What to post on LinkedIn to increase your visibility in your job search

Sarah Doody [00:00:00]: Hey there. I’m Sarah Doody, host of the Career Strategy Podcast. Many professionals are seeking more impact, flexibility, growth, and let’s face it, getting paid what they’re worth. But how do you unlock this in your career? It starts with strategy. I’m taking you behind the scenes of what’s working for my career coaching clients. You’ll hear strategies and actionable, yet sometimes against the grain, advice for how you can be the CEO of your career and stop dreading Mondays. Ready to level up your career? Let’s get friend. Welcome back to another episode of the Career Strategy Podcast.

Sarah Doody [00:00:43]: And today, we are going to dive into something that might be a little bit uncomfortable or something that you kind of resist doing in your job Sarah. And that thing is to be engaging on LinkedIn. So here’s the simple truth. A lot of people who hire spend time on LinkedIn. And when people are hiring and vetting candidates, 1 of the places they more than likely go to is your LinkedIn profile. So to increase your chances of standing out and creating a really strong first impression, it is extremely important to be posting strategically on LinkedIn. Now I totally get it. Not everyone is comfortable sharing their thoughts on LinkedIn and posting for everyone to see.

Sarah Doody [00:01:41]: Maybe you had a negative experience in the past, maybe you don’t know what to write, maybe you are worried of saying the wrong thing, and I totally get it. People on the Internet can be pretty mean and take their own kind of frustrations probably on their own lives out on other people in the comments. I have definitely been subject to that from people on my posts, But I will say that the benefits of posting on LinkedIn, in my opinion, far outweigh some of the negative things that maybe you encountered in the past. And let’s go into some ideas of what you can post on LinkedIn to increase your visibility. So there’s 2 things we are going to cover in this episode, and we’ll go into them in detail. Number 1 is how to share your Experience, and number 2 is how to engage with people in the comments of their own posts. So number 1, sharing your expertise. 1 of the questions I’m asked all the time is, what do I post on LinkedIn? Like, you see that blank box, compose a message, and your mind just has no idea what to write in that box.

Sarah Doody [00:03:09]: So I want to give you some ideas, but first let’s think of the strategy behind why we are posting on LinkedIn. And like I said, part of it is to increase your visibility. You know, if someone goes to your LinkedIn profile and you haven’t posted anything in 9 months, they’re not gonna probably click into that because it’s kind of outdated. If they go to someone else’s profile that says, like, post from yesterday, post from 3 days ago, etcetera, they might be more likely to click into it. And when they click into it, that means they’re on your profile, which is great because the moment someone lands on your LinkedIn profile, they are 1 step closer to getting to know you and maybe seeing how you could be a great candidate for a role they’re hiring for, whether they’re hiring now or maybe in the future. That is the goal. We want to increase your visibility and be showcasing your expertise for whatever your job or specialty is, and we’re going to do that through the literal content that you were posting on LinkedIn. Now, 1 of the things you could do is you could react to content.

Sarah Doody [00:04:33]: For example, if you listen to an awesome podcast episode, you could write a little recap of that episode with just 1 or 2 takeaways and post that on your LinkedIn profile. Of course, you could do the same with an article, a video, a book you read, whatever it is. But, you could kind of use this reacting idea of reacting to content. You could also, you know, reflect on content. Maybe you are, you listen to a podcast episode and it got you thinking about a challenge, you know, on a project you worked on or something like that. Maybe you tell a story that relates to whatever that podcast or article was about. Another thing you could do is you could curate content. So, you know, just the other day, I saw someone post a really great list.

Sarah Doody [00:05:24]: I think it was 20 different tools and software that they use to plan and facilitate and and conduct workshops with at their company. And so that list went pretty viral. I forget how many comments and likes it had, but I stumbled across it and I saved it because I thought, oh, this is really awesome. And so that could be another thing you could Doody. Thinking about curating a list of, you know, tools and software you use or podcasts or books or articles, whatever it is that might relate to whatever you do in your job. Another thing you could do is you could create a conversation. And by that, I mean, you could ask a really potentially controversial or thought provoking question on LinkedIn. You could even try and do this as a poll, but I find with polls, people are kinda just clicking their answer and moving on.

Sarah Doody [00:06:29]: Whereas if you ask an open ended question in your post, you may be more likely to have people joining in this conversation, but that is key. Using an open ended question versus just something they could reply to, you know, with yes or no. So creating a conversation with an open ended question. Another thing you could do is you could kind of share a resource, a software, maybe an event, an upcoming event that is related to your industry or niche or something like this. This is slightly different than curating content. By curating content, I mean, more like a list of things versus sharing a single resource or a single software. And the thing that you wanna be mindful of is don’t just post a link and say this this event looks cool. Check it out.

Sarah Doody [00:07:26]: Like, do a little bit of work to write why you think this event looks interesting or why you are sharing this software. I see so many people just do LinkedIn posts or comments that just have like a link to something, but they’re not explaining why they are sharing it and trying to kind of explain to people, hey, this is why I think this is cool, and maybe you want to check it out too. So those are some of the ways that you can share your expertise. Of course, writing kind of more long form articles about maybe how you solved different problems, you know, on a project you were recently working on, or maybe you figured out a shortcut or some type of thing that saves you time in software that relates to your industry. All of those things are great ways to share your knowledge, And when you share your knowledge, you increase your visibility. And when you increase your visibility, you are more likely to be seen and potentially stand out to people hiring or even just people who work at companies where maybe you want to work. Alright. So that’s sharing your expertise.

Sarah Doody [00:08:39]: Now, the second thing that we need to be doing when we’re actively looking for a job is we need to be engaging with people at companies where we want to work at. And this is important and I’ll link to it in the show notes that this relates to how the LinkedIn algorithm works inside LinkedIn recruiter. LinkedIn Recruiter is this paid tool that recruiters often use to find and organize candidates. And so 1 of the things that the algorithm factors in is how engaged a person is with companies where they have applied to work at. And that could mean engaging with the company’s posts on LinkedIn or engaging with people who work at that company. So if you wanna get hired at Home Depot, United Airlines, whatever it is, you should be prioritizing, engaging with people who work at those companies. Now engaging effectively means going beyond just saying, cool, neat, thanks, like, leaving an emoji on their post. That would be weird if you did that in real life.

Sarah Doody [00:09:54]: Right? In real life, you would have more of a conversation. That’s what we are trying to do on LinkedIn in the comments of people who work at companies where we wanna work. So couple of things you could Doody. You could ask a follow-up question. You read their post. It gets you thinking, I wonder about this or how did they do that? Ask a question. Another thing you could do, you could offer a counterpoint. You know, if they’re making some bold statement or claim or something like that, you could respond with a counterargument.

Sarah Doody [00:10:25]: Maybe you disagree or you just have a varying opinion, that could be something to do. Another thing you could do is maybe share a similar situation. Maybe they’re recounting a recent challenge or a recent thing that happened to them and it reminds you of a similar experience or problem or challenge you had to figure out, maybe you share some of your experience and maybe, you know, part of your solution. Maybe you took a different path. That’s another thing you could do. And then the last thing you could do is if this person maybe shared a methodology or a shortcut or some tip or trick or really anything that may have helped you be more efficient or productive or knowledgeable in your job or area of expertise, you could go back to that post and tell them, hey, I saw that this post a little while ago, I implemented what you Sarah, and here’s what happened. So kind of just following up with them to let them know, hey. Thanks for helping me, and this is how it helped.

Sarah Doody [00:11:34]: That’s another thing you could do to increase your visibility with these people who work at companies where you want to work. So to recap, when you are actively looking for a job, love it or hate it, LinkedIn is a very important place to increase your visibility. And you can do that through 2 key activities: sharing your expertise related to your field, job, etc, and engaging with people’s posts who work at companies where you want to work because that feeds into the algorithm. Now there’s 1 last thing I wanna mention, and I’ll link to this in the show notes as well. But you really want to be mindful of not treating LinkedIn like a journal or somewhere where you just air all your grievances and complaints. Because imagine if you’re hiring for a role and you go to someone’s LinkedIn profile, and it’s just post after post of complaining about recruiters, hiring managers, whatever it is, that doesn’t exactly create a really great first impression of you. It’s more likely that you’re gonna create a great first impression if they see posts about your knowledge related to whatever your job is. Right? So we’ll link to that in the show notes.

Sarah Doody [00:12:57]: It’s episode 56 if you just wanna go find it. And that is all. So I hope today’s episode has made you realize the importance of being strategically active on LinkedIn and really leveraging the power of LinkedIn in your job search, whether that’s now or in the future. Alright. I hope you have a great rest of your day. And if you have a friend who is looking for a job right now, maybe just send this episode over to them right now because potentially they’re not paying attention to LinkedIn or they’re not using it the right way. And maybe they just switch their strategy. It could really shift the visibility factor and maybe help them get more interviews, which would be awesome.

Sarah Doody [00:13:47]: Alright. Thanks again. I will see you in another episode. Thanks for listening to the Career Strategy Podcast. Make sure to follow me, Sarah Doody, on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, or LinkedIn. If anything in today’s episode resonated with you, I’d love to hear about it. Tag me on social media or send me a DM. And lastly, if you found this episode helpful, I’d really appreciate it if you could share it with a friend or give us a quick rating on Spotify or review on Apple Podcasts.

Sarah Doody [00:14:20]: Catch you later.