5 Ways to Utilize LinkedIn During Your Job Search

LinkedIn is one of the top sites for employers, recruiters, and job seekers to connect. Employers and recruiters can determine whether job seekers have the skills, experience, and other requirements needed to call them in for an interview. Job seekers can research open roles, companies, and employers to determine whether they may be a good fit. Here are four ways you can use LinkedIn to help find your next accounting or finance job.

1. Complete and Update Your Profile

Keep your profile complete and updated. Post a current, professional photo to increase recognition of you. Include a first-person, engaging summary that highlights your strengths, value proposition, and how to reach you. Fill in a comprehensive description of your skills and objective, job descriptions, and current position. Highlight your recent experience to encourage engagement with employers and recruiters. Post articles you write, videos you make, and other content you create. Include a link to your website or online portfolio. Update your profile every time you add skills or responsibilities, achieve goals, get promoted, or change employers.

2. Use Keywords

Place keywords throughout your profile. Your headline, summary, location, job title, job description, volunteer experience, skills, activities, publications, honors and awards, and organizations can help direct hiring managers and recruiters in your direction. Look at titles and key phrases such as “project manager,” “SAP,” or “San Francisco” in job descriptions, as well as industry keywords to determine which keywords to use in your profile.

3. Build Your Network

Continuously build your network. Focus on friends, colleagues, alumni, managers, and targeted connections in your field. Include leaders in your industry, hiring managers and potential colleagues at companies you want to work for, and recruiters who can help place you in roles. Participate in LinkedIn Groups in your industry to connect with others in your field. Write a customized connection request, including how you know the person and why you would like to connect. If appropriate, reach out to a hiring manager or employee you have an established relationship with at a company you want to work for and ask for an interview or introduction.

4. Include Recommendations

Post at least three to four recommendations. A variety of people recommending your work, such as a boss, direct report, or client, encourages employers and recruiters to reach out to you. Coach each person on what you would like them to focus on when writing your recommendation.

5. Establish Yourself as a Thought Leader

Cultivate your reputation as a thought leader. Post and comment on articles you write or find interesting. Follow companies and experts in your industry to stay current on news, changes, and trends. Actively engage in conversations, ask and answer questions, and share your expertise through LinkedIn Groups.

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Building on the Power of Your Team’s Strengths

Focusing on your team’s strengths provides many benefits. For instance, your team members become more engaged, productive, and loyal to your organization. Therefore, you want to determine which areas each member excels in and help to develop them.

Categorize Essential Strengths

Determine which strengths are most essential for your team. General strengths may include strategy and planning, leadership, cultural alignment or execution. Then, figure out ways to measure those strengths. You want to know which team member is strongest in each area so they can be assigned corresponding roles for collaborative projects. Because your teammates will be great at what they are naturally drawn to, they will excel in related roles. Your team also will feel empowered because you accept the fact that each is stronger in some areas than others and prefers to work in the areas they enjoy most.

Determine Each Team Member’s Strengths

Begin by discussing what you see as their core competencies. Then, figure out how those competencies can be applied to specific projects. Next, show how those competencies align with the responsibilities and expectations of the project’s role. Finally, focus on the big picture by creating business goals in line with your team members core competencies. Your teammates are more likely to embrace and reach goals that align with their strengths and interests.

Share Each Member’s Strengths

Talk about how each person’s talents can be used to enhance collaboration and complete projects. Mention how your teammates can capitalize on each other’s talents to maximize efficiency and achieve desired results. Encourage them to support each other in developing their strengths.

Offer Additional Strength Training

Seminars, conferences, classes or other training opportunities may be offered in the office or at remote locations. Map out ways that strength training can assist with promotions and attaining career goals. Find out whether there are additional strengths your team members want to develop and act accordingly. Discuss progress during performance conversations and reviews.

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Why Remote Options Can Boost Your Employee Morale

Remote work options may be one key to boosting your employee morale. Having more control over one’s work schedule and location increases work satisfaction, engagement and productivity. Engaged, productive employees are happy employees, which leads to greater morale.

Increased Job Satisfaction

Because employees avoid the commute, they experience lower stress levels and less work exhaustion. This results in a higher positive attitude, lower absenteeism and greater employee retention. Also, as baby boomers head into retirement, they want remote work options to complement their desired preretirement lifestyle. Generation X may be done raising their kids and want to be in the workforce but still want to spend time with their families. Millennials may be looking for life experiences that broaden their horizons and expand their networks. Plus, Generation Z may desire remote work options to refine their career growth.

Stronger Manager and Employee Relationships

Because management is even more critical when working remotely, managers need to be proactive leaders who are intentional in their style. They need to create standards and expectations for remote collaboration and model successful behaviors for remote work to be successful. With increased methods of communication and virtual connections, managers and employees can virtually connect face-to-face, through email or instant messaging, or over the phone when needed, resulting in greater connections.

Better Health

Since stress and burnout are lower, employees feel physically and emotionally healthy. Also, work flexibility stimulates the brain, leading to happier, more creative employees. It also builds relationships among different generations of workers, which increases feelings of happiness and well-being, improves communication and reduces conflicts. Additionally, remote work options allow for more sleep, so employees feel refreshed and productive the next day. Plus, employees who are ill may be able to complete their work without infecting co-workers.

Greater Work-Life Balance

Working from home allows employees to take care of personal responsibilities while still completing their tasks. They can tend to family needs, run errands, exercise and engage in other interests while fulfilling their professional responsibilities. Employees can also attend meetings through video conferencing and ask questions through instant messaging tools, ensuring they fulfill their duties while working remotely.

Hire Top Candidates With a Leading Chicago Employment Agency

Hire top candidates through Casey Accounting & Finance Resources, a leading Chicago employment agency!

The Top Job Searching Myths You Can’t Possibly Believe!

Finding a job is a stressful activity. Buying into false beliefs about the process can make it even harder. Enhance your job search by not believing these myths.

1. My Resume Will Automatically Get Through the Automated System

An applicant tracking system (ATS) screens out candidates based on keywords, dates and job titles. Therefore, an average of five of every 1,000 online applications pass through the ATS to the manager. Even if your skills and qualifications make you a top candidate, you are not guaranteed to be offered an interview. You are better off customizing your cover letter and resume, finding the manager’s email on LinkedIn, and sending your information directly to them.

2. The Hiring Manager Will Know I Am a Great Fit

Your cover letter and resume should point out specific reasons why you are a great fit for the role. If the hiring manager is left to connect the dots between how your information qualifies you for the position, they will move on to the next qualified candidate. Point out your qualifications in relation to the job posting. Do not leave anything to chance.

3. My Passion for the Job Will Outweigh My Lack of Qualifications

Although you may be called in for an interview without having every qualification listed in a job posting, be aware of how far off your background is from what the hiring manager is looking for. Some factors may be negotiable, such as having four years’ experience when the posting asks for six. However, if you have three years’ experience and the posting asks for 10, focus your energy on other opportunities. This is especially true if you are changing careers and cannot demonstrate many transferable skills to get the role you want.

4. A Cover Letter Is Unnecessary

Even with digital job applications, a tailored cover letter and resume are required. Your cover letter gives context to your resume and a voice to your stats. It needs to show the hiring manager what you are looking for, why you are qualified for the role, and that you would like to talk further about the opportunity.

5. My Resume Should Be One Page

Because a customized resume is the centerpiece of your job application, it should highlight the most important information for the hiring manager. Therefore, you may not be able to list your related skills, experience and career highlights all on one page. This is especially true if you have a decade of experience and/or work in a high-level role. Choose a layout that is pleasing to the eye and draws attention to your most important achievements.

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4 Ways to Understand Introverted Candidates

Introverts are natural leaders. Their persistence, diligence, and focus on work let them stand out from the competition. Because you want to hire introverts due to the benefits they provide, you need to understand them to better communicate and decide whether they fit with a role.

1. Learn About Introverts

Learn all you can about introverts. For instance, they dislike small talk. Although it is designed to put candidates at ease, small talk may cause additional stress for introverts. Also, introverts do not like talking about themselves. Their lack of self-promotion may come off as a lack of enthusiasm for the job, when just the opposite is true. Additionally, introverts may take longer to answer questions. They enjoy taking time to reflect before speaking, and may appear less confident with their answers than other candidates.

2. Adjust the Interview Process

Adjust the interview process to accommodate introverts. For instance, send the candidate interview questions in advance. They will value the time to process the information before responding. Also, ask for written responses to some questions, while saving verbal responses for the interview. Introverts typically prefer written communication over oral because they can better express their personality. Additionally, ask the candidate to research a topic and create a short presentation on it. Introverts enjoy organizing and meaningfully presenting their thoughts on a subject more than talking about themselves.

3. Customize Recruiting Tools

Customize your recruiting tools. For instance, because introverts tend to be more stressed about a phone interview than other candidates, consider screening candidates through text message. Introverts may be more at ease because they have additional time to articulate their answers and let their accomplishments speak for themselves. Introverts will appreciate not having to engage in small talk and can focus on their skills and experience, instead. They will not be focused on details such as their clothing choices, where the interview is being held, and who they are talking with, freeing them to focus on the questions being asked. Introverts will not have to repeat themselves, which they dislike doing, because their answers will be typed and can be looked at again to avoid redundant questions or answers.

4. Check References Early

Check references early in the recruiting process. They will help you to determine how an introverted candidate works, what they excel at, and whether they prefer to work independently or collaboratively. Talking with references upfront will provide additional insight into what motivates the candidate and how to conduct a more effective interview.

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Work with Casey Accounting & Finance Resources, a top Chicago employment agency!

Are You Taking Too Long to Contact Potential Candidates? Are They Losing Interest?

If you have a slow hiring process, top candidates most likely will lose interest in working for you. Candidates who move fast want to work in a fast-paced culture where quick decisions are made. Keeping job vacancies harms production, revenue, and employee morale. As a result, you want to speed up your hiring process to bring aboard the most in-demand talent.

Common Reasons for Delayed Hiring

Your hiring process may be delayed for various reasons. For instance, there may be more job openings than candidates to fill them, especially when labor markets tighten. Or, candidates’ resumes may remain untouched in a hiring manager’s inbox. Additionally, hiring managers may be unclear on what they need in a candidate until they see it.

Why Delayed Hiring Hurts Your Business

Delayed hiring hurts your business for multiple reasons. For instance, you will lose the majority of top candidates in the late stages of your recruitment process because they typically will have multiple offers and will be more inclined to accept one. You will have to hire a lower-quality candidate at a potentially higher salary to fill the role. Also, the longer you keep a role vacant, the more productivity and revenue you lose. Further, a company image of being slow at making hiring decisions implies that making other business decisions will be slow, as well. Strong contributors will not want to work for your company.

Steps to Speed Up the Hiring Process

Fortunately, there are steps you can take to speed up the hiring process. For instance, benchmark your hiring efficiency according to where your jobs are located, your company’s size, level of the position, the measure of local talent supply and demand, and other pertinent variables. Because some roles will be harder than others, put time-to-fill in the right context. If a more-thorough hiring process for a specific role will result in a higher-quality hire, accept the longer timeframe. Also, engage in workforce planning. Allocate recruiting resources in line with your business needs so that hiring managers can see where and when demand will be greatest, and plan accordingly. Additionally, keep your pipeline active so you have available candidates when a position opens. Use candidate relationship management (CRM) tools to keep track of interested candidates. Further, keep your scheduled interview times as much as possible. Set a plan for interview guides, assessment criteria, and how feedback gets submitted to whom. More structure leads to a better candidate experience and better hire.

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7 Podcasts That Will Help You Land a Job

Have you been listening to podcasts to help land your next job? You can learn cover letter and resume tips, networking tricks, interview secrets, personal branding ideas and more. Take advantage of these podcasts to move closer to getting the role you want.

1. CareerCloud Radio

Do you want to brush up on the fundamentals of getting a job? Then subscribe to CareerCloud Radio. Gain insight into what to include on your resume, how to answer interview questions; how to negotiate salary; and other nuts and bolts of the job search. Guests include resume writers, career coaches, recruiters and job seekers. Be sure you listen to “Great Resumes and Good Advice.”

2. Career Relaunch

Are you transitioning to a new career? Gain the inspiration, help and motivation you need to get through up and down times during your transition. Host Joseph Liu, a career change and personal branding strategist, interviews professionals from all backgrounds who successfully transitioned between dramatically different roles. Don’t miss the episode “Making Your Next Career Move with Khai Yong.”

3. The Pitch

Similar to the TV show “Shark Tank,” The Pitch lets entrepreneurs share their ideas and potentially negotiate funding. Hear intriguing business ideas and learn how to sell someone on yours. A must-listen-to episode is “Shift.”

4. Manager Tools

Are you climbing the corporate ladder? Then subscribe to Manager Tools. Whether working toward your first management role or continuing to move up in the ranks, learn about performance reviews, coaching, office etiquette, delegation and other skills. Definitely catch “The Bridge Between Feedback and Coaching.”

5. Sleep With Me

Do you need a good night’s sleep before an interview? The host rambles on about stories that grab your interest in the beginning but become drawn out until you fall asleep from boredom. Remember to listen to “Club Senseless.”

6. How Did You Get Into That

Do you need help mapping your career plan? Host Grant Baldwin interviews professionals with unique jobs to gain insight into how they got into them. Listen to fan favorite “How to Become a LEGO Master Builder with Chris Steininger.”

7. Side Hustle School

Whether you want to keep your side gig where it is or turn it into a full-time venture, learn the basics behind increasing your cash flow with a side gig. Host Chris Guillebeau interviews inventors, artists and entrepreneurs to see how they came up with their idea, overcame challenges, and received impressive results. Don’t miss the episode “Where to Find Hustle Ideas.”

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