Tag Archives: LinkedIn

About.me – your online business card

February 08, 2011   Sinead Cullen   No comments

This is a super tool which we’ve started using in here. As you’ll know, we are huge fans of LinkedIn. For people with a slightly larger online footprint (blog, facebook, contact details etc.) there is a super new site called http://About.me. Recently launched, if you register now you should be able to get a good username. It’s a 1 page site which will allow you to write a profile of yourself, picture, and various links – in one handuy location.

On a CV it can save a lot of room, theoretically you could just provide this page instead of email / address / LinkedIn profile etc. As an added bonus to users, there is an analytics tool, so you can see page views by date.

My own page is here, and our IT-guru-in-chief Gab’s is here

What do you think of the site? Let us know if you sign up!

-Brian

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LinkedIn and Recruiter Behaviour

November 09, 2010   Sinead Cullen   No comments

As regular readers of this blog will know we are huge fans of LinkedIn. As early adopters on the site we have seen things develop from the early days. We are all paid up Business account users. It is a superb resource to use, it gives unique access to high level contacts within organisations and visibility to candidates who might be on the lookout for suitable vacancies.

One slightly worrying development we are seeing, however, is recruiters who seem to have a slightly looser sense of ethics when it comes to using the site. In conversation with a friend who works in Medical Sales, she informs me that she is contacted almost on a daily basis by people via the site. When these approaches are genuine, researched, personalized and targeted, she will respond politely that she’s not on the lookout currently. However, some of what she receives is clearly just copy and pasted; clearly a form of spam. The more of this which occurs, the more
complaints LinkedIn will receive and the ultimate result is that functionality will be restricted. Another negative is that people will start to hide their profiles more, or even, stop using the site completely. This is of benefit to no one in the equation.

Of course we realise that there is a learning curve involved and mistakes will be made. We’ve all crossed someone on the wrong day and been met with a frosty response – that’s business. However once we all conduct ourselves in a professional manner and approach people in a balanced and honest way, there shouldn’t be any issues.

We would therefore urge all of our friends in recruitment to act in a hyper-targeted, ethical fashion when using the site. Please don’t proactively target people who have “Interested In – Career Opportunities” unticked – don’t spoil it for the rest of us!

-Brian (bhc at lifescience dot ie)

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Being Creative in a Tough Market

February 10, 2010   Jamie Savage   No comments

It’s a tough market for jobs. No prizes there. If you are as unfortunate as to be out of work at the present time, differentiation is the key. This can’t be stressed enough. As well as the usual advice you’ll be given (knock on as many doors as possible, follow up all contact, keep yourself busy and in good shape), there are other things you can be doing.

It can’t be stressed how much potential lies in the internet. IT professionals can get outsourced work, people can open ecommerce shops in minutes (eBay) and everyone and the uncle seems to be an “expert” at something or other (“social media guru anyone??!). However, if you are willing to dig deep and work harder than the next person, opportunities will come your way:

Get active on Twitter – e.g. one guy I know there works for a large scientific/healthcare company. This isn’t obvious from the outset, but were I a jobseeker I would get in touch with him and see who he knows, these things quickly snowball. How many examples are there out there of people in the same situation? It must be stressed that sitting on the net isn’t enough, there are lots of various meet-ups going on, from out of work professionals and entrepreneurs to carious networking events. You will only strengthen any relationships built online here.

Build an impressive LinkedIn profile – OK, so you may not have a huge amount of experience, but at least sell what you do have to the utmost of your abilities. Get in involved with groups (even start your own if you see a niche) and discussions.

Get in touch with old colleagues / classmates – many are working in other roles and pursuing other opportunities, they all have new and diverse networks. It may not be easy or come naturally to you, but ask for help and leads, people are generally very willing to help out where possible.

Learn new stuff – you mightn’t have the resources to do new courses. No problem, again there are almost endless resources on the net. Learn html; build websites, graphic design, whatever you’re interested in. You can find it here. And you can find hundreds of people with the exact same interest who will help you along the way. As the Bible says “Just as iron sharpens iron, one man sharpens another.” (Proverbs 27:17)

I’d love to hear your thoughts on the above and other ideas you have

-Brian (bhc at lifescience.ie)

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Managing your web footprint

September 02, 2009   Jamie Savage   No comments

Now the following is mostly applicable to jobseekers, but most if not all of us will be jobseekers in the future, this applies to us all. With people spending more and more time on the internet, footprints are left. Most of these are deliberate, what’s important is that your footprint represents who you are, or at least for the purpose of the interview, who you want to be portrayed as!

LinkedIn: can be a hugely powerful tool, I have heard of numerous people who have secured roles wither directly or indorectly here. So fill it in like your CV, with almost the same amount of detail and using the same degree of care here. Use the settings to subtley suggest that you might be on the look out for a role (if you are). You can do this by saying you’re interested in “Career Opportunities” and “Job Inquiries”.

Faceoook: OK we know we all like to view drunken pictures of our friends, but if you are on the job hunt, your safest bet is to assume any potential employers will be looking here. Because more and more are! To do this you hjave 2 options: Lock your account to your friends only or make sure any pics tagged of you are “PG”! That’s it. As Facebook is becoming more and more searchable, instances of people being refused roles due to the impression they give on Facebook will only rise, guaranteed. Don’t let this happen to you.

Bebo: Many people in the 25-35 bracket seem to be straying away from Bebo, I would recommend that same.

Blogs / Twitter: These can be extremely useful tools to enhance your CV. If you are an expert on a subject, or merely have an interest and you have the time / inclinati0on to write about it, then do. Then reference the blog in your CV, and if potential employers see that you’re a knoewledgable and professional person, this can only enhance your application and distinguish you from your peers. The same applies to Twitter, keep things consistent, interesting and relevant.

Google: Google yourself and make sure any hits related to you are the ones you would like other to see.

While we’re on the subject, we have presences on all of the above, so add / link / keep in touch with us!

Facebook Also our colleagues at Sales and Marketing.ie

My LinkedIn profile. And our Life Science Recruitment company profile

Life Science Recruitment on Twitter, or search for @sciencejobs

And our popular Science Blog

-Brian (brian dot c at lifescience dot ie)

Note: this post was brought about by one posted by our friend Ivan, here.

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