How To Make A Killer Linkedin Profile

The book I read to research this post was Linkedin Gold: How To Make A Killer Linkedin Profile by Lance Willis which is an excellent book which I bought from kindle. This book is quite short and concise but makes interesting reading and I think is essential reading for anyone interested in getting another job. The book covers a lot more than just creating a Linkedin and covers a whole plethora of useful websites along with their being sections on Twitter and Facebook. If you do a search in a search engine for yourself your Linkedin profile is likely to be highly placed and is important you get it right. You should aim to get at least 500 contacts on Linkedin as then it will display it as 500+ and don't pick people at random but rather give yourself about 4 months to reach it and pick in the same industry who can help you. You should have a professionally done photo, many trade shows have photograpers who will take a photo and post it online for you for a fee. Your profile should look intelligent and include things like a mission statement and where you want to be in 5 years. You should keep abreast of developments in your industry and mention this in your profile. Your current job should offer opportunities to train if not you definitely need to change jobs. More people use Facebook to search for a job than Linkedin which isn't surprising considering the former's popularity. You shouldn't be afraid of asking for recommendations but avoid spamming people. The job seeker subscription on Linkedin is worth getting and allows you to add contacts on the site. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and can tell he really knows what he is on about. It isn't a how to guide to using Linkedin for that he suggests get Linkedin For Dummies but is informative all the same. Finally bear in mind your shouldn't post anything on the web you wouldn't want an employer to read and you should always maintain professional standards.

Crowdsourcing

The book I read to research this post was Crowdsourcing For Dummies by David Alan Grier which is an excellent book which I read at

http://safaribooksonline.com

Crowdsourcing can be done on social media sites but most companies prefer dedicated sites like http://mturk.com which is mechanical turk owned by Amazon and one of the biggest sites of its type. Some sites specialize in something like design or computer programming. Crowdsourcing basically is getting a large group of people to help your company or charity reach its goal for which they may or may not get paid or may get some kind of gift. There are different names for the different types of crowdsourcing. Crowdfunding is getting a large group of people to help you raise funds and this is well suited to social media. Crowdcontests are where you get people to submit something like designs for something and a winner is chosen and that person gets paid. The amount offered has to be quite substantial to attract interest. Microtasking is when a task is broken up and a little given to each of a group. Macrotasking is when 1 person is chosen to do a job. These kinds of sites let you employ very specialized people at a cheaper price than if you employed them locally. Probably the biggest crowdspourcing site is http://fiverr.com although it can be limiting in that all jobs pay 5 dollars before deductions. I thoroughly enjoyed this book which is on an interesting subject and packed with information for both businesses and those looking to make a bit of extra money. 

Fiverr

The book I read to research this post was How To Profit From Fiverr With Your Skills by Rolan Bag-Oa which is an excellent book which I downloaded for free from kindle. I was quite drawn to this book because it's an unusual and interesting subject and although it's quite short I have heard quite a lot about the fiverr. Basically the idea behind the site is you offer to do a job or request that someone do $5. $1 of that goes to the website but for example if you are a computer programmer and are selective about what jobs you do there is no reason you can't do several jobs in an hour and make a nice bit of money. One idea behind fiverr is that you are doing the jobs so you can get some references not really for the money but later on you can charge more as you get a customer base. There is a lot of different types of computer programmers and with the popularity of Content Management Sites like Wordpress & Drupal you can often get a nice little like installing a plug in or theme into someone's site and get paid. Other jobs you may come across are things like voice over work, writing a short piece, proofreading, trying a new product and of course lots of others. One of the great things about fiverr is the variety of categories on offer and it's easy to register either via the facebook page or an online form on their website. They call the jobs you do on fiverr, gigs.

Amazon Mechanical Turk

The book I read to research this blog was Amazon Mechanical Turk Developer Guide which is an excellent book which I downloaded from kindle for free. I was a bit critical about how many web services Amazon because I thought it could do with streamlining but this is a good idea. Basically they have a website where you can advertise particular jobs like for example you want an iphone app written and then other people who are the workers can browse the site and see if they want to do that particular job. It isn't a proper job site like Monster.com it's just something people can do if they have a few hours spare. You can specify what skills they must and minimum qualifications and can even give them online tests via the website. When they do the job they can also download their materials or upload a file also via the website. You can specify things like a location and how many workers you want and if you are unhappy with their work you can refuse to pay them and ban them from working for you in future. Obviously what you offer to pay for a particular job and the number of hours it takes has to be competitive with the other jobs advertised.  This site is particularly useful if you have a skill like to type or program. Even if you haven't got a skill it's worth looking at the site because there might be a job like doing market research in a particular area. Finally I also think you are expected to declare what you earn for tax etc.

Being a Success on Linkedin

The book I read to research this post was 10 Steps to Getting Discovered on Linkedin by Joe Silverstein which is an excellent booklet which I downloaded for nothing from kindle. I think there's only 10 pages but there's some good advice in them & while I'll only mention some of the steps I think you'll get the ghist of the book. First of all you need a decent photo which shows you from the chest up. A lot of people particularly on Linkedin get a professional photography to take it. You should consider this particularly if you are after a job. You definately shouldn't have a photo of a pet or something similiar as people will think what's he hiding. You might wonder why I haven't posted a photo & the reason is my digital camera is incompatible with my laptop which runs windows vista which in turn is the only operating system my broadband adaptor is compatible. At some stage I plan on sorting that out. Incidently I do have an almost brand new desktop pc which I can only use offline. Anyway another point with Linkedin is your headline should be angled more towards what your job entails rather than what your position is. So you might say head of human resources which is more likely to be picked up by someones search. Another thing is if in your resume you say something like I helped turn a $5 million per year loss to a $2 million per year profit say what your contribution actually & where possible say how a profit was achieved. A final thing is get a website with a domain name as close to your actual name as possible. I personally would recommend http://weebly.com/
They have an easy to use site builder which is also free you can also buy a domain name off them or use a domain name which has weebly in the title which is absolutely free. Also if you have a blog with them there is no overall space limitation although the size of your individuals is limited. You can get a paid package however that lets you upload things like video.

Thriving in the Workplace

The book I read to research this post was Thriving in the Workplace All in One for Dummies which is an excellent book which I bought from Amazon. Apparently the most stressed workers are managers & executives & the least stressed are the self employed. Also americans work longer hours than anyone on average except the south koreans & the czechs. In america even when employees are on holiday or on sick leave they are often expected to do work. I live in britain where we on average do 50 hours less work than americans per year. Meetings 71% of the time are unproductive according to microsoft employees. In another poll 39% admitted to having fallen asleep in a meeting & 73% brought other work to do in the meetings. Meetings that work on a project with a small group of employees can help a large corporation compete with smaller companies on an almost equal footing. It's important that every department affected by the project has at least one representative at the meeting. The meeting should be structured to get the best results it's no good saying has anyone got any ideas or something similiarly vague. Your immediate superior is often the singularly most influential person in the workplace. The most common type of problem employee in terms of you getting on with them is the screamer. The last thing you should do is scream back especially if you are not a screamer yourself. One thing worth trying is paraphrasing back to the person what they are saying & trying to relate to them so they can see you understand how they feel. Many employees are looking at online courses to help them get promotion or a new career, there's a fallacy that they are mainly youngsters when in fact many are middle aged. Many people do a course which helps them carry out a role ie design a website, hence making them a more valuable employee. Your whole career should be a continuous process of learning. Many people go on sites like linkedin & link them to eportfolio sites & also many people at university are instructed to set up an eportfolio site to encourage employers to take them on.