The growth of "interested" on LinkedIn

I am a recruiter, a facilitator, a friend, a colleague, a business manager AND a jobseeker. Yes! All of us play all roles - sometimes simultaneously, sometimes individually and sometimes in the wake of necessity. And I too have been in all these situations.

Off late, I see people "interested" on posts on LinkedIn, and sometimes without even looking / caring / understanding what the post is all about. This is sometimes annoying at the same time as it is likely to create empathy.

LinkedIn is a professional networking site and a job site and jobs facilitation networking site. You will find a lot of jobs advertised on LinkedIn, you will find a lot of status updates from recruiters / HR's / business owners mentioning they are looking for people / talent. However, LinkedIn is not just for that. It's a professional site where people also want to share about their organization growth / recent events / culture at their company etc. etc.. This helps them in recruitment / business marketing. It helps them to reach out to wider and diverse audience.

Being a recruiter, I would appreciate if a candidate acts in a more responsible manner than just commenting - "interested".

Please don't just type "interested" because there is space in the comments box. Firstly, determine whether the post is a job advertisement or an update about some event / organization vision (refer to the picture above). Also, please give some thought as to who the post owner is. I have seen some postings about job openings from persons who are finance executives. The post mentions - "we have multiple openings with clients in Gulf - various positions and salary depends on position. Please like or comment in the box below for me to review your profile". First of all - how could a person working in finance responsible for recruitments??? And secondly, logically, does anyone believe this is possible? I see the like's counter reading in thousands or more and comments being in the excess of a few hundreds. I have been in recruitments for the past 10 years and I don't remember any time being able to view more than 100 (oh my God!!!) CV's / LinkedIn profiles a day thoroughly.

If it is indeed a job advertisement, reach out to the recruiter / post owner. Try to gather information about the role. Most of the times, we agency recruiters (or any recruiters for that matter) are not given too much information about the role and asked to gather candidates. Sometimes we are asked to prepare in anticipation. Reach out to us and we will talk to you. We will give you whatever information we have and we can. If you're interested in the role, show them in your actions. Let us see your resume. Let us verify your talent list with our check list. Let us present your CV to the client / manager if it is suitable and come back to you with feedback (Sometimes this takes ages and I agree it's frustrating. Believe me, it's more frustrating for us than you because we are trying to balance the expectations of you AND the client).

I understand and more so in GCC countries, candidates come on visit visa to look for jobs. These candidates run against time and it pushes them to apply randomly for any job / post available. However, a little structure in job search might not just get you a job, but also it will get you a job that you would like to keep for a longer period.

Research and make a list of companies where your skills could be in demand or will fit. Search jobs in categories and give some thought to the industries. If you're not a mechanical engineer, no organization will jump to hire you as an MEP manager. If you've done customer service in your previous roles, organizations will not hire you for a network engineer roles. Skill matching is important.

Network online and in person with people in your industry and the industries of your interest. That will introduce and expose you to a larger network of people and your chances of finding a job increases. "Wasta" work in this part of world - however you have to tirelessly make efforts even to build that "wasta". Ask us "recruiters" for references and not "just" jobs. Many a times it happens that we do not have a role suitable for you just in the moment; however we may know someone who is looking for a candidate like you. We may know, we may not know. But we will never forget a candidate who approached us. If a suitable role arises in the future, we will turn to our emails / internal databases for people who approached us. Believe me, we do this all the time.

We recruiters will want to be able to help every candidate we come across! We want you to get jobs. We would be delighted if you find jobs through us (because that means $$money$$ for us!!!). Moreover, there is a great sense of satisfaction of helping the society at large! Trust me - it is our own personal CSR!! However, this is not possible all the time and we feel too bad about it!

Bosses Reveal: 7 Things That Will Get You Promoted

You want a promotion this year—but you’re not sure what moves will make it happen. You’re in luck, because while we couldn’t ask your boss for the answer, we did ask eight managers what they want to see before they’ll give their own employees a boost. Try their suggestions at your own workplace, and you may just snag that promotion soon.

1. Make your manager look good.
“The No. 1 thing an employee can do to get promoted is to make their manager successful,” says Ben Brooks, founder and CEO of PILOT. “Think of yourself as their agent and career coach. What are they on the hook for to deliver this year? What do they want their legacy to be? Worry less about your own advancement and promotion, and instead go all in on supporting them. You’ll engender a great deal of loyalty with this approach. A good manager has a psychological contract between them and their employees that is basically, ‘make me successful and I’ll make you successful.’”

2. Keep a kudos file.

“Put together a report or summary of all your accomplishments and how they specifically contributed to the success of the company in 2016,” says Valerie Streif, senior advisor at Mentat. “Having concrete data points that directly correlate to company growth and success makes it very difficult for a manager to shut you down when making your case to be promoted.”

3. Ask for the job you want.
“The most important thing you can do is ask,” says Emily LaRusch, CEO of Back Office Betties. “When you meet with your manager, make your intentions clear and then ask for opportunities to work on projects that will help showcase your skills. I’ve received all of my biggest breaks simply by letting my manager know that I am happy to work on projects outside of my daily duties.”

4. Develop a can-do attitude.

“Employees who have a clear desire to move up need new behaviors to get noticed for all the right reasons,” says Katy Caselli, owner and president of Building Giants. “One of the best is to become more positive. A ‘can-do’ attitude raises your productivity, and you become more innovative, creative, and all around nicer to be around. These skills help you to be more effective with people, showing your leader that you are ready to influence others and get more accomplished through your ability to work with other departments and even difficult employees.”

5. Keep up on industry news.
“Create a daily habit of learning about your industry,” says Megan Bedera, COO of Amplify Relations. “This hunger for knowledge shows me that the employee so engaged in their work that they are spending time in the off-hours making themselves better at their job. It is critical to learn about the hot new ideas and tactics in your industry because every year there are thousands of people seeking jobs who have fresher, newer knowledge and who want your job.”

6. Lend a helping hand—to other employees.

“I want to see an employee reaching out to other employees to find ways to help,” says Mike Catania, founder and chief technology officer of PromotionCode. “All of the promotions we have involve direct management, so it’s of paramount importance that the applicants are demonstrating a proactive stance shouldering some of the joint load by seeking out what other employees need. It’s easy to pick up a new skill or take a class, but it’s challenging to develop the personality traits necessary to be in the middle—where you’re responsible for people but still have people working above you dictating large portions of the agenda.”

7. Sharpen your skills.
“The single best thing an employee can do to earn a promotion in the coming year is to show an eagerness to learn and improve their skills,” says Jessica Holbrook Hernandez, executive resume writer and president and CEO of Great Resumes Fast. “This can be expressing an interest in attending new training in their industry, going to an industry conference, earning a new certification or credential, or finding and following thought leaders and subject matter experts in your field that you can glean knowledge and wisdom from on a regular basis. An employee who shows a desire to learn and grow continually is the first one I look to promote.”

Original Article from Glassdoor: http://tinyurl.com/zpcutab