LinkedIn Is Full of Fake Bullshit Stories, But Some Young People Have Hacked How To Get Jobs There.
3 years ago, I got my first job off LinkedIn. It was a #250,000 on-site monthly job. I relocated from Akure to Abuja to resume my job. Matter of fact, I just dropped out of the university a couple of months before I got the job.
The job had good compensation packages and I never met my employer as he resided in Germany. That was the beginning of my LinkedIn journey.
Fast forward to 2022 and LinkedIn has been labeled to become one of the most annoying platforms. People have tagged it to be full of fake stories, made-up tales, show-offs, and unnecessary branding.
Despite this, we still hear news of people securing jobs daily. I am also lucky to know a handful of people who secured jobs on this platform.
What did they do differently?
What gimmicks or tricks are they applying that despite the noise and watery content, they still get very good jobs and well paid at that.
Also, how can you leverage the information and get a job on the platform without involving in the noise?
I will give a list of 4things you can do. I have observed these people and I have tested them as well based on my curiosity and 30 minutes of devotion to this daily will help you secure a job (I propose).
The basics — Your Profile Should Be in Place
You must have a LinkedIn profile and set it the proper way people have described to how LinkedIn profiles should be set up.
Technically, LinkedIn is the only social media platform that has a format for its users to present themselves to be acceptable. As much as this sounds like a rule, I’ll suggest you play the card just the way others have been playing it.
a. Your profile photo;
Your profile photo should be a professional photo or sit between professionalism and casual. A photo like a headshot is the best with a good background in the photo. A lot of people have resorted to using plain backgrounds just like a passport photograph.
While this isn’t compulsory, just have a good photo there. Check mine out;
b. Your LinkedIn cover photo;
Your cover photo should be a description of what you do or the service you offer. Some people’s cover photos have been used as sales photos which are good. I will suggest you do the same.
Check out this cover photo from Kolawole Samuel Adebayo.
P.S: You can design one yourself on Canva or pay a designer to help you out with yours.
c. Your Headline;
Your headline should describe what you do. It doesn’t need to contain too much information. Most importantly, even though you’re a learner, I’ll suggest you write your skill there instead of writing enthusiast.
2. Quality content doesn’t go viral
This is a biased statement. Some people will throw hammers and hoes to argue otherwise, but here’s what I have observed;
Motivational posts go viral
Inspiring posts go viral
Testimonials about a major success go viral
Simple information that everyone knows already but still sounds like a mystery goes viral
Posts with offers go viral
3 years ago, if you take your time to write a quality post, you will get a lot of views and engagement, now, it is not the same.
What do you do;
Craft out 30 minutes daily to share your post in this format which I will explain in point 4
3. Engage and Interact
Pick a niche. Follow top leaders/influencers in the niche, and drop insightful comments on their posts. This will give you more visibility.
Matter of fact, it will increase the connections you have on LinkedIn and interestingly, your potential employers might be among those who will constantly check out your post.
Visibility is key if you want to secure a job via LinkedIn.
Mind you, I am not saying jump on every post. Select a couple of people whom you know have a good amount of followers and comment occasionally when a post resonates with you.
4. Your Content Strategy
You spend hours talking with friends daily. This means you can also devote 30 minutes of your time to work this out.
A simple content strategy can get you a job after 3 months. This is what I have observed from these young people who got jobs on LinkedIn.
Here’s what you should do; draw out a basic content strategy for posting content on
Mons — Fris
Mon — Inspiring/motivational
Tues — Success stories
Wed — Case studies
Thurs- Information post
Fri — Memes
All of these have to revolve around you and what you do.
Now, some of you reading this might not like this approach but this is what has worked for these people.
From observation, doing this for a period of 6 months will both give you a wide audience and also make you an authority on LinkedIn which will attract potential employers to your feed and make get you offers.
People find this approach annoying, some others love it.
There’s however another approach to getting jobs on LinkedIn which doesn’t involve too much noise as this and it is called cold Dm-ing. It is highly effective but has a 2/100% of working.
I’ll drop a post on this soon.
