Effective Networking with LinkedIn

While many will indicate the need to ask your friends and associates for two individuals to contact who might know about a hiring manager, taking up valuable time in informational interviews, a faster way is to get to your list of hiring managers using LinkedIn.  LinkedIn has more than 90 million participants so chances are many if not most of your hiring managers will be in the system, especially if they are in a large company.

LinkedIn can be used for both getting recruiters and hiring managers to search you using your keywords gleaned from job announcements that represent your skills and talents.  The size or numbers of your contacts and their contacts increases your visibility to these recruiters.  So continue working on getting connected.  A a little known feature about LinkedIn is the power of group linkages.

You can and should have up to 50 groups you belong to which should include most of your hiring managers.  While you can only message individuals who are your primary connections using the LinkedIn free service, you can message those who are within your same groups.  And LinkedIn lets you see how you are connected to these hiring managers in your search.  To message them without charge, go to groups and then select from the drop down box the category "people".  Go to the advanced search and indicate the level of position that is your prospective hiring manager (Vice President, Director, Manager, etc.)  Indicate current position, not past position and indicate your zip code.  After you get 100-300 of these individuals hit the save key and name your search for future reference.  You can save 3 searches (SLC hiring HR mng or KC hiring HR manager or KC telecom manager).

Next you prepare a powerful message, email Neldon at neldondemke@yahoo.com to get a copy of the template and subject line. This first email is critical to get right (just enough words to get a response).   Save list of hiring managers (you need to get their email address if you can't get them to connect to you) either on 3 by 5 cards or in an Excel database.  I'll link an excel sheet later.  Go to the LinkedIn group you share with them and search them by name and when you locate them, send them an email message (template from Neldon). Keep a tally when you contacted them.  Next post will indicate how you manage your hiring manager connections.