Why is LinkedIn essential for developing your career?

LinkedIn has 575 million profiles worldwide and 16 million in France.

Today, most professionals are found on LinkedIn, including employers and recruiters who use it extensively.

At a time of the democratization of the internet and social networks, it is essential to have a digital identity and a strong presence on the net.

The majority of recruiters and businesses are found on the Internet. Gone are the days when you just had to hand in your CV to employers. Now you have the opportunity to sell yourself online and gain visibility.

In this article, let’s see the 8 different reasons that make LinkedIn a must in your job search or professional development.

1. Find job offers

Many people looking for a job are content with the classic route: Pôle-Emploi or Indeed. Limiting yourself to that alone causes you to miss out on many opportunities.

On LinkedIn, there are thousands of job offers posted there. If you are interested in a job offer, you can apply in one click directly on the site without having to send your CV.  !

2. Increase its visibility

LinkedIn has a large number of users. Thanks to the internet and this social network, you increase your chances of being visible to a recruiter.

Unlike other social networks, you can be referenced on Google.

Setting up your profile so that it is visible on Google can be interesting for recruiters who use this search engine to find you.

To be well referenced, you just need to activate the option in the settings and use the keywords that are related to your professional qualities, your skills and your sector of activity. This allows you greater visibility.

To deepen and you build a LinkedIn profile that will generate visibility and professional opportunities for you see my free checklist to download, here .

3. Build your network

Having your own professional network has become essential to develop and succeed in your career.

This essential is, unfortunately, too often overlooked. Of course, building and maintaining a network takes time and energy. This is why a large number of people seeking employment take this crucial step.

In order to build a network, you must initiate the exchange, provoke the interaction. You must also be receptive and open to the solicitations of others.

According to LinkedIn, only 15% of executives have some way of networking  well built.

Knowing how to network is a skill that you will need to acquire and develop throughout your professional career. Even if some professionals manage to succeed on their own, the chances of doing so are minimal.

There are different ways to found your network on LinkedIn, they were the subject of a full-fledged article that you can find on the blog .

4. Sell yourself through self-marketing

LinkedIn is neither a regular CV nor a digital CV. If you need to quickly spell out your skills and experiences on your resume, on LinkedIn you need to sell yourself first.

Your profile statement and summary should reflect who you are and who you are in seconds. To do this, you must work on your summary so that it makes you want to know more about you.

You can use the techniques of self-marketing to enhance your image. Use the space allocated to you to communicate about your skills and assets, to explain your past professional experiences and to state your key skills!

You must be able to demonstrate your expertise and clearly show the positive contributions you can make to the employer who chooses you.

In other words, the summary should spell out why you and no one else. Explain what you will bring to the organization that will recruit you.

The summary is a great opportunity to show your personality, your difference and your added value.

5. Create content

LinkedIn gives you the option of using it as a blog by allowing you to create articles and publish them. See the dedicated article on how to easily publish and create an effective content strategy, here.

You can create interesting and relevant content for your network and your subscribers.

Producing information yourself means showing that you take your professional career to heart, that you invest yourself in LinkedIn and that you enjoy sharing content with others, ideally to help them advance in their sector. activity.

This helps you demonstrate your expertise and enhance your analytical skills on a given topic.

6. Join groups

Like Facebook, LinkedIn now gives you the option of becoming a member of a group or creating one.

This feature is interesting because it allows you to use the group directory or the search engine to find groups that relate to your sector of activity and thus get in touch with other members of the group by : participating in discussions, sharing information, publishing your own content with a link to your profile, offering relevant answers to other people’s posts, etc.

This allows you to better target your networking opportunities.

The group is a great opportunity to position yourself as a leading expert in your sector and to make new relationships with you through this.

7. Build your personal brand

Know yourself better to make yourself known. This is the main objective of building your personal branding.

LinkedIn is the perfect tool for developing your personal brand. However, you cannot go for it headlong without establishing a clear and well-constructed strategy.

As for a classic product,

(yes, yes by analogy with marketing you are a product , Besides, you are your main product and its SINGLE SELLER , so try to sell yourself properly because if you don’t, NOBODY WILL DO IT FOR YOU . Rest assured, if you read and follow the advice on this blog, your career will take a decisive turn and you will be working hard towards your wildest professional goals or dreams. It is still necessary to have an optimized and efficient profile … If you haven’t already, download my free checklist here .)

you will have to position yourself in relation to the market and your sector of activity.

Then you have to develop your brand like you would brand a product.  For this you need to promote yourself while standing out from the competition.

Make sure your LinkedIn profile is clear, complete, and includes the keywords that determine your strengths. This requires, as a first step, to know yourself in order to be able to determine what are your strengths, your talents and your specificities.

Knowing what sets you apart from others is a crucial step in building your brand. Thus, you will be able to determine what your goals are and the audience you want to target.

8. Get recommendations

Recommendations are fundamental for a successful professional career.

On LinkedIn, you have the opportunity to be recommended. To do this, do not hesitate to contact your former employers, colleagues, collaborators, or even relatives, to ask them to recommend you on your profile.

A profile with recommendations will inspire much more confidence unlike a person who would not be recommended anywhere.

When you get multiple recommendations, you enter a virtuous circle.

The more recommendations you have, the more recruiters will tend to trust you, the more experiences you will have, the more recommendations you will have. Bingo, the positive spiral of marketing will kick in.

In conclusion  : LinkedIn has become essential to develop your career.

LinkedIn has become essential to develop your career.

Increased visibility, SEO on Google and LinkedIn, development of notoriety, creation of content to position yourself as an expert in your field, source of incredible information, participation in the evolution of your sector and construction of your personal brand … LinkedIn includes all the tools you need to build your network and your digital identity.