Maximise your chances

Regular use of online job posting platforms is an important factor in job search and career change, and LinkedIn is a professional social media platform, so it’s worth filling out your profile in detail and maintaining an active presence on the platform to find the best professional opportunities.

Here’s what Borbála Bacsó, our Senior Recruiter, says about what she looks at on jobseekers’ LinkedIn profiles and how even those who are passive viewers can improve their chances.

1. Keyword based search

Recruiters, HR professionals, professional managers looking for a new colleague filter by keywords in different databases, so the more detailed your profile, the more likely you are to be found in a given search. LinkedIn is a pretty user-friendly interface for this, showing you what percentage of your profile is complete and what you should add. What you should look out for is to include keywords from your profession, experience and daily activities.

2. The first impression

As recruiters have to go through many similar searches in a day, they will first check if you have the location, current position and language skills or other similar skills that are essential to fill the position. So if you don’t provide these correctly, you’ll be eliminated from the pool of potential candidates in the ‘first round’, even if you would otherwise be the best person for the job. It is therefore worth specifying a location and skills that match your future plans and dream job.

3. Professional experience

For your work experience, it is worth listing your responsibilities, day-to-day and periodic tasks, and the stakeholders with whom you have been in regular contact. Remember, this is where you want to sell yourself, so any small role that you have learnt from and can present in a relevant way in a later oral interview should count. In your wording, feel free to show the impact your work has had and the results you have achieved.

4. Add skills, skillsets

Skills are very important in today’s labour market and many employers screen candidates on this basis. If you look at some of the job postings on LinkedIn, you can see the skills required for each position. If you’re stuck and the automated suggestions aren’t right for you, look at job ads that you like and would apply for, and incorporate into your profile the skills that apply to you.

5. Professional presentation

This is where you should summarise what you think is an exciting direction for you to take in your career, where you want to go, what you are passionate about in your work, so that whoever looks at it can see what offers might be relevant to you. You can also specify what you don’t want to do, so that when you’re more senior you can narrow down the number of enquiries. But if you want to get as many job offers as possible, stick to positive statements, as you never know what opportunities an enquiry might offer if you’re prepared to negotiate flexibly.

6. Profile picture

We can’t stress enough how important it is to set up a professional photo, as this is how you present yourself to potential employers. So it’s important to think about the message you want to send to companies. Although a studio photo is unlikely to be expected anywhere, while a more creative, artistic profession may find a more relaxed image convincing, a more corporate-bound environment will require a formal image. If you’re clueless, ask a few relatives or friends for their opinion, but you probably can’t go wrong with a more professional, serious image.

7. Up-to-date information

It may seem obvious, but surprisingly often we can forget to update our profile. Have you taken a new training course? Have your language skills improved? New responsibilities in your current position? Achieved a success in one of your projects? Not only job changes, these are also worth adding to your profile, as they will further refine your image, get you listed in more relevant searches and build your professional image.

8. Open-to-Work

Many people are wary of this, but for recruiters it’s a very useful indicator of how active you are in your job search, whether they are writing to you, whether you will respond to enquiries. You can also do this by not showing the green badge on your profile and excluding recruiters at your current job, so you don’t get in trouble for looking.

If you enjoyed this article and would like more useful career building advice, sign up to our newsletter and follow us on our social media platforms, or visit our website for the latest job vacancies and career advice. Moving forward can often be stressful on your own. That’s where a team of trained consultants can help, who by profession help business clients and job seekers alike with labour market issues every day.

If you are interested in how we can find you a job free of charge, read our article on the subject or contact us at cv@idbc.hu. We are here to support you on your journey. Contact us and take the next step in your career!