Elluminate Career Development Workshops Session: Using Social Media in Your Job Search Date: May 4, 2011 Speakers: Jill Klees and Scott Brown

Transcription

1 Elluminate Career Development Workshops Session: Using Social Media in Your Job Search Date: May 4, 2011 Speakers: Jill Klees and Scott Brown >> Jill Klees: Hello everyone and thank you for joining us tonight on our first Wednesday of the month Career Development Elluminate session. This is Jill Klees. And I'm going to continue doing these sessions through the summer. So, be sure to mark your calendars for the first Wednesday of the month. And, tonight we're diving into some new territory, which I'm really excited about. We're going to be talking about using social media in your job search. And, this is just one more strategy that you can add to your toolkit of job search resources. And, I've just added a new section to the career development site on slisweb that goes over using social media. And, it provides some detailed information on what social media is, how you can go about creating a profile, and how to use the site, and just some additional important tips. And, I have the link to it right there just in case. But, I'd like to know, you could just show with a happy face, how many of you who are on tonight have checked this site out already or who are aware that it's there? Yeah Scott, okay there are a few people. But, really it's kind of just a handful. So, hopefully this kind of excites your interest and, certainly after hearing everything tonight,that you're going to be encouraged to go back and check out the information that's on the site. But, I think its really good stuff and I'd be appreciative to get your feedback and some comments on it as well. So, tonight, we're very fortunate to have Scott Brown with us. He's an adjunct professor here at SJSU for SLIS. And Scott's one of the social media experts. So, I want you to be sure to ask him lots of questions tonight as we're going through this information. And, Scott, I'll give you the mic if you want to say hello or say anything before we get started. >> Scott Brown: Thanks Jill. Hi everybody. My name is Scott Brown and I'm very pleased to be here tonight. I think I'm actually going to do a little online demonstration in a little bit. So, I want to make sure that Jill has plenty of time to share her wisdom because, and I would actually emphasize along with her, be sure and check out the link that she's put up there because it really is a good, kind of, step by step guide to get you started on social media. >> Jill Klees: Thanks Scott. Scott actually helped us write the section a little bit too. We've got some good resources on there. So, tonight we have just about 45 to 60 minutes on here. So, Scott is going to be covering some of the high points of using social media. It is going to be recorded. So, if anybody needs to drop off early, just know that the information will be recorded and it's going to be there. So, here's what we're going to do. We are going to talk about, what social media sites are. We're going to talk about why you want to use them. Then, Scott's going to try to hit the key points of how to maximize them in your job search. And, for the focus of tonight, we're going to focus mainly on using LinkedIn. So, before we get started, how many of you right now have some sort of social media presence out there? Meaning, you have a LinkedIn account or you're using Facebook or Twitter, or maybe you've created a blog of your own or you're blogging a bit. Oh fantastic. Oh my gosh, that's fantastic, excellent, all right. This is going to be good. Those of you who responded, which sites are you using? As far as sites, it's going to let us know, that helps Scott and I also know which sites most people are using. So, whether it be LinkedIn, facebook, Twitter. A lot of facebook.

2 [ Silence ] Wow, look at that a lot of facebook. So, that's interesting for me. Okay, so for those, well there's only a couple of you who didn't respond. But, for those few of you who didn't respond to really using social media, give me a sense of, give us a sense of how come. You know, you're feeling some resistance to it or is there some level of intimidation? [ Silence ] The time suck. So, we're going to talk about that, I think. That's a good one. [ Silence ] All right. [ Silence ] I can absolutely relate to the facebook privacy issues. I'll just kind of share just real quick with me, my thing with it is some of the reasons you guys have put up there is the privacy issues and maybe not quite sure how to do it. I totally get that, because I actually was really resistant to using social media at all. I kind of felt that whole sense like it was a little bit invasive for me. And I was sort of nervous about putting myself out there in a virtual world. And, I did feel like it was an invasion of my privacy. So, I think I've been a little, I've been resistant as well. But, I've been really educating myself on the topic and I've attended webinars, you know, similar to what we're doing tonight. I've gone to a workshop, I've read a lot of articles about it. And then, of course, I was writing the content for the website. And, I've been working on getting my LinkedIn profile current. It's 95% which I'm quite proud of. But, once I started doing all that, I became kind of interested in it. I think it's kind of fun. But, hopefully, after hearing what we're going to share with you tonight, that, you'll be more encouraged to check it out as well. But, certainly do bring up some of the questions that you have, if we haven't addressed them already, to go through the information tonight about what some of your concerns are and how you can effectively use the tools for a job search. And, Scott, let me know if this, I'm going to give the microphone to you to see if there's anything else that you want to share real quickly about your thoughts overall about using social media. >> Scott Brown: You know, the only thing that I will add, and what I'll probably just bring a note to touch on briefly towards the end is, for any of these tools, as you know on facebook you can certainly set your privacy chat. LinkedIn is a little, certainly a little better than facebook. Facebook does, is kind of notorious for changing privacy settings without you necessarily knowing about it. And, ironically, you find out about it because someone on facebook posts the privacy setting. But the nice thing about using a tool like LinkedIn is, primarily, it is for professional use. And so, you use it, you share information differently on it. And so, it's almost like the content that you share helps safeguard your privacy as well. But, we'll talk about that a little bit as we get into that as well. >> Jill Klees: Okay so let's talk about what social media is. I already asked you this question to kind of find out about where people were at and what sites that they were using. So, when you use social media, I really think of it, in terms of a job search, I think of it as just one more way for you to market yourself and to really show, in a different way from your resume, how you can add value to an employer or to their organization. And, that piece I'm really kind of liking. It is different from the resume. It allows you to branch out a little bit more and show us, I think, a bigger picture of who you are and really what you can offer. It's also about developing an online networking connection. So, we've talked a lot about networking and the importance of that. And, in

3 fact, the last two webinar sessions we've done, one was on networking and one was on informational interviewing. And, it's all about this kind of tapping into the hidden job market and making some of those networking connections with people. And, this is just one additional link to expand those connections. It's also a nice way to make you accessible to some of the decision makers out there like HR people and recruiters and hiring managers who actually might be looking for somebody with your skills, your qualifications, and your interests. So, I think that's some of the important issues. Another way you can use it is to join groups. And, Scott will show you about that when he pulls up his profile on LinkedIn. But, you can also connect to different groups and different resources that's of interest to you. And that way, I think of it as a way to be connected with some likeminded people or just people who have similar interests to you. This I pulled up just so you could see some of the groups that I'm connected to for example. I connect to career development groups just in general. And, I connect to career development groups that are in higher ED. I also connect to LIS groups because that helps me keep current in the field because I'm not an LIS person. I'm a career development person. But, it helps me understand more about the field so that I can be more effective when I'm working with all of you. And also, in my other life, I'm a group exercise instructor. So, through LinkedIn, for example, I can connect to different groups of people in the fitness industry because that's an interest of mine. And, that helps keep me connected with all these different elements that are important to me and I can get resources and then expand my network. And then, again, people can find me and they can see the things that I'm interested in. So, I'm liking the way that I can, sort of, position myself and sort of market myself out there. So, what questions do you all have so far, or do you have any questions so far? I just want to check in really quick before we move on. And, I can give you the mic. I'll give up the mic if anybody's interested. [ Silence ] Allison's question about are these groups on facebook or LinkedIn? These are all LinkedIn. I am not that comfortable with using facebook. I, like most of you, kind of have that issue with the privacy issues. But, I've really found that LinkedIn is something that I can comfortably connect with and I like it. And, I like it because it's a professional networking site. So, I feel more comfortable with it. So, these groups are groups that I'm connected with on LinkedIn. And, how I found these groups is, and Scott can show you this when he pulls it up as well, but, there's just a whole section of groups. And you can type in different areas that you have of interest and they'll pull it up and you can connect with one. And then, when you connect with these groups, that opens you up to connecting with more people who are part of these groups. It's really, really pretty cool. [ Silence ] Thanks Kristine, here I'll let go of the mic. Here you go Brandy. >> Brandy: Will you be covering the topic of kind of extending an invitation to maybe people who you don't know to try to make connections or do you have any thoughts on that? >> Jill Klees: Yeah absolutely. I'll give you my thought and then, I'll let Scott share. And he can probably show you, actually, when he goes into his LinkedIn account as well. But, one thing that I've done is, and I'm sure Scott's going to recommend the same thing. But first when you go in, say, to LinkedIn for example, and, you know, you've created your profile and then you want to connect with people. You think about, first of all, who are all the people that

4 I already know? Who are the people that I work with? Who are some of the other students in the program? And, you find those people that you know and you connect with them. But, for me, connecting with some people that I don't know, I have been to workshops or been to a conference where I met somebody there, you know, real briefly met them. And then, I would go back, I'd find them on LinkedIn and I would send them an invitation, which, I think Scott will be able to show you how to do it. And then, I connect with people that way. So, it starts to build my network. Yes, and Brandy, so you definitely will start making some connections with some people. It could be faculty members here, it could be some other students in the program. And again, if you attend conferences and workshops you're going to meet people and that's a way for you to connect. Scott, let me give you the mic and see if there's something else that you want to add to that right now too. >> Scott Brown: Yeah, I just actually put a comment through the chat screen. You know, if you're not connected with people in particular industries, it's certainly an area that you're moving into. Groups are a great way to start to see what the buzz is in that particular topic area or in the industry. And, you can actually see who are the active participants or, you know, how people think within the group as they share on discussions. And, that's actually a good way to potentially, then, directly connect with those people as well, but you can say. And, I will demonstrate some kind of invitation or something on a connection so you can say I've seen your comments on the group. And, you know, I would be interested in connecting with you. And, the nice thing is, a lot of people who are on these tools already, they expect to be connected with people they don't, maybe don't necessarily know well. So, a lot of it is simply kind of getting over your hesitation. And, when I say that, I mean mine and everybody else's hesitation of actually connecting with people. It just happens very natural. And, don't get offended if someone doesn't accept your invitation. >> Jill Klees: I think, one interesting point about people not accepting your invitation is I find some people send me an invitation and I don't know who the heck they are. And, they haven't put anything in the message that they sent to me to give me an indication as to how they might know me. Or, if I got to their profile, there's nothing about it that I get where they know me. So, that's when I may not accept their invitation. But, if people, for me personalize the invitation just a bit so, you know, I heard about you from this person. Or, I saw you when you were giving a presentation. Or sometimes, you know, they could say I notice we have similar profession, or similar background or similar interest areas. I wanted to connect with you. Then I'm more willing to go oh yeah, okay, and I will accept their invitation. So, I personally just found that that works for me. [ Silence ] There's still some people that are typing in some questions. I'm just going to pause a moment and we'll catch up with some of those just to make sure nobody gets left behind here. Okay, I'm going to move this along. So, here's some additional reasons why you'd want to use a social media site or, perhaps, just LinkedIn. But again, it's a way to find some unofficial job postings. And, that's what we've talked a lot about that networking piece. So, I think, that's what's very, very comfortable. One thing I do want to say is, at least try social media, some of the sites. But, if after trying it, you find like this is just not your thing, that it's something you don't feel comfortable with, then don't do it. It's not something that you have to do. It's just something that's optional. And it's just one more strategy, one more thing that

5 people can do to connect with others. But, I just want to say again, if you're not comfortable with it, don't do it. But, you should know that there are an increasing number of employers that are using social media sites to recruit and advertise for employees. Just to give you an example, twice a year I organize a panel at San Jose State for new grads. And I have employers come and it's on the panel that I ask them different questions about career development and job search. And, I always ask employers about how important they feel that it is for a student or new grad to have a LinkedIn presence, usually it's LinkedIn we talk about because that's a professional site. And, do they ever search for people on those sites? So, one, just to let you know, they always recommend that students have a LinkedIn profile and keep it current. Secondly, they said they don't typically recruit that way. But, they will often go out to the site to see what information is out there about some particular student or new grad that they may be considering hiring. So, that's just information that I get from employers who are coming on campus looking for new grads. And, I think that's a piece of interesting information for you all to know. So, Patricia's wondering about how to connect or strike up a conversation via . I think, it is okay to ask a question even if you're not connected? Absolutely, I mean, I think that's what the sites are all about. And, I think that's a way for you to start those connections with people is to send them your question and give people that opportunity to respond back. And usually, then, people will connect with you. [ Silence ] So, Alvin's question is about identifing race by going and looking at a potential employee's facebook page. You know, I think this becomes a personal issue. And, Scott I'd like to get your thoughts on that as well. But, you know, that's one of those interesting pieces that, if you put it out there, you choose to put it out there, then, you are making that conscious choice to put it out there. So, that's where it sort of becomes optional for people. I'm going to let go of the mic because it looks like somebody wants to use it. [ Silence ] >> Patricia: I was trying to clarify my question. So, if I see somebody on LinkedIn whom I would like to connect with or some other company, should I first try to send them an because we're in the same group and connect with them? or, just establish a conversation and then request to connect with them to go further or do you just, because they're in the same group, connect with them and then after that try to strike up a conversation? [ Silence ] >> Jill Klees: Well, hello Patricia. And Scott, would you mind taking that question? I actually want to hear what you have to say and how you would answer that question. >> Scott Brown: Part of it I guess depends on each situation. I think, there are subtleties to it. So, depending upon the situation, I might choose to do one thing or another. If it's someone that I don't know and haven't connected with before but there's someone that I want to connect with, and, if LinkedIn is the only connection that I really can have to them, typically, I'll opt into and do the LinkedIn connection. And again, you know, I'll show you exactly, you can actually type in a personal message when you reach out to connect with somebody. And I'm a very big proponent of being very transparent about why you want to connect with somebody. You know, because, particularly, if you're a student or

6 you're interested in a company or you're interested in a new industry or talking with somebody in a new industry, it's okay to say, you know, I saw your profile on LinkedIn. I see you're in this group, you know, whatever the context is, and I'm just really interested in talking with people in that industry or working at the company that you're working at. And, was wondering if you would be willing to connect and, you know, maybe we can have a, you know, 15 minute conversation or something like that, whatever the situation is. But, being very open and honest about why you're connecting, I found that works quite well. [ Silence ] >> Jill Klees: Thanks Scott. Okay, I'm going to continue on with why you want to use, what are some good reasons for why you'd want to use social media. But, I think, another one that's important, particularly for all of you in the library information science field, is that it demonstrates to employers that you have current internet and social media capabilities. And, I think that's really important for all of you because it's going to show that you have a pulse on current technology and you literally can be demonstrating that you can successfully use these tools. And, I think, that's a huge plus. So, I think that's just one main point to consider as well. It also helps you to develop and showcase your personal brand or your online profile. And, I think of that as kind of like painting a picture of the whole you. And, for me, it comes back to, you know, we can send our resumes out which kind of shows one piece of us. But, you know, having a LinkedIn profile, for example, I think just shows that bigger picture and can bring in different elements about what you do, different things you're involved in, maybe some different things that you have even created that don't come across on the resume. So, I think, that's an important piece. And I'm sort of liking that the more I start working with it, I'm finding that as a real positive. I like that Scott calls it the 3D presence. I think that's really good, yeah, I definitely see that and I'm feeling that. As I said, I'm kind of new to this myself. So, a couple more things, again, building your professional networking contacts which we've talked a lot about. And, I did mention that sometimes, like I connected with somebody, first it was just via . And, she's a recruiter that works at simplyhired.com. And, because I work at San Jose State, she actually, called me. She got my number, she gave me a call, and she was asking me a particular question about, something that I'd be using to find particular jobs on simplyhired. But, after that conversation, I went to LinkedIn and I found her and then I sent her an invitation to connect with her because I thought, okay I just made a connection with somebody, let me just go ahead and send this off. And, that was a way of increasing the number of people that I know. So, another advantage, it allows you to research industries, companies, and positions of interest. And, we've talked a little bit about that already, how you can make those connections with people. and again, when Scott pulls up his profile, he can show you exactly how you can go in and you can find companies you can find groups all particular jobs will start popping up. It's really, really pretty cool. And the other thing that we talked about is having your profile out there does make you visible to hiring managers and again people who are in positions to make decisions. On LinkedIn, for example, when you pull it up, your profile up, you can actually see, it'll tell you how many times your profile has come up in a person's search. And, it will tell you who is viewing your profile. So, that's kind of a neat things that you can get a sense of wow I'm actually popping up and people are interested in seeing what I have out there. I think that's a pretty cool thing. So, this is just kind of overall the high level of what social media is, why you want to use it, what some of the benefits are. Your next thing would be to pick a site that you want to use. And

7 again, we're focusing more on LinkedIn tonight because that's more of a professional networking site. And the next thing that you'd want to do is create your profile. And creating your profile, we're not going to go into that tonight because that's really pretty straightforward. On LinkedIn, for example or any of the sites, there's tutorials, there's help menus that can really walk you through that process. And again, there's pretty detailed information on SLIS web, on the career development site under social media. So, just for the sake of time for this evening, I want to hand it over to Scott so that he can pull up his profile and he can kind of get in there and show us some of the juicy stuff. So, Scott, you are on. >> Scott Brown: All right thanks, thank you Jill. Let me switch over. I am going to go ahead and share a browser with you. and it will take just a minute to come over there. I'll make sure I'm over here. [ Silence ] And let me just make sure this is coming over. So, you're probably seeing my screen. But let me switch over to my other browser here. okay, okay so, you should, hopefully, be seeing my LinkedIn profile. You can comment just with a smiley face or something that you are seeing that. [ Silence ] Okay, only black screen, loading, okay. let me try switching back. Yeah, it may just be lag. Let me switch back to the main screen. [ Silence ] And, I'll try sharing that one more time here. are you seeing the back on Jill's slide at this point? Okay, so, let me try, okay, let me try sharing entire desktop and see if that's any better. [ Silence ] And, yep now I have no privacy. You see everything, darn social tools. Okay so, my, my, it looks like, that's the things that it does, it's a little slow here. so, let me try something over to my other browser here, okay. yeah, big old Windows Explorer. Are you seeing, can you give me an indication if you're seeing my LinkedIn screen now? I hope. [ Silence ] I don't know if my whole, I think my, well I think my Elluminate is frozen as well at this point. So, you may or may not be even here with me. okay, yeah, yeah, all right, cool. All right, thank you, thank you for bearing with me. Hopefully this will continue to flow through. So, there are lots and lots of things that we can potentially talk about in LinkedIn as you've heard so far. What I would like to cover, okay yeah, I'm getting lots of red indicators on everything. so, it's maybe that the sound is lagging a bit. my apologies for that. hopefully it will stop. Let me, let me, I'm going to actually exit out of an application here. I'm going to exit out of my so maybe that will help. [ Silence ] So, I'd like to, I'd like to cover three main pieces. And, hopefully, we can do that while looking at the screen as well. Is where, I do want to talk a little bit more about connecting and make sure that we cover the questions involved in that. I do want to talk a little bit about, yeah, I did close the and I think that's helping a little bit. and, talk a little bit about recommendations, particularly, on LinkedIn on your profile and talk about the jobs tab as well. Just because, that is a pretty active feature within LinkedIn. There are, again, many, many other features. And, I do want to talk a little bit about profiles as well and just talk about a few key sections in the profile. And, you know, what I want to say about LinkedIn is it's about both

8 visibility and interaction. So, it's not really, okay, closing everything else too. [ Laughter ] Let me, let me try to close and get out of everything else. And hopefully that will, that will improve things a little bit. sorry about that. [ Silence ] Okay, so that's in the process of closing and hopefully that will, help a bit. no, no, that's fine, my apologies for the technical difficulties here. hopefully that will help clear things up. Again, it's not just about visibility, it's also about interaction. It's not just about finding a job, but, as Jill just said, it's really about making yourself stand out. and, you can do that in a variety of ways. You can do that by making your profile the best it can be. And, you can also do that by participating in LinkedIn by participating in the groups that are of interest to you and really demonstrating, thanks Jamie, really demonstrating that you know yourself. I want to share a story, I know Jill mentioned that, typically, you know, recruiters may not contact you directly through LinkedIn. I actually had the experience, about a year ago, where I got a call out of the blue from a headhunter who said I was looking at your LinkedIn profile and I'm recruiting for a global energy company. And, you look like exactly the kind of person that we want. And, after I picked myself up off the floor, you know, I, at the time I was actually getting my second master's degree in counseling. And, I think, in retrospect, kind of stupidly said, well I'm, you know, getting my, another degree right now and I'm interested but not at this moment. You know, I realized that it brought home to me the power of having a strong profile on LinkedIn. And, you've heard stories about, probably seen newspaper stories about recruiters looking at, not LinkedIn, but facebook and, you know, finding all your pictures at your parties and all that kind of stuff, which is true. And, I just, actually, recently read an article that, I think, it's 80% of college recruiters are now using LinkedIn and facebook when they're reviewing their candidates as they come in. so, if you have an online presence, you are out there. And so, it's important to regard it and use it in a professional manner and decide where you're going to establish your professional presence. Because, what's really nice is to be able to share your LinkedIn profile with anyone who is interested in looking at you professionally. It's great because you can include it in your signature. You can include it at the top of your resume. And, I do that with my resume. It really does supplement who you are and it gives people additional information about who you are. So, let me jump, I'm going to jump into connecting and talk a little bit about who could connect with you. As Jill said, you know, you can connect with people you know, current colleagues that you want to connect with. You can connect with friends. You can connect with people from past jobs, however you want to do it. LinkedIn makes it pretty easy to do that. you can search for people as well. And, you can do that just up here in the people box. It's got a pretty advanced people search. So, you can actually search by industries and a lot of different factors. But, I'm going to actually just kind of illustrate to you, essentially, how to connect with somebody. So, I think, I'm already connected with Jill but I'm not sure, maybe not. So, I'm going to do a search for Jill and see if I can find her profile. And then, I will show you, essentially how I send an invite to people. there she is, look. She, so what, what this is telling me is that she is, and I know that loading may be a little slow on your side. so, I'll just, I'll wait and kind of take it easy. What it's showing me, and this will catch up to you on your side, is that she is a secondary connection to me. so, I'm connected to somebody who is now who is then connected to Jill. And, on the right hand side, what you'll see is a few different options. I have an option to

9 send in mail which is linked into internal function. You have a certain limited number of in mails you can send to people directly as a free participant in LinkedIn. If you get a subscription account where you pay a certain amount each month, you get more in mail. I never, ever, ever use in mail, not, too me, not worth it. there's, get introduced, yes it costs money, there's get introduced which is interesting. What get introduced does is, you create a message that would go, I would create a message that's going to go to Jill. And, if I click this link, it'll show me who it is that I'm connected to that's connected to Jill. And, what would happen is my invitation goes to the person I'm connected to who then decides whether or not they want to send it on to Jill to connect. Usually that link works, but it can also fall apart in the middle of it. here's where the beauty of groups come in. the third link is add to network. And, this is where you can easily build your connections. If I click on add to network, I get a bunch of different options. And, for any of these options, what I can do is add a personal note. And, this is what Jill was talking about earlier. And, I can indicate how I know Jill. Was she a colleague at a past job? Was she a classmate of mine somewhere in my education? Have we done business together? Is she just a friend of mine? Not that that's a bad thing, just a friend. Groups, we're going through groups in a second. Other is an option. If none of these are appropriate for me, I always choose friend because it will go through and I can put a little note. Now, I would never send it as a friend without some kind of explanation as to why I'm sending it. so, you know, I could say, the note I might write is hi Jill, having a great time on the Elluminate session with you, I'd like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn, okay. so, I can send that. the nice thing about being a part of groups is, I can choose a group that we might both be a member of. So, the groups that we share right now are LIS Career Options, which she mentioned, American Library Association, which she mentioned, and San Jose State University, the official group. So, I have three different options. So, if I select one of these, I selected LIS Career Options, what it will do is, on Jill's side, she'll get a message that said Scott Brown wants to connect as a fellow member or something along these lines, as a fellow member of the LIS Career Options, group. So, that tells Jill that, oh okay, we're both part of the same group. And, it tells her, and it sends this personal message from me as well. So, I'm going to go ahead and send that invitation. And, that's, essentially, all I need to do. And that's the etiquette of it. yeah, and Jill's writing, the plain general message is the one that you'll get from people you don't know. and, you'll see those messages and they're totally impersonalized. It just has that message on it that says, you know, I'd like to add you to my network. [ Silence ] [ inaudible ] Yeah, no that's okay. now, there's a lot of different perspectives on connection. And I'll try and move on pretty quickly here. there's a lot of different reasons to connect and a lot of different philosophies. I have a friend, her name is Ellen Naylor. She has, I think, 1,400 connections. Sorry about that, hopefully the audio will hold up here. hopefully it's catching up here. let me click off and click back on. I think my audio is back. Is that working? Are you hearing that hopefully? Okay, all right, great, thank you Jamie, okay good. Sorry about that. So, some people will actually accept any invitation from anybody. In fact she, a friend of mine calls herself, calls herself a LinkedIn slut. And, I can, I can understand that because, to some extent, it's a professional network. And so, why not connect with anybody who wants to connect with you? and so, you know, that's just another perspective on it. so anyway, let's skip over to groups quickly just because I want to be

10 conscious of time. you can use the tab up here. you could also do a search here under people. if you just click on the dropdown box, you'll also have an option to search for groups. But, I'm going to go to the groups tab. When you have the free account with LinkedIn, you can be a member of up to 50 groups five zero groups. And, I am right at my limit as you can see. And, as Jill mentioned, I have, I'm a member of variety of different groups and multiple groups of the same topic as well because sometimes different conversations are going on in there. So, if you've heard of the future ready initiative from SLA, there's a whole group on that. AIIP, I'm just going to just tell you about a few of these. AIIP is Association of Independent Information Professionals. And so, there's actually a first timer's club. There's American Counseling Association because I have my counseling degree now and I do coaching and psychotherapy as well. There's American Library Association. Here's AIIP again and several different groups here. and, for any of these groups, let me go down to, and what's really interesting, yes, and you can get out of groups to add new ones. And, I have colleagues who do that. they get interested in a particular group. And, they join it for a little while. And, when their interests and their needs in that group wanes, then they, then they drop that group. You will also see conferences which is kind of interesting that have groups within LinkedIn. So, this is a, this is a discussion group around the buying and selling of a content conference. So, that's another way to potentially look at different groups in here. I'm going to go down, I'm a member of quite a few ebook groups within LinkedIn. And, if you're interested in one, there are many out there. Digital Book World is pretty awesome. They have an newsletter and they also have an online group. And I don't want to get too bogged down here. but, I do want to illustrate the power of groups. Again, there's discussions going on in here all the time. you know, people sharing articles, and, you can see who it is that's sharing articles. And, it's easy, it's very much like facebook in a lot of ways. You can know like comments. You can comment on people's posts. You can then follow conversations and follow people. and you can, you know, connect with people because all of these people are in the same group with you. and so, you have the ability to connect with them and say hey I'm a member, you know, of this group as well. I'd love to connect with you because I really like the comments that you put out on the discussions. And they go oh how nice. And they really want to connect with you. yes, and you can receive the discussions in the , I believe, if you just click the follow one. If you click into any of these and you post a response to a discussion, you also have the option to continue to be notified of the discussions in that group. So again, you know, there's professional associations, there' topic oriented, I'm sorry, professional association groups, there are topic focused discussion groups. There's practice areas if you're interested in knowledge management. There is a variety of knowledge management groups. There's, pretty much, any kind of group that you could be interested in. so, it's a great, a great way to be able to connect with people, okay. other people that can grow your network quickly, it's not about if you get to connect with HR recruiters because they have a lot of connections and they can build your network quickly. But, groups are really my first choice for building my connections and my visibility within these groups. [ Silence ] The advantage of them participating in groups is that you can participate in the discussion. And, people start to see your perspective, your expertise. And, they start to recognize that you have some knowledge and some abilities in these areas. And that's, you know, that is part of building your network. And, that's the visibility and the interaction piece that I was talking about. I'm going to quickly jump over, I'm actually going to go to jobs and then

11 I'm going to jump back recommendations. Okay, sorry about the audio there. Let me, let me switch over to the jobs piece. [ Silence ] Okay, I'm hoping the audio is back. Trying one more time here, testing, testing, okay good, all right. so, Jackie had a question about other awesome groups out there. There are a lot of awesome groups out there. I'm trying to think of any in particular. I mean, when you search for groups, you can often see, when you see those listings, you can see a little indication of the activity in that group, how many members it has and how many discussions have come, have happened over the past day. And, you can actually see that in your search results for groups. So that's one indication you see about other groups. What I wanted to mention is, on anybody's profile, typically, people that you're connected to, and when we look at my profile you'll see you can actually see all of the groups that I'm a member of if I choose to show those to people. so, that's another great way to find groups that are of interest. You can actually see those things. so, I jumped into the jobs piece just because I wanted to show you this. You can see some of my recent searches here that have been happening within LinkedIn. But I just did a search for library here. and I know, you know, this is, again, more directly looking for jobs. But, once you jump in here, this is where the job search gets a little better, okay. so, you can search for key words, and yeah, it'll tell you, you're right. if you find a great group in a search result, you can get a link that says similar groups. And, that will, often times, get you a lot more relevant results for groups of the same type. so, if you looked up Digital Book World, for example, and then clicked on that similar groups, you're going to get other groups that are just like that. so, in other words, I can take a key word here, in job title, I'm going to type in information instead. You can actually, you can limit it by company. You can actually narrow it down by location. So, you can do country, you can do it down to postal code and then you can do a radius search for these jobs. It's pretty amazing. If you scroll down a little bit, you have other ways that you can refine it, by specific companies, by job function, by industry, by experience level. so, you can actually search, you know, specifically for entry level jobs or whatever kind of jobs that you might want. I'm trying not to scroll too fast to make you dizzy here. so, I'm just going to. [ Silence ] Put in information and job title, and you can actually get some really nice relevance in here. so, you know, I'm picking up IT with this search. I'm picking up IT stuff. But, someone earlier today, I think it's pretty gone into the, oh lost audio again. Okay, let me. [ Silence ] All right, good, good, okay. I just wanted to show you that briefly because there's a lot that you can do there. And, as you can see, you can save the search. So, you can save any search that you want which is very, very nice. And, you see save searches in advanced search up here as well. I want to jump over, I just want to be conscious of our time. I'm going to jump over to profile. And, I'm going to just go to edit profile. So, you're going to be able to see my profile. [ Silence ] Which is fine. [ Silence ] Oh nice, I didn't actually, know about that feature, that's very cool. I didn't know that. so, here is my profile. And we can go through this in very granular detail. And, we don't have the time for that. the part of the class, marketing your LIS skills, we cover, we go through your profile, pretty

12 much, with a fine toothed comb. Yeah, there's a, there's a lot of Scott Browns out there. But, what I want to show you is a few different things, a few key pieces that you make sure you want to fill out. one is your summary piece. And, I think of your summary piece as essentially your cover letter. It's your online cover letter, okay. if you're looking for a particular position, one of the ways that I tell people to think about it is think about it as your cover letter for your ideal position. What would you really, really want to be doing? What is it that your passionate about? What impact do you have, what skills do you bring? This is also where you would want to put in key words for positions that you're looking for. Because, when people do searches across LinkedIn, it searches through your summary, it searches through your specialties which is another really important piece to fill out. and, you'll see that as part of your profile that you're filling out. it searches for those kinds of things to match up those key words. Yeah, it matches, and a lot of people's like, yeah, you know, if you see people without summaries, and that's fine, you know. and, it takes a while to build up your LinkedIn profile. But, these are some of the key parts to put in there, okay. so, that's one of them. specialty's very important. For your descriptions for your individual positions, that's the place to put more of the detail that doesn't fit into your summary slash cover letter. That's where you can provide more detail. Now, I'll actually admit my profile needs some help. What if you're unsure, do you put your ideal sector? I think, you know, Jackie, I think, I've worked with students who are doing a transition from one career to another. And, in some instances, they don't want their old employers to know that they're looking for a new position. And so, they deal with that question and wrestle with that question. And, what I tell them is, you know, you don't have to be specific, but you can get some of those key words into there that are going to stand out to people without necessarily, you know, showing your entire hand. You can, speak in your skill sense, in terms of your transferrable skills that speak to library information positions without necessarily saying I'm specifically looking for a job in a public library or an information position. So, that's one way to kind of work around that. I've seen a lot of different creative summaries. And, some are simply about, you know, saying this is what I'm passionate about. This is what I'd really like to be doing. And, that's fine. Okay so, descriptions, the other thing I want to show you, and again, encourage you to potentially look for, ask for are recommendations. So, you can actually request recommendations from your connections. And, these are, essentially, like letters of recommendation that you would get in person. This feels even weirder than asking people for connections, and even more uncomfortable. But, there's a few tips that I would share with you as far as asking for recommendations. Number one, don't be afraid to ask for them. number two, when you ask someone for a recommendation, give them hint about what you would like them to say or talk about because, often times, I'll get a request for a recommendation that's like could you recommend me. it's like, well, if I don't know you that well, you know, if I've only worked with you a little bit, what do I say about you? and so, you know, sometimes people will say if you could just talk about, you know, my work in this class or the work that I did on this project. That helps me as a recommendation writer to figure out how I'm going to write that recommendation. And yeah they're, you're right Antonio, they're much shorter, they're easier to write. They're a huge ego booster to get, a huge ego booster to get one. And typically it's reciprocal in a lot of cases. You know, if someone writes one for me, typically, I'll write one for them especially if they're up here. even, you know, I've have managers, well, I'll write one for them and they'll write one for me which works out pretty well. And, you can choose, you can choose to not, not display that

13 recommendation. So, a recommendation doesn't get displayed until you actually approve it. so, someone will write one for you and then you have the opportunity to look at it and potentially request changes to it. and, you also have the option whether or not to even display them on your profile. So, I know we've covered a lot of stuff. Let me, I see some questions and comments coming through the chat screen. And, I know we've only got about four more minutes. The other thing I want to point out, that I wanted to be sure we pointed out is, when you're signed in, go to settings because this is the privacy piece. And I'm just going to click on settings and hopefully that'll come through and not kill the audio all together. It's going to ask me to sign in. I won't, I won't mess with this too much. Well, I'll go ahead and click on through. But, through this, there's a couple of things that you want to do is look at your privacy settings. But mostly you can pick and choose what people see on your public profile. So, your public profile is what search engines are going to pick up. So, when someone Googles you, they're picking up what's available through your public profile. And so, you want to be sure that your public profile setting, and that's what people can see even if they're not connected to you, that's what they can see. You want to make sure that those are set to how you want them. and, that is, you can actually, right here is the link, edit your public profile. And that's the way you can pick and choose what sections are available. And I want to go back. Yeah, ego booster, recommendation for a class instructor, information, there's a sector, even though I would love to work in an academic libraries, my resume is the best place to do that therefore it'd be more general. You know, the nice thing about LinkedIn is, I tend to be a lot more general just because, personally, I'm interacting in a lot of different areas. And so, I'm a little more general on LinkedIn. So then, what you can do is, when you're talking to a particular, you know, potential employer or a person from an academic institution, for example, you can be more specific about what you'd want to do actually in person or through a hardcopy cover letter. So, Rofina [assumed spelling], excellent feedback for my students each semester through s that they send to me. can I add those. [ Silence ] Feedbacks without. [ Silence ] Including the names of those students? I would not do something like that without getting expressed permission from the students. That's just general rule that I use. It's a good question. Potentially, what you could do is go back to those students and ask them to write a LinkedIn recommendation for you. I'm generally really judicious, as an instructor, with my recommendations of students and asking them to recommend me because I don't want to, I don't want to lean too far on the balance of power so to speak. So, I try and be very careful about that, just for whatever that's worth. Yes, so you can personalize your public profile link. Yeah, Jill thank you for, thank you for jumping in. oh and audio went out again. >> Jill Klees: All right everybody. We are about to start wrapping up. You can still hear Scott. That's a lagged time there. >> Scott Brown: Let me jump up here. >> Jill Klees: All right. [ Silence ]

14 >> Scott Brown: Okay, okay sorry about that. sorry about that. that was not a good thing. my apologies for that, so. >> Jill Klees: Okay we're good now. >> Scott Brown: Let me. >> Jill Klees: Thank you Scott. >> Scott Brown: Go head and turn it over. >> Jill Klees: That's fantastic, I feel like you could go on and on and on. So, if you all have additional questions, you can them to me. Scott I don't know if you want to put your up there although they can find you as faculty member if you want to field any additional questions. But, I'm certainly happy to field additional questions for everybody. And, if I don't know the answer, I'll go to Scott and get it and I'll get you the answer back as well. And Scott's happy to take them, excellent. So, just real quick, next month, the first Wednesday of the month June 1st, we're going to do, or I'm going to do an interviewing etiquette Elluminate session which is really about the dos and don'ts of things to say and not to say in an interview. Scott's got a course coming up in the fall, which I'll turn the mic over real quick Scott if there's something that you want to say about that. but, I wanted to kind of put the little marketing promo out there. And, we have a new SLIS Career blog. I have a new SLIS Career blog. There is the address. You can find it under blogs on the SLIS website. And you can certainly post questions and comments there to me as well. Thanks everybody very much, fantastic questions. I'm going to give the mic to Scott to see if he wants to market his class before we all head out. >> Scott Brown: Thank you Jill, and you have my apologies for the audio. Yeah, I actually offered that course this spring. And, it's offered as a one unit course. We packed it into the four weeks at the beginning of the semester. I think, for the following one I'm going to do it over eight weeks every other week so you'll have a little bit more time. so, I'm happy to answer any questions about it. we cover LinkedIn but we also cover other tools that you can essentially use to market yourself online. So, it's a fun course. [ Silence ] >> Jill Klees: Goodnight everyone. Thank you very much. Thanks again Scott, appreciate your time,bye. ==== Transcribed by Automatic Sync Technologies ====