how to use linkedin to find a job (solo show)

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good morning hello hello hello we are live and I'm excited oh also Instagram did like a little uh a little change in in their go live process so I'm gonna start going live on Instagram more now that's great they changed that where you can mute yourself so you don't hear yourself that's great uh good morning everybody surprise it's a Thursday and you're probably like why in the world are you going live on um your own LinkedIn on a Thursday um well my guest on unicorn finders bailed uh not bailed I'm sorry rescheduled a few minutes early a few minutes ago so we are um so

I like you know what I'm gonna go live here hang out with y'all so good morning say hey we' love to hear from you you know this is a very tactical I haven't done a solo show in a second been busy so um I'm gonna kind of dive into specifically how to use LinkedIn I I've been doing a lot of career coaching one-on-one sessions again I do offer those if you're interested but again like I my my goal is just to give back to to people at scale right so um so wanted to go over how to use LinkedIn today uh in the job search

because I've getting a lot of questions just also just talk about the job search in general because people need it Nas it's great to see you girl it's Gracie I hope you're doing well hope you're doing well N is a former uh guest on the show um she's fantastic highly recommend following her if you do not already um and so we're talk about LinkedIn but in the meantime say hey we'd love to hear from you again this is a special Thursday Thursday Thursday I like Thursday Thursday episode um we're just gonna hang out again my my my guest on unicorn finders bailed uh rescheduled rescheduled

last minute uh so I was like you know I'm gonna go hop on here and help youall out um and if you didn't catch my kind of morning um kind of what I just said um I've be doing a lot of one career coaching sessions I do offer that as a service I don't publicly promote that a lot because I never want to be called l ike a a resume writer LinkedIn writer none of that stuff and so um and so I uh I do offer that and I've been having a lot of the same conversations time and time again and so basically like uh

I'm gonna go live and hang out with yall and talk about the things that I see often when it comes LinkedIn so uh again Ricardo it's good to see you Sally it's great to see y'all as well Brian it's good to see a former guest of the show as well we got Brian and Nas former guest of the show Jordan yes I know it's unexpected typically don't go live Thursdays like I said my guest for unicorn finders um had to reschedule uh so we're just I'm just gonna hang out with Y because I love I mean truly like I I I I would stream all

day if I could because I think there's that much information that we need to share Brian it's great to see you as well let me look over on Instagram we got a few people tuning in as well again Tik Tok it's great to see all this morning um say hey would love to hear from you want to give a shout out to two my partners of course as always this morning first and foremost that conference listen um I actually next week I'm hanging out with Clark in that conference it's really cool he's doing like a hallway a virtual hallway track where you just get on

and talk about life so excited to hang out with um Clark in that conference next week but if you want to go to that conference so I keynoted this event last year was a heck of event they got Mark Thompson from angler keynoting and Kent dods uh keynoting as well um I've given away all my free tickets but uh if you want to use the code tesen I believe uh you get 25% off uh so let me know if you have any questions there also want to give a shout out to of course render ATL the gold Platinum Premier sponsor I will be there can't

wait to announce how I'm going to be there it's going to be very very soon so I'm pumped about that so hope to see yall there it's in a few weeks three weeks I saw somebody tweet three weeks so hop efully you're going to render because I will be there as well uh Chris it's good to see you yeah glad for a surprise show yeah yeah absolutely absolutely and Brian man it's been a minute hopefully you're doing well my friend it's wonderful to see you this morning all right we got some people so so let's go and dive in right we're talking about LinkedIn for

those of you tuning on Tik Tok I know you can only see my face I'm going to be sharing my screen a lot so if you're on Tik Tok watching head over to my LinkedIn so you can see this and we can kind of uh you know do this together but I'm gonna start sharing my screen here Robert it's good to see you but the biggest thing like I truly think like let me rant on LinkedIn for a second I truly think LinkedIn uh Andrew it's good to see you I truly think LinkedIn is like an incredibly untap platform like you have to understand something

about LinkedIn LinkedIn is the only platform where you can go on it today and message any hiring manager at any company you've ever wanted to work for right I I say this all the time this is actually one of my conference talks that I give um where like like LinkedIn is viewed and it's viewed a long time right I think I think the biggest problem with LinkedIn is it's branding which for the record that's most people's problem is branding and awareness and so linkedin's problem is that you you you created LinkedIn your LinkedIn profile when you were in college and no one ever really told

you how to use LinkedIn right no one ever told you uh that it's like you know this untapped platform that can literally change your entire career it's changed my entire career right like would I've been able to build with this community with all of you all here on the live today like none of this would have been possible that LinkedIn so you got to understand something LinkedIn is just a crazy amazing experience like like if I were to start all over again I would just double triple down immediately um on Link edIn um if if I could Jordan times in the moment you're immediately suspicious

hearing an introvert say they could stream all day yeah yeah again I'm good with the mic I'm great with a mic uh I'm not good in public uh situations so there you go um all right so let's so let's go and dive in I'm going to go ahead and pull up my LinkedIn here um and we are going to uh start going through this on on how to use LinkedIn um all right LinkedIn all right sweet cool so can you'all all right we we we got to zoom in on here and again I'm balancing a bunch of screens so if you have questions um I

will get to them for sure all right so so let's kind of go over the basic here and again I'm not going to talk about how to build your profile um I have lives with that um again I I I really TR I think if we're going to talk about building the profiles the one thing I want to talk about here is um is right here your your title portion right your title portion is incredibly underrated so let me give you an example of how recruiters search right so if I'm trying to do net developer I'm trying to find a net developer and again Link

at Tik to if you're tuning in I'm streaming on LinkedIn right now so you probably should head on over there so if I'm I'm if I'm doing if I'm trying to find a net developer like the title portion is right here right so let's say I'm trying to find a net developer and also if you have not messing around with the filters on LinkedIn search they're pretty good again it's not great but they're they're they're good so I'm GNA try to find a net developer in Nashville Tennessee Okay so right now I have 538 results that that that that that I have to uh get

through listen y'all I don't have the time to get through 538 profiles so if I'm trying to find a senior.net developer I'm going to look where the title portion right senior.net developer right so I I I would immediately try to connect with Aaron right so this is why it's important like William could be a senior.

net developer but he doesn't have it you like Taylor this is this this isn't fair you need to click on every profile again I don't have time do you have time to slip through 538 profiles so again I'm going to look for senior right I'm also going to look for keywords right so let's say say I'm trying to find let's say I'm trying to find a JavaScript engineer right let's say I'm trying to find a JavaScript engineer in the Nashville area right JavaScript developer and let's say this JavaScript developer needs really strong backend skills with node right so JavaScript developer all filters let me see

what's to do Nashville actually let's do um let's let's do Atlanta right so let's say I need a JavaScript developer that's got so first off 843 results right and so for here I I like I'm trying to find a backend engineer right oh backend developer boom right backend developer right that's good I want that right so I'm scrolling through here so again I I'm just showing you how my eyes go through things right so again this is why the title portion of your LinkedIn is so important because it is essentially the tldr now you're probably like well Taylor yours doesn't have anything to do with

what you do it does is I want to come across this very relaxed and approach in my title if a hiring manager is looking for engineers I want them to be like all right this guy seems kind of funny right so may maybe not I don't know but that's why the title portion is so important Dan comes in here say I basically gave up on LinkedIn has become the alter ego platform uh I would not give up on LinkedIn right and again I want to I want to kind of give you some pretty practical tactical tips here so you can dive into LinkedIn so again

every platform is spammy all right let me say that again every every single platform is spammy Twitter spammy LinkedIn spammy like everything's spammy Tik Tok is spammy with the Tik Tok shop right every single platform is spammy so this whole excuse of oh well Tik tok' s got too many Bots listen y'all do you understand the amount of like lame salesy pitches I get in my LinkedIn daily right and and and Richie's Richie's tuning in here I'm sure Richie gets as many salesy terrible DMS too from bot right listen y'all it happens it is just the nature of dealing with this stuff and so for

me I would say get rid of that excuse because you're going to find that everywhere you're hurting yourself if you are not using this platform right so let me talk about a few ways to use this the first way is obviously if if if you go up to search uh and you do JavaScript uh developer you're looking for a JavaScript developer job right you go to jobs right go to jobs and then boom here are all the job soures now I will tell tell you this LinkedIn oh we got multiple I got multiple LinkedIn up here going right now so as a whole LinkedIn search

is is relatively bad still right so you're probably Taylor you're very contradicting yourself here you're saying you need to double down a LinkedIn but that LinkedIn Search Is Not Great yes because there's no other platform which is why I've been saying if anybody wants to collab on this that's why I'm saying I truly believe there's a social networking platform out there that is a paid platform that is essentially like LinkedIn and Twitter combined right I know there's entree I think entra is what it's called that's not it right I I I think there is uh uh I think there is a platform that can be

built but that's neither here nor there so all that being all that being said like what I would do so there's two ways to find a job here right so you can go to jobs on LinkedIn always go to the past 24 hours because it gives you the most narrow results right so right here right JavaScript developer there's a senior full engineer with payments here right and then let's so all right so first off uh first off look like look through these things right so this is interesting it says senior full stack engineer but then it's liste d as a mid to senior right so

again my mid-level devs that are tuning in or may watch this this is why you need to use a platform and pay attention and pay attention this thing says senior but it's marked as mid to senior so if you're a mid I would submit your res right another thing here look here look at the connections right all right I got one connection and one School alum so let me see who's the school all right Mary Helen I don't know Mary Helen but when it comes to it I'm gonna click on Mary Helen Mary Helen went University of South Carolina right she's executive assistant to the

CEO okay that's not a bad gig she graduated in 2010 I graduated in 2011 I'm probably going to message her and be like hey what up girl like all this this stuff and uh I'm looking to get in a moon pay what are your thoughts how should I approach this right that is how you do it all right I want to get to a few comments here in a second um which is why my tagline is Liam Liam N I wanted to scare yeah exactly right you do you Richie uh Brian goes got to push through negatives or social you'll see the benefit of 100%

um yeah a lot of bots Jordan I I like Jordan you got to surrend yourself with genuine people on LinkedIn yeah your algorithm fuels who you engage with right so if you're spammy or negative like again yeah what up girl say that yeah seriously uh yeah I relied heavily on LinkedIn during Co I love that uh jaer comes in good morning um if you're naring down past 24 hours would you run this search every day yeah Jordan I would run this search every day I would run a 24h hour search every day because with the way the market is right now like if you're not

like if you're not immediately like uh uh uh like going to the most um like the newest job postings nothing's gonna happen right like like like you're not gonna have a chance right so so again also Jesse Walker tuning in uh on my LinkedIn or on my Instagram Jesse it's good to see you buddy it's really really really good to see y ou um so all right so that's so that's one way right so let's go back to here again this is very tactical and kind of boring but I think it's very beneficial right so and then so then I have one connection that works

here right ah my guy Chris right so I know Chris really well right he and I had dinner together with our wives up in New York City last year two years ago right great dude um I would absolutely you know hit up hit up here so so start here right then so so let's say you have no connections and no Alum that works there right then what I would do is this and and and and this is what I've talked to a lot of people about I I would go to moonpay go to moonay go to people and what I would do is is I

would look to see so I would look at the managers right so Chris Choice my guy director of engineering right um senior engineering manager Dean um probably wouldn't message the CIO I would not message the ciso not going to help you right Talent partner maybe message Ben right now here's the deal moonay deals with web 3 stuff right and and and and there he is Jesse it's good to see you buddy it's good to see you thanks for tuning in man um hey Jesse by the way we need to get we need to get our wives together and hang out like my wife and I

we talk about you guys all the time um all right so let's talk so so let's talk about messaging right because people get so weirded out with messaging right so let's say I'm a mid to so I gotta I so so I gotta set the the the parameters here I'm a mid to senior engineer and I am looking to find a job right so what I would do is I would mess message my guy Chris choice right I I would message Chris Choice well so I'm connected to Chris so that doesn't count so let's let's do this let's do Ben no let's do sorry let's

let let's do Dean right so uh my my LinkedIn post here in a little bit is gonna be about this right so personalize your invitation so send so you add a note and what I would do is I said Hey Hey Dean um I know this is r andom but wanted to shoot you a DM I'm looking for job right now and um and I uh love the web three space um I have done some personal projects le le leveraging leveraging XYZ um and uh I know you probably oh XYZ um would love to chat about a position all right so so here's like I'm

not gonna spend the whole time but what I would do here is like I would legitimately like get straight to the point right so with Dean so so what I did with Dean is is first off I I I humanized the DM right I humanize the DM Hey Dean I know this is random right like that humanizes me right hey that I know like I didn't say hi Mr Dean Shelton I would love to talk with you no hey Dean I know this is random but want to shoot you DM I'm looking for a job right now right and I love the the web 3

space so you said you have a passion like hiring managers right now want people who have passion right and and I've done some personal projects leveraging certain technology in the web 3 space would love to chat about this position but like I I again I'm I'm I'm over here right now I have not seen this until now you can only send so many personalized invitations right now right you can only send so many personalized invitations so what I would do is I would pay for LinkedIn recruiter I would absolutely pay for LinkedIn recruiter the reason why I pay for LinkedIn recruiter is I is I

know it's a little expensive when I say a little expensive I think it's can anybody tell me how much LinkedIn Rec or or premium LinkedIn is I'm pretty sure it's only 40 to 70 bucks a month I would say it's absolutely needed when you're on the job search right when you're on the job search and you want to double down on LinkedIn I would absolutely without a doubt pay for LinkedIn premium and leverage it because here's the deal I can only send three more DMS right so be intentional with the DMS add a note incredibly incredibly important um all right what else let's let's see

here um trying to trying to think um another thing that I would do if I were you is um I would absolutely without a doubt um send the DM be personalized you have to make it personalized ized um and then again be human and be specific right like like you got to be specific because when it comes down to all this stuff like like hiring managers don't have time to go back and forth is what I'm trying to say so again be specific tell the person what you want right make it human and and tell the person exactly what you bring to the table right

and it's a little hard to doing 200 characters but again like it you'll and and you got to you can't copy and paste messages this is a very tactical thing it's a very tactical thing hey so and so I see you have a job open for this I have eight years of experience I love the web three space I've used X Y and Z technology would love to chat about the role send that does not scale you have to be intentional with every single freaking message you send because because again intentionality right now wins the day um let's see Brian's question here what do you

think is more effective sending an email message or connection request uh I think connection request and here's why when I get an inmail message I actually I don't know I I think they're about the same all right so $30 for premium yeah that's cheap use it buy it it if if it is $30 in my in my opinion and I hope LinkedIn doesn't hear this in my opinion LinkedIn could charge $100 a month and I still think it would be worth it right $30 is cheap please do it Brian answer your question I honestly think I I don't think it matters I I don't know

the answer I like to send the notes because the person when they accept your invite it goes to their top of their DMS yeah connection request always for me yeah yeah Richie if you got any more thoughts try to help me out here on why connection I think connection request is better because if if I accept your pro if I accept your connection request on LinkedIn it immediately populates to the top of yo ur inbox I I think I think it with an inmail it just kind of comes in as a normal message and so like it can maybe get lost but again Richie if

you want to if you want to help me out and maybe give me some more more color on that all right so let's so so let's talk about um how else to find a job on LinkedIn so so that's one way um the the the other way is um is just straight up networking right so what I would do is this so so let's do let's do jobs so again let's do jobs again let's again so Java JavaScript developer right I'm gonna go to jobs um you got it here right so what what I would do if I were you is is I would also

just like connect with people right I mean legitimately like like let's go back to let's let's just use this one right here right so this one obviously um you know again see how you compare to over 100 applicants try try premium for 0 right um what I would do is is I would click on click on the company um moonshot again right look f look here mid to senior right pay attention to that uh I'm trying to find the moonshot factory here we go moonshot Factory right so what I would do is I would go to moonshot factory again go to people and honestly I

just start connecting with people hey would love to chat right now let's say let's say you want to get so let's say want to get to uh uh let's say you want to work on on web web 3 projects let's say you've again this is this is you know web web 3 right so let's say you want to work on web 3 projects right go to people right you have 22,000 people to connect with right just start connecting with people again right when it when it when it comes to when it comes to like networking like you have to understand something you can do your

entire job search on LinkedIn right you can spend half the day just dming people right here right like listen I don't know like I don't know Alex but he's a season technologist web 3 so i' I'd message here I a note be like yo be like hey Alex um I'm just I'm I'm doing some netw orking and wanting to talk to web 3 folks because I'm trying to learn more about how to break into the industry do you have like six minutes right like again like you could do it this way you can just literally network with people as well uh let's see we got

a few comments I'm G stop sharing my screen for a second here um we got a few comments coming in um so Donnie comes in I've seen about a 10% response rate on LinkedIn DMs I think all the spam sales yeah this is why you have to get to the point and be human in the DMS on LinkedIn because people got have link have DM fatigue but if you can but if you can craft your message where it immediately humanizes you it's huge right connection request will messages connection request with messages really both uh it's less steps for you inmails can always feel yeah agreed

yeah Richie brings up a great Point here whenever I get a LinkedIn email it's almost never customized and I kind of just ignore it immediately right so yeah I like that Richie uh Jordan comes in yeah I'm always suspicious of him most time yeah exactly exactly um I'm rereading the book want to share the resource of a cold I love that absolutely good read thank you for sharing ja I appreciate that as well again the good DMS here right uh flattery acknowledgement of some sort right right so my so the girl that went to South Carolina hey girl Sor went to South Carolina right that's

you know I viewed something um second uh is is a specific question and then third is a specific amount of time right that that goes L uh a long way Jesse comes in goes cross referencing someone repos on GitHub is like a shoe in connection yeah I mean if you want to do that it's great also shout out to open sace they were doing some cool stuff as well in the um uh open source space so that's that's really practical what else am I missing anything Richie am I missing anything on LinkedIn I'm trying to go back here oh also again um I do want

to go over uh commenting and liking people st uff Richie is also the goat when it comes to recruiting so Richie let me know if I'm missing out on anything so let's so so so let's talk here also Jesse too Jesse's also a great recruiter in the chat as well so so this is why it's incredibly important to like and comment on people statuses right so right here so so this is a great example right so I don't know Joe Joe's a second connection right so what does a second connection mean on LinkedIn second connection means we have somebody in common third connection means we

have nobody in common right so Joe diamond second connection here um uh so but so our connection is Keith right so Keith commented on this right so let me ask you this y'all this is why this is why I'm telling you like like this is this is why like you don't even have to post to LinkedIn to be effective you can just comment and like people so whose name do you see the most here is it Joe or is it Casey it's Casey right Casey you see at the top here Casey commented right and then you see Casey's comment down here right incredibly important right

so again it's brand recognition right you're so so this so I'm gonna try to put this to you in simplest ways Casey commenting on this post is the equivalent of you showing up to a Meetup just showing up not even talking right because again it's like it's it's I'm seeing Keith Keith's name and if Keith continues to be active on LinkedIn I'm probably going to follow him probably going to keep in touch with him you I have you have understand something y'all what I what I teach is I apply traditional recruiting methods and branding and marketing into this right so I'm trying to get you

trying to to to do the things a recruiter does to find a job to network but I'm also educating you on how people's minds work when it create a narrative on LinkedIn on social media right so if I see Keith's name time and time again I'm like wow Keith's really engaged I'm gonna go follow him maybe he's got more stuff to say then Kei th posts some really good stuff and I'm like man I really like Keith then I'm gonna message Keith go yo Keith I love your content then Keith and I build a relationship and then Keith posts a job I'm yo Keith I'm

a perfect person for this job and then look at that I found a job through Keith that's how it works that's how it works that's how it works um what else DMS heavily important liking and commenting people's post on LinkedIn incredibly important um and uh yeah I think that's it I think that's it uh I'm G stop sharing my screen here for a second uh stop sh sharing and then coming in here um Richie comes in and goes I think you got it I'd make sure in your message to connect if you're trying to get a recruiter at high always include your top three matches

top three skills that match yes if I see a no.

JS person they say i' love to connect I have four years with react and note I'm going to answer yes love this again going back to what I was talking about with the moon pay example um give hiring managers so I talked with a senior engineering manager not recently like two or three months ago and he was like he was like you know I got laid off um you know I was freaking out for two weeks I was getting no responses in my DMs none and he was like then what I did is is I changed up I changed up my method and I was

starting to message decision makers at organizations that had a senior engineering manager posted and I said hey Mr manager I have these three skills that you have listed your job description let's talk and he said his response rate got up over 50% again folks right now people do not have time to go back and forth if I have to get information from you I'm going to move on and I bet Richie will say the same thing too I know Brian and I got a bunch of Recruiters in the comments I I want to give shout outs to recruiters here Richie's great Brian's great Jesse's great

uh yeah so follow them connect with them they're fantastic people um uh Jason no we're talking a bout how to use LinkedIn even better um all right Brian comes in here Brian fun tip go to the company website on LinkedIn and connect with any employees the more you are connected with the more you'll be able to see instead of the LinkedIn user Banner you can't connect with LinkedIn users but you'll always be able to see them as soon as you connect with them yes love this also Brian brings up a great example here um when it comes to um Brian brings up a great example

here when it uh about the power of just connecting with people so if I connect with a bunch of randos so so so this is why I encourage content creation and posting content on LinkedIn so let's say I go connect with a hundred people on LinkedIn in a day right like I connected with them so so so let's do like 500 um five 500 people in a in a week let's say I connect with 500 people on LinkedIn in a week right and I start putting out content the way that LinkedIn algorithm works is the people you most recently connect with are prioritized to get

your content I'm say that again if you start posting content on the job search and you in tandem connect with people every day those people that accept your requests see your content first so I'm G just going to give you my strategy right recruiters Brian Jesse Richie I'm gonna give you my strategy here right just giving it away what I do is I connect with every single decision maker to it organization because I know if they accept my request they're going to start seeing my content they start seeing my content enough there are my DMs wanting to hire Engineers it's that simple it's that simple

so that's what I would do cool all right y'all well I think that's it uh oh oh it's really a tool that's misused yeah yeah yeah 100% again I I think LinkedIn I I hopefully I changed your mind this morning um hopefully you got something out of this but I really truly believe everybody should Double Down LinkedIn right now build meaningful connections send meaningful DMS be int entional it works I promise me Jesse Richie Brian have built careers on LinkedIn right recruiters build careers on LinkedIn it works most people just don't know how to use it which is why I do this so um again

hopefully you got something out of this if you did like this episode today please share it on your LinkedIn um because uh I I really truly think other people need to see this I appreciate it um Jesse I really really appreciate it and then uh Sally thank you so much um again if you need me I do do coaching sessions again I'm not trying to be some sort of that full-time but I just want to let you know that it's there if you want to take me up on it otherwise I appreciate y'all so much I appreciate my community you have no idea how much

it means to me that you show up every single day and comment it means the world to me I do not take it for granted go connect with everybody on the show especially the recruiters Brian Jesse Richie go connect with those dudes those D those dudes are the best um ask them for help they will help you tell but but send them a note send them a note and tell them you you obviously connect with them from guidance counselor 2.0 um tomorrow morning no lives do do yes do do I have a stuttering problem I grew up at with a major stutter thanks for pouring

that out Jason no I'm just kidding um no lives tomorrow Memorial Day weekend I'm going to chattan nooga with the family uh for our last little weekend outing with the family before we have a baby in six weeks six weeks baby dtin getting here baby number two six weeks um so you have a good one we'll see yall next week next Tuesday and love you all to death peace