, and it's not it's not uncommon for people not to know their own value, right? Because you're so close to it, you don't know. So companies hire people that they can connect with, to share values with, and that they respect professionally. And this respect develops through interactions demonstrating who you are and how you think. So submitting hundreds of applications. Being very consistent with your application process isn't going to stand a chance against having a strong professional presence with the right people. So effective candidates share lessons, they share professional philosophies, they share industry observations, they allow employers to understand them and their whole self. This builds rapport that then engages hiring managers and establishes genuine connections. There's a reason why some candidates receive inquiries inquiries from formally applying when they've invested in developing their professional presence and not just listing qualifications. So an example that comes to mind is if you're competing on price, say you're, you're, say that you're selling a product and you're gonna make it the cheapest that you can so that you'll sell more. If that's your mentality, then everybody is al— there's always gonna be someone that can beat you on price. Mm-hmm. Right? However, if you are selling it with a uniqueness factor, So say you're trying to sell a bouncy ball and you're trying to make it really cheap and you're trying to sell as many as you can. There's always someone who's going to be able to manufacture that bouncy ball cheaper. However, if you manufacture a bouncy ball and you're not trying to make it the cheapest, you're just trying to make it the most unique and the most different and the most eye-catching, attention-grabbing thing. But yes, it's more expensive. Then you are going to get more eyes on it. You are going to get more attention and you're going to get more specific people that want it. Now, bouncy ball might be a silly example, but I thought of this because we just got my daughter a bouncy ball that she loves and it, it lights up and it does this crazy color thing and, um, and it's spiky on the outside, but it's still rubbery. Anyways, it's really cool. But yeah, it was more expensive than like a 50-cent one, right? So you're gonna get like a different set of people buying it and it's not gonna be the cheapest one. So the, the goal here is to bring out your differences, your uniqueness, your, your original solutions, your approach to the industry, and not just trying to be competing on the same things that everyone else is competing on. So with that said, you want to stop announcing your availability and start demonstrating your specific value brought. So this conditions employers to see you as a resource rather than another applicant. So valuable professionals focus on improving how they articulate their problem-solving abilities during their search, and they're not repeatedly announcing their capability, their availability. Because as I said, availability is not interesting. Expertise is. To wrap up, instead of mass applying, because we all know we've been trained to think that that's what we need to do, but it doesn't work. And if it works for you, great, but I doubt you'd be watching this. You want to develop your professional voice through thoughtful industry contributions. You want to have a perspective, an opinion that's not the same as everybody else's. You want to build genuine connections before you need them with with demonstrating your professional expertise and your professional perspectives that are unique and nobody else has. You want to create content and share in your documents that, that you demonstrate this expertise and focus on quality versus quantity. And so crafting the materials that reveal this authentic professional resonance is going to raise you up and give you so much more confidence because you'll have that knowing that like you will get quality stuff coming back when you put quality stuff out. So that's how I feel 100% about my content and my videos. I put a lot into these videos. I put a lot into thinking about what's going to help somebody, what's going to give somebody a perspective shift, what's going to be super useful for somebody. And that comes back tenfold because I do that, right? And I did go through a time when I just put out a lot of content that wasn't very, very good, right? And I got responses as such, right? I had a lot of people unsubscribing, and I had people like They just didn't. I didn't get the opens. I didn't get people paying attention to me because it sounded very much like everybody else. So I've been through this journey. I can tell you the difference, and I can tell you how well it works when you start to zero in on who you are as a professional and why you are different. You don't have to be better. You just have to know your points of differences and value them yourself. One of my favorite quotes is you. Cannot receive your own value until you acknowledge and own it yourself. And when you do acknowledge and own it yourself, then it easily shows up in your life tenfold. And with that, my friend, I hope you enjoyed it. Give me a thumbs up if you like the video. Always option to give a thumbs down if you didn't like it. It's all engagement. It all helps the channel. Leave me a comment. Let me know what you thought, and if you had any questions, I'll be happy to answer them in the comments. And I have a free guide for you if you are interviewing right now, struggling with why you're not getting the offers. I have a guide. It's 68 reasons as to why people don't get offers even when they're smart, qualified, and capable. And you could download that for free. And that will also sign you up for my 3-day series where I walk you through the A to Z of my, the first module of my paid program where I help you land a 6-figure job or double your salary depending on what your goal is right now. And I help you beyond that as well. But that's a good start. So. I will see you on the other side. I'll see you in the next video. Bye-bye.