Previously we looked at what LinkedIn offers transitioning academics and how to raise your visibility on the platform.
But how can you network effectively, find jobs, research companies/sectors, and increase your visibility on LinkedIn?
Here are a few strategies to support your industry job search:
- Make connections: LinkedIn is your window to the world of work outside of academia. You can use it to find people who have jobs that interest you, and identify people who can forward your job search agenda (decision makers).
Reach out to these folks with a short introductory message. It’s helpful to highlight a common interest to make the connection. This can be anything – we studied at the same institution, studied the same subject, lived in the same city, share a common connection – anything that connects you initially so you can start building a relationship from there. Another useful strategy is to comment on people’s posts and then use that as a means to reach out with a connection request.
The ultimate aim is to move the connection off-line at some point, and have a conversation with this person as part of a structured networking approach to your job search.
As academics, one of the most useful features of finding connections on LinkedIn is through the alumni tab of the institution’s you’ve worked and/or studied at. You already have that common connection with everyone who’s studied/worked at these institutions, and these people are likely to be responsive to your requests. Go to your institutions’ home page on LinkedIn and use the alumni tab to search for people who work at particular companies you’re interested in, or have a job that you’re keen to learn more about.
Likewise, the people function tool will also allow you to search companies of interest and select the ‘people’ tab at those organisations. You can further filter by job title, location, and other criteria important to your job search, to help find interesting people to connect with.
- Join Groups: There are tonnes of groups to join on LinkedIn that can help you further your job search. These range from groups focused on general career networking, career groups for specific industries/sectors, and post-graduate alumni-focused groups. One of the best groups for the latter is The GradGrid. A free to join group comprising of 8k+ past, present, and future graduates, working in all types of employment including academia and industry. So it’s a great place to find peers with similar goals and mentors, but also jobs (as group members frequently share open positions there).
When you join groups, participate in discussions, post/share content to make new connections, and build your network. Most career groups share information about open positions, so be sure to monitor vacancies there as part of a multichannel job search.
- Follow targets: Like and follow your target companies of interest on LinkedIn. This will enable you to keep on top of what’s happening in these companies, any vacancies they post, and help you research these targets.
Aside from target companies, you can also follow key industry figures, trade associations, and other professional bodies within sectors you’re looking to break in to.
All the information gathered will help you learn industry-specific trends and the language used, which will enable you to build credibility into your applications. And by liking, commenting and sharing content of the people/organisations you follow, you’ll increase visibility in your sector(s) of interest.
- Develop content: You can build a reputation and raise your profile on LinkedIn by creating, sharing, and responding to quality content. Tailor content to the sector you’re aiming to raise your profile in.
A good source of content ideas is to review and recommend content from other industry figures/organisations. This doesn’t need to take long. For example, if you see a relevant review or commentary, you can post a quick top-line message from the article along with your brief perspective on what you thought, and a link to the article. Then you can ask the opinion of others to invite engagement of your post. This will easily be enough to increase your exposure to industry professionals.
Five Minutes a Day on LinkedIn is Enough
If you’re anything like me, when I first realised what it would take to raise my profile on LinkedIn, I felt daunted.
It was during my transition to industry when I realised if I wanted to get noticed on the non-academic job market, I’d better start making connections, joining groups (and engaging), following targets, and developing content. But I also didn’t have a clue how I was going to achieve all this and keep on top of all my academic research work at the same time
Then it dawned on me that I can do a lot during my mid-morning coffee break. Just 5 mins was enough to:
- Like 3 posts in my network
- Check a company’s status updates and share, comment and like these
- Send a brief thank you message
- Briefly comment on a group post
- Send a connection request
- Draft a brief status update
- Post a brief status update
- Find employees at target companies
- And message a contact with a specific question
After just a few short weeks these five mins a day on LinkedIn working to raise my profile, really started to add up.
There was compound interest. For example, if I made three new contacts a week, I didn’t just add three more people to my network, I was also able to access all their contacts too, to find people of interest.
And so it went on from there, day-after-day, week-after-week, slowly raising my profile, increasing my visibility on the non-academic job market, and learning as I went.
We all have five mins/day to spare a day, so don’t feel daunted by the challenge. Investing just a short amount of time per day will have a huge impact on your transition to industry.
To learn more about how to create an effective LinkedIn profile, you can take a look at: https://ontologyofvalue.
Summary
- Increase your visibility by making connections, joining groups, following targets in your sector of interest, and creating/sharing content
- Investing just five minutes a day on LinkedIn is enough to raise your profile on the non-academic job market