TJ Walker says most people use LinkedIn wrong. Instead of applying to posted jobs, build relationships with industry people first by commenting, sharing content, and creating your own. Employers will come to you.
Chapters
We live in a world where everyone has the same access. Everyone can access LinkedIn, everyone can access all the other job websites. How do you get a competitive edge? Well, the way you do it is by not using LinkedIn and all these other job sites the way everyone else does. If you simply wait to see, oh, here's a job posting. Send your resume. You're competing with everyone else for maybe 3% of the jobs out there. Most jobs in the world, the best jobs in the world, are not officially advertised. The best time to make a connection with someone, to get the inside track is before they even know there's a job opening. What you really want to do is build relationships with people in the industry you're either in or you want to be in. And to build knowledge, to build expertise, to be seen as a thought leader. And these days you could be 17 years old. If you're putting out more content, more insights, more information about a particular industry, you can be seen as a real thought leader. You don't have to wait till you have gray hair or no hair. You can start positioning yourself as a thought leader today. So if you see someone posting on LinkedIn and they're a CEO of a mid sized PR firm that you'd like to work for in your town, don't just write, hi, will you be my friend? I'm looking for a job. Can you help me? Can you give me an interview? That's the wrong way. Start off by following them. Don't even ask them to be your friend at this point or to connect. Comment and make intelligent comments on their post. Occasionally ask questions. People like that, it gets their attention. Be a part of what they're doing. They're promoting a new campaign that you happen to like. Share it. Let them know why you're sharing it. Add commentary, ask questions, Give value before you ever ask for the first thing. Give value to people before you ask if they can introduce you anyone or get you a job interview. Next thing you need to do is put value out to the world on LinkedIn, other social media sites where you are either putting forth your own original ideas or you are curating other ideas and putting a spotlight on them that people in your industry would know. Make yourself seen as someone who is a thought leader. Now, I like the form of video and you can certainly post videos. Sharing expertise. You want to make video, okay. You don't have to make it audio. LinkedIn likes audio. You think of yourself as more of the quiet, introverted type. Okay. Post a text blog post. Figure out a way of creating content regularly attract people to you because of your ideas and your expertise. And at some point they're going to reach out to you for a job. Make yourself attractive to others in your industry because you are part of their conversation. If you do that, you will be ahead of the competition in the job hunt every step of the way.
