On this episode of Looking Forward Our Way, we are joined by guest Sharon Hamersley to discuss the latest updates on LinkedIn. We discuss the recent addition of the "Open to work" feature which can help job seekers indicate their availability for job opportunities.

Sharon also cautions listeners about the use of AI applications for content generation on LinkedIn which could lead to privacy concerns.

This episode emphasizes the importance of engagement, job search strategy, and alignment between resumes and LinkedIn profiles. Sharon offers free advice and shares insights on how to use LinkedIn to signal interest in a particular company.

Learn more about how to maximize your job search on LinkedIn.

Hear more from Sharon in past episodes of our podcast.

We would love to hear from you.

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Email us at hello@lookingforwardourway.com.

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And of course, everything can be found on our website, Looking Forward Our Way.

Recorded in Studio C at 511 Studios. A production of Circle270Media Podcast Consultants.

Copyright 2024 Carol Ventresca and Brett Johnson

Brett Johnson [: 00:00:00

We are Looking Forward Our Way. We're in Studio C, in the 511 Studios in the Brewery District just south of downtown Columbus, Ohio. This is Brett. Many individuals are reentering the job market or looking for new opportunities. Although there are many more jobs available than applicants, the hiring process is not easier. Today we're going to explore one very important step in a job search process. Utilize LinkedIn and review new features on the social media platform.

Carol Ventresca [: 00:00:29

Hey, Brett.

Sharon Hamersly [: 00:00:30

Hey.

Carol Ventresca [: 00:00:31

Good to see you today.

Brett Johnson [: 00:00:32

Yes.

Carol Ventresca [: 00:00:33

Seems like we've not been here.

Brett Johnson [: 00:00:36

It's been a minute.

Carol Ventresca [: 00:00:38

A minute, a minute. And it's exciting today. Our friend and local expert joining us is Sharon Hammersley. Sharon has been our guide to job seeking for many years and always willing to provide us with current information needed by so many job applicants. Some of you in our audience may know Sharon as the LinkedIn coach or the resume coach, and Sharon generously provides job searching information to central Ohioans in many formats, including working with local nonprofits and libraries through various workshops and training programs. So let's give a great welcome to Sharon, who's in our studio today. Sharon, thanks so much for joining us.

Sharon Hamersly [: 00:01:21

I'm really happy to be here and to be able to give a little bit of advice about LinkedIn today. So I think it's kind of important, and I always enjoy talking to my friends Carol and Brett.

Carol Ventresca [: 00:01:35

In any case, the audience is in the same spot that Brett and I are in, and that is you can't keep up with social media and the changes on the platforms. So that's why we are so glad that you're willing to keep up with LinkedIn and let us know all of the tricks of the trade.

Brett Johnson [: 00:01:53

All right, well, for convenience sake, we put together a playlist of this is not Sharon's first appearance on the podcast. So we put a collection playlist together of Sharon's episodes about LinkedIn and job searching and such. So we'll put a link to that as well. If you want to kind of go back in time to listen to other episodes as well. But you're going to hear her background a little bit in those episodes. But we also recognize this may be your first episode. You've heard Sharon talk, so let's talk about your background and the services you've been providing for job seekers over the many years. Sharon great.

Sharon Hamersly [: 00:02:25

Yeah. So I actually know Carol from way back.

Carol Ventresca [: 00:02:29

In one of our previous encore careers at Ohio State.

Sharon Hamersly [: 00:02:34

I was an academic advisor with a focus on career development. And for the past ten plus, it's almost twelve years now, I've been working with job seekers in transition, looking to make a change or to reenter the workforce. And my goal when I work with my clients is to provide each candidate with the knowledge, skills, and tools to conduct a 21st century job search that's what I call it and find the job that's their best fit. And as LinkedIn has become a key piece of job search, I also teach candidates how to leverage LinkedIn to enhance their visibility and connect with recruiters and jobs. And also as an extension of my LinkedIn coaching, I have been teaching professionals and small business owners strategies to find and attract their ideal clients and customers using LinkedIn.

Carol Ventresca [: 00:03:28

Right, great. So Sharon, we all know that change is the only constant in employment searching and it definitely affects anyone who is looking for a job. Things just pop here and there in someplace else and folks really need to understand the process to be successful. So what are you seeing that job seekers need to be aware of in terms of finding and applying for jobs and specifically how LinkedIn impacts that process?

Sharon Hamersly [: 00:03:58

Yes, well, LinkedIn is always adding new features and sometimes they yank some, much to the frustration of folks. But good to keep in mind that LinkedIn is a dynamic platform, just like all social media platforms, so changes can be expected. With that in mind, there are several recent upgrades that I'd like to point people towards today on LinkedIn, especially people in job search because they can be really helpful tools and you may not be aware of them. So there is now available to everybody. It's called open to work. And if you're on LinkedIn, you may have seen people with a little green half circle around their headshot. On LinkedIn it says Open to work and you're going, well, what's that? Open to work can be in two versions. One version and you get to choose which one you want. One version is you just tell the entire world, anyone who sees your LinkedIn profile, hey, I'm looking for a job, or I'm thinking about looking for a job. That's one version and I recommend that to anybody who's actively in job search right now. The other version is open to work and only recruiters can see that. And that's very handy if you're thinking about looking for a job. But clearly you're currently employed. You really don't want your employer seeing that on your profile. Right, I think that that can be very helpful and it does point recruiters toward you. And later on in this segment, I'm going to discuss a few other avenues to get recruiters to actually see to be pointed more towards your profile.

Carol Ventresca [: 00:05:53

That's really important, Sharon, that people realize you click on Open to Work and your employer sees it, it could really be a problem.

Sharon Hamersly [: 00:06:02

Yes.

Carol Ventresca [: 00:06:02

So be very careful. It's a great tool, but understand how to use that tool.

Sharon Hamersly [: 00:06:08

Yes, exactly. There's also now a skills match. There's always been a skills section on LinkedIn where you kind of said, well, I have this skill and that skill and the other skill and it's been a separate section and it's kind of been buried at the bottom. Well, fortunately, LinkedIn has brought that right up to the top because you can add skills in your about section, where you write what it is, who you are, what you're looking for, and you can actually add skills to that. And you can also add up to five skills for each of the positions that you list. So that makes the skills section much more visible and much more powerful. Because if you think of it, if a recruiter is looking for somebody with a skill set and they type that into LinkedIn and you have that skill set, that's going to pop, you probably higher in their search results, those results that they're returning.

Carol Ventresca [: 00:07:10

So does that mean that, say, a job you had five years ago included a particular set of skills, but the job you have now have a different set of skills, so now all of those skills are available and sort of equal to a recruiter.

Sharon Hamersly [: 00:07:28

Okay. Yeah. And that can be really helpful. If you're seeking to change direction a bit, you want to go back to what you were doing before, that can also be really helpful. And also when you look at a job posting on LinkedIn and you have your skills listed, LinkedIn will sometimes helpfully and I think sometimes not say, okay, so you match seven of the ten skills that the job poster has put out for this. And that's actually a pretty good match and an indication, yes, this is probably a job you should actually be applying for. So that skills section has really been boosted recently and I think that's really helpful to job seekers. Another area that's actually gotten a little more useful, it's always been there. If you search for jobs, it will ask you, do you want to put this on a job alert thing? You say, I'm looking for this, this, and this. It's always been there, but in the past I haven't found that to be that helpful. But now it seems to be much more helpful. And LinkedIn is actually pushing jobs towards you that may be good matches and you want to consider applying for. So that's another really helpful can I.

Carol Ventresca [: 00:08:53

Ask you a question about job alerts? And maybe I'm jumping the gun here. When you have to tell it, you want those job alerts.

Sharon Hamersly [: 00:09:02

Yes.

Carol Ventresca [: 00:09:03

Are there things that you can filter? So, say, for instance, some of our audience are 50 and over and they're really only looking for part time.

Sharon Hamersly [: 00:09:11

Sure.

Carol Ventresca [: 00:09:11

Can you put okay, yeah, because right now I get all kinds of jobs, but they're usually full time at pretty high levels in an organization which I wouldn't be interested in doing anymore. So I can go back and filter those out.

Sharon Hamersly [: 00:09:24

Yes.

Carol Ventresca [: 00:09:24

Very cool.

Sharon Hamersly [: 00:09:25

Yeah, part time, remote, all of those. Certain types of things you could probably even specify. Mostly interested in nonprofits if you really wanted that, or for profits, certain industries. So, yeah, it's a more robust tool than it used to be.

Carol Ventresca [: 00:09:44

Great.

Sharon Hamersly [: 00:09:45

So that's really good.

Carol Ventresca [: 00:09:46

Thank you.

Sharon Hamersly [: 00:09:47

Now, another new feature that's just been rolled out, I think over probably the past year or so, is signaling interest that you want to work for a particular company. Now, not all. First of all, I hope people understand that LinkedIn has a lot of company pages. That is, it's not just individual members. Companies put out have their own company page and pretty much all of the heavy hitters have a company page and most of them, I think, have taken to this feature now. So you as a job seeker, need to filter our search a bit by okay, so what companies am I really interested in looking for? Look to see if they have a company page on LinkedIn. Most of them will. And then there's a new feature which is kind of hard to describe here when we're just talking about it, that says interest express my interest in this company. So you can actually say, hey, I really want to work for this company. And I'm not sure exactly what that does for the recruiters. But as they're filtering folks and they see people say, hey, yes, I'm raising my hand. I want to work for this company, I would hope that that would engender some more interest on their fart because they're obviously looking for people that are a good match for their company. And if you're telling them, hey, I've already researched your company, I think I'm a good match, just sort of generally culture type of work, all of that, I would say that that's an additional incentive for that recruiter to actually reach out to you. Then if they have a job that's.

Carol Ventresca [: 00:11:37

You could always say you were interested in following the company, but this goes a lot deeper. That's wonderful.

Brett Johnson [: 00:11:43

Yeah, it's kind of like in the old days, you go to a business and drop off your resume because you were interested in working for that company.

Sharon Hamersly [: 00:11:50

Yeah. This is a virtual version of dropping off your resume.

Brett Johnson [: 00:11:53

Right, very good. Put it in that mindset and it.

Carol Ventresca [: 00:11:58

Really sort of is electronically adapting your job search so you're not just sending out resumes for jobs that are posted, but you're letting the company know they are a target of your search.

Sharon Hamersly [: 00:12:12

Yes, exactly.

Brett Johnson [: 00:12:13

It can usurp that not all open positions are open to the public.

Sharon Hamersly [: 00:12:19

Exactly. Knowledge.

Brett Johnson [: 00:12:21

Yeah, that a lot of it is that got to know somebody, knows somebody and triggering that could open up the doorway going they never even advertised that they had a job opening, but they showed an interest in that company. It's like, well, let's talk to them.

Sharon Hamersly [: 00:12:34

Yeah, let's see, that's a neat new feature. Now, another item that is fairly new is when you apply for a job through LinkedIn and you upload your resume and it goes through a particular recruiter. But now there's a feature that says and again, this is kind of hard to describe just but you'll see a little pop up box that says share this resume with all recruiters. And you can say yes to that because then it will get blasted out to a lot of other recruiters as well. Now, you might want to exercise a bit of caution here if you have a fairly narrow job search target, because what you might get is then a whole bunch of people in your inbox going, hey, I saw your resume, can we talk? And you're looking at it going, well, I don't know who you are and what our company is, so I would exercise a bit of caution. But especially in the early stages of your job search, I think that that may actually be a valuable extra little step that you can take to get your name and your resume in front of a lot of folks and then you can always weed down.

Carol Ventresca [: 00:13:55

This is a little scary too, because what you're doing is basically networking, but as opposed to networking with people, you're networking with bots on somebody's website.

Sharon Hamersly [: 00:14:06

Yeah.

Carol Ventresca [: 00:14:09

You have to be careful because you could get just slammed with a lot of messages, but it's a great way to get to the recruiter. And for years we've all said it's really difficult to actually get to a recruiter.

Sharon Hamersly [: 00:14:25

Exactly. And then finally, I find this really neat. When you apply to a particular job that you've been recommended for through your job alert, it says, this is a job we recommend you apply for. If you apply for that job and it's really a good fit and you're pretty excited and you really want to apply for that job, you're really interested in talking to them, you can mark that job. That application is this is a top choice for me in terms of applications. So there's that new feature, it's actually called Top Choice. And once you mark that as a top choice, my understanding is that you then go pretty high up in the recruiters queue of people who have applied for that job because obviously they're going to want to talk to you if this is something that you're really interested in. So I don't know exactly how that's working because I haven't had anybody actually do it yet and obviously I can't do it because I'd get somebody really mad, probably.

Carol Ventresca [: 00:15:41

Let's not make the employers feel a little crazy about it.

Sharon Hamersly [: 00:15:44

Yeah, right. And so you can do up to three top choices a month. That's the limit on it. So you can't be going out there randomly going top choice, top toys, top choice. So this is part again, and this is something I emphasize repeatedly with every client and job seeker I meet, it's really important for you to have an actual job search strategy, have a list of companies you want to work for, have a good list of the type of jobs you want and why you're qualified for them. So this is part of a really targeted and strategic job search strategy. I still see so many people out there just kind of throwing resumes at the Internet. Like, jello, hopefully it sticks to the wall. And that's just really frustrating because it's so likely that you're not going to get any sort of response at all. Whereas if you use any or all of these tools, they can be a real advantage to you in terms of the job search because you know what you're looking for, you know where you're looking for it. Now all you really need to do is get connected with those folks in the companies that are going to do the hiring or at least do the screening, the recruiters. And so that's why it's very important before you jump in and use any of these tools, even the open to work tool, I would say that very basic one. You really do want to have a job search strategy in place.

Carol Ventresca [: 00:17:25

It used to be way back in the olden days before LinkedIn clients would do that scatter shot approach and just send out resumes. And it was sort of a badge of courage that they could send out 100 resumes a month. Well, it doesn't get you anywhere and it's not easier than trying to come up with a strategy. So LinkedIn makes both way easier, the scatter gun approach or a strategically based job search.

Sharon Hamersly [: 00:17:52

Yes.

Carol Ventresca [: 00:17:52

So make it easier on yourself, but realize your level of success is going to be a lot better with a thoughtful process as opposed to just sending it to send.

Sharon Hamersly [: 00:18:02

Yeah, right.

Brett Johnson [: 00:18:03

Well, it sounds as though the six things that you mentioned here are actually giving the power back to the normal regular LinkedIn user versus the recruiter. I don't think it's taking away any powers from recruiters. It certainly alleviates from what I remember Carol talking about, people just really kind of complaining about LinkedIn. It's like, okay, great. I can look at companies, I can try to connect, but I just feel like I'm looking through a window that I can't reach through. Our these are actually some powerful tools for regular Joe and Jane job search.

Sharon Hamersly [: 00:18:40

Yeah.

Brett Johnson [: 00:18:43

These are really cool upgrades. I love them. Yeah, exactly right. So you can use these new tools and that's great, but we probably need to step back and really review of what some basics on LinkedIn need to be accomplished for that job seeker. If you don't have the basics, these things really don't matter.

Sharon Hamersly [: 00:19:04

No, they don't matter that much. There are people who are on LinkedIn and I hear complaints all the time, well, I'm on LinkedIn, why am I not being found? And I say to them, well, we have all these nice tools, but the number one item that you need to have on LinkedIn is a complete profile. So many people just kind of throw some stuff out there. They sign up for LinkedIn, they throw on a couple of jobs. They put three sentences in their about section like, I want a job, please give me a job. No, that doesn't work real well. I can't go into detail here about what a complete profile, because that's its own little segment. I think I did one in the past. I would recommend that you I think.

Brett Johnson [: 00:19:59

Listening to any of the previous episodes, you're going to get a good picture of you need to do this, you.

Sharon Hamersly [: 00:20:03

Need to do that.

Carol Ventresca [: 00:20:04

And LinkedIn tells you if you don't have an updated profile.

Sharon Hamersly [: 00:20:07

r last recommendation is from: 2016

Carol Ventresca [: 00:21:20

Think outside the box as to who you're asking for recommendations. So you can't go back to your current employer to do recommendations without maybe triggering their notion of this person may be looking. So think of your colleagues or other supervisors in other areas. Or it could be you did a project in a local church or nonprofit or something. Get those folks yeah, right.

Sharon Hamersly [: 00:21:44

Or maybe one of your clients too, because if you've a vendor yeah, vendor you work with any of those folks could be potentially good recommendations. And number three, and make sure that you are actually active on LinkedIn and that you interact with your feed a couple of times a week at least. And don't just make one word comments on folks, just say, give a thoughtful response that actually adds to the conversation. I think some people are somewhat hesitant to do that, and sometimes somebody will post something, and generally you want to give a positive response to that, but you could also give a response that said, this sounds good, and I have a question.

Carol Ventresca [: 00:22:37

Sometimes if you aren't using LinkedIn enough, you start seeing the same people over and over and over. Yeah, I had an instance a couple of weeks ago to contact one of my former studios who graduated years ago, and I reached out to her with a question about her company for someone else, and suddenly now I'm seeing her posts. So it's that same notion of if you engage with people. If you're out there, you're going to see more than just ads on our LinkedIn feed.

Sharon Hamersly [: 00:23:03

Exactly. Yeah. And you're actually helping again, this is the reciprocity part of LinkedIn. You're actually helping them as well with whatever, first of all with your comment and then just making them more visible on LinkedIn because in essence, and I think maybe we've learned this lesson, but I'm not so sure. In essence, if you are in the workforce today, you way have a job tomorrow or you may not. Just being engaged on LinkedIn I think is a big help for everybody and then there are a couple of things to avoid and actually I'm going to put a third bullet point on there because it popped in my head and I think it's really important. Number one is the resume that you send should align pretty closely to your LinkedIn profile. I was working with a client recently and there was something on their resume that was nowhere to be found on their LinkedIn profile and going, is there a reason this isn't on your LinkedIn profile? And they're like, oh no, I just forgot to put it there. So you don't want to put any questions for recruiters coming and reviewing has gotten your resume through your application. They're coming back, they're reviewing your LinkedIn profile and things just don't seem to line up. That's probably not going to keep you at the top of your pile and.

Carol Ventresca [: 00:24:36

It actually could keep you from being in the pile if it's something that recruiter specifically needs to see in an application.

Sharon Hamersly [: 00:24:43

Yeah, exactly. Another thing, and this goes back to what's on your profile. The number one prime real estate on your profile when you're in job search is your headline. And for so many folks I see, it's their current, our most recent, previous job. So take some time, really take some time and think about what it is you want to tell a recruiter coming to your profile about why they should be interested in looking at the rest of your profile. So tell them you can put your desired position or title and then you want to have a tagline that says I help people or generating sales. Our ensuring that your projects get done on time and under budget or whatever it is.

Carol Ventresca [: 00:25:37

So if you think in terms of because I think this is hard to do. Sharon audience, believe me, my LinkedIn profile is not up to date because I've had the same headline for a couple of years now and Sharon keeps telling me I have to update it, but.

Sharon Hamersly [: 00:25:50

I kind of like it.

Carol Ventresca [: 00:25:53

So really then there's two questions to ask yourself when you're writing your headline. What do I want to do and what value can I give to an employer?

Sharon Hamersly [: 00:26:03

Exactly.

Carol Ventresca [: 00:26:04

Okay.

Sharon Hamersly [: 00:26:04

Yeah.

Carol Ventresca [: 00:26:04

Very good.

Sharon Hamersly [: 00:26:05

Yeah. Right. And I just thought of a third one and this is just more of a general statement and a caution. I've seen a lot of discussion recently in some of my career coaching groups about people who've gotten snagged up in various employment scams. I will say just sort of very basically, if something doesn't look right, just say no. I know when you're looking for a job and maybe you've been looking for a couple of months and things don't seem to be moving forward and somebody comes and says, hey, I've got this wonderful job for you. So you put in your application and then they want, well, to get this job, you have to pay $500 for the training or all kinds of stuff like that.

Carol Ventresca [: 00:27:01

Buy supplies.

Sharon Hamersly [: 00:27:03

Yeah, right. Anything like that. And I want you to be really cautious about doing anything like that. If you see something that looks like a scam, you can report it to LinkedIn. And I would I would say I think this company or this recruiter is not on the up and up, and LinkedIn sometimes will do something about it, not always.

Carol Ventresca [: 00:27:34

And there are local resources that somebody can use if they think that they're getting scamped. They can contact the local Better Business Bureau or local Chamber of Commerce. They're going to have heard the complaints ahead of time. Your state Attorney General office or even your county your county prosecutors.

Sharon Hamersly [: 00:27:53

Right.

Carol Ventresca [: 00:27:54

The local prosecutors. So be careful. Somebody wants your Social Security number before you have been hired. They don't need your Social Security number at the first yes. When you get your benefits, that may come into play, but not upfront. So think in terms of critical identifying information about you and how you're going to send that. Our also go to the company's main website.

Sharon Hamersly [: 00:28:25

Yes.

Carol Ventresca [: 00:28:25

Make sure that website is really there and that job is actually posted.

Sharon Hamersly [: 00:28:29

Exactly. Yeah. It's just common sense. And it's sad that people get scammed so much. It's a big thing. You hear about scams just about for everybody.

Carol Ventresca [: 00:28:40

Right. So, listeners, we will have some of those tips added into our list of resources on scams. And we're actually going to be doing a podcast on scams here soon.

Sharon Hamersly [: 00:28:51

Okay, that's great.

Carol Ventresca [: 00:28:56

Okay, Sharon, we're ready for the next question after I've bombarded you with all these little side ideas here. But once you have those basics in place, your profiles up to date, what are the additional actions that you should be taking to increase your visibility and reach on LinkedIn?

Sharon Hamersly [: 00:29:14

So, yeah, as I mentioned before, active participation is key. And there are a couple of other steps that you can take to increase your reach and your visibility on LinkedIn. Make it a point to touch base with some of your connections. Some people may not know. You can actually download a list of all of your LinkedIn connections, their instructions. If you go to LinkedIn help, it's pretty clear how to do that. That's not a big task to do, and LinkedIn is pretty clear on how to do that. If you haven't checked that for a while, you may be surprised who's actually on that list. And you're like, oh, yeah. And you may be a little hesitant to reach out to some folks, but sometimes it's just good to say, hey, I haven't talked to you in three years. I'm just reaching out, seeing how you're doing. We've had this big upheaval in all of our lives. Just like, to touch base. Can we hop on a phone call or a zoom call for 15 minutes? And if you do that regularly with maybe just one or two people a week, maybe four or five a month, that's four or five people you've actually reengaged in your network. And again, you want to be strategic. You're not just calling these folks to be nice, although that's certainly part of it. But you're calling them, have a conversation about, hey, how have you been here's? What's up with me? How can I help you? All of that kind of thing. And you can do that easily in a 15 to 30 minutes call.

Carol Ventresca [: 00:30:56

I love that idea of downloading your list of contacts, because there actually have been a few folks who have reached out to me that I was surprised we weren't already connected.

Brett Johnson [: 00:31:05

Yeah, exactly. And that leads toward what you just talked about, too, as part of that job search strategy. So all these little pieces that maybe feel like they're moving all over the place, but if you're giving yourself some grace to contact people you haven't talked to in two or three years, you never know where that's going to lead. But what have you lost other than just another human connection?

Sharon Hamersly [: 00:31:28

Yeah, right.

Brett Johnson [: 00:31:28

And reconnecting with someone that you haven't talked to for a while.

Sharon Hamersly [: 00:31:32

Yeah. And I think that's a good thing, because you hear out in the news nowadays, loneliness is our biggest problem. Well, don't be lonely. Connect.

Carol Ventresca [: 00:31:42

Right. I love that thing that you also said was, this is for the good of both parties. Yeah. And LinkedIn is just like networking. It's reciprocal. You're closing the loops. Keep closing the loops. And you're not just connecting with them to tell them you're looking for a job. You're connecting with them because they are an important part of your career path.

Sharon Hamersly [: 00:32:04

Yeah, exactly. And then the last item I recommend, and I've talked about this in previous podcasts on LinkedIn remember that there are literally probably hundreds of thousands of groups on LinkedIn, but there are a couple that you really can use to your advantage. First of all, our college or university alumni group, and there are usually multiple groups for any college or university that you've attended. Now, some of them have requirements that you have to pay your alumni dues. Some of them are just kind of open source. All you have to have is that college or university listed under education in your profile, and you can join that group. So those are really good. And then. You have this huge resource. Hey I'm a fellow alum. Anybody have any recommendations for looking for jobs in Chicago? Somebody in Chicago will chime in. Well I'm in Chicago and I work for and there you go. That's a great resource. The other resources are in terms of groups are companies, many big companies have alumni associations. People who actually worked at those companies in the past and you can say well maybe they're all kind of grumpy about not working there but that's not necessarily the case. So I would investigate some of those groups and just see what's out there and maybe companies that you work for in the past and you might want to reconnect with some of those folks. And then finally, and I think this is really critical too, what is your industry and what groups are part of your industry. So for instance my basic industry if you want to say that, is learning, talent development, instructional design, all of those things. So my groups are the local and national chapters of the association for Talent Development. I also look at the Society for Human Resources groups and am a member a couple of those. So just think what are your groups? Because those are the folks who are already working for the most part in your industry. Sometimes they'll post jobs in that group that you can look and you can easily there, I think, without being too overly cautious and say, hey, I'm thinking about my next step, career wise. Looking for advice from anybody who's currently doing this. Looking to make connections in this company, because I think that might be a good place to work. You can ask all kinds of questions in those groups and usually you'll get a pretty good response.

Carol Ventresca [: 00:34:59

And to find those groups it's really just putting key words into the search.

Sharon Hamersly [: 00:35:04

members and a group that has: 5000

Carol Ventresca [: 00:36:02

Right?

Sharon Hamersly [: 00:36:03

And that's a real in to a.

Carol Ventresca [: 00:36:07

And so then the other part of that is as you mentioned, say you live in Columbus, you're looking for a job in Chicago. You find the companion groups there, start trying to make connections there. Local chambers of commerce. Commerce either in your hometown or where it is you'd like to move to and professional associations. Yes. If you're really looking at staying in the same industry type of position you have, you probably belong to a professional association. Make sure you're connected in their LinkedIn and then if they have local chapters.

Sharon Hamersly [: 00:36:41

Pages to do that yeah, exactly. So that's all really helpful.

Brett Johnson [: 00:36:47

Well, related to changes on LinkedIn and social media, we can't go a day without talking about the buzz of the developments around AI like Chat, GTP and similar apps too, what have you seen about how this might affect job search in general and LinkedIn in particular?

Sharon Hamersly [: 00:37:06

Yes, well, I'm learning on a pretty steep learning curve, just like everybody else in this regard. What I do know is that LinkedIn is in the process of rolling out some AI assisted communication tools such as drafting a message to a recruiter who's posted a job. And currently this feature is only available on LinkedIn to paid subscribers, but I'm imagining at some point they may roll that out to other folks as well. And LinkedIn already uses AI tools to support job searching based on feedback from a generated search. So if you get job recommendations, you've set up your job search alerts and you get recommendations like why is LinkedIn doing this? You can tell LinkedIn right now, no, this is just not working, this is not a good thing. This allows the algorithm to further refine and only really send you jobs that are really a good fit for you. I do have a word of caution because I've been really trying to pay attention to this as much as I can because I know it is going to impact how we work and how we apply for jobs and everything. So what I've seen so far about Chat GPT and similar applications, microsoft Bing has an application that's similar. They can be really helpful for research and idea generation and using them. But on the other hand, if you're using them to generate actual content, like write me a resume or something like that, and you put parts of your current resume into that database, that becomes part of the database, and you've lost every shred of privacy that you have, because anybody else can use that, even if it's not really identifiable material. Now somebody else has access to it, and they can just pick it right up and use it.

Carol Ventresca [: 00:39:15

You're writing everybody else's resume is basically what's happening.

Sharon Hamersly [: 00:39:18

Yeah, right. And I find this really interesting because for quite a while on LinkedIn there was a box that you could check or uncheck that said, you can use my profile in Microsoft Word resume Writer. They took that out and I was like really happy. But now we have a version of that back if you're not careful.

Carol Ventresca [: 00:39:44

Right.

Sharon Hamersly [: 00:39:44

You really do have to be careful.

Carol Ventresca [: 00:39:47

And too absolutely be careful because you do not want our material information and what you've worked to do on our resume, on everybody else's resume. But the other part of that too is if you're asking the AI bot to help you write your resume, realize that when you go into an interview with an employer and they start asking you questions, you can't look at them and say, oh, well, I didn't write that, GPT did. Well, it's not going to help. That's going to make an unsuccessful interview. You want to be able to understand what's in your resume because you've written it, you know what it means and you can defend it.

Sharon Hamersly [: 00:40:28

Yes, exactly. And I've seen many comments about how Chat GPT and the bots have what they call MSO make Stuff up syndrome. So really you don't want to I mean, I think it's I think it is really good tool for research. You can ask Chat GPT to generate some interview questions for you based off of a job search. That's a good thing. Although I think they're still kind of in the rote phase, but I think they'll get better at that too. But you just have to be really cautious about what you put out there that's your content great.

Carol Ventresca [: 00:41:11

Okay, so Sharon, we've gone through all of these major bits and pieces of what's going on on LinkedIn and we always ask our guests for any last words of advice.

Sharon Hamersly [: 00:41:23

Yes, always happy to give last words of advice here. So staying on top of developments in job search can be really challenging. Every day there's something new, it seems like, and you're like, this is really steep hill to climb, but don't hesitate to ask for help. There's a lot of help out there. LinkedIn is a good place to ask for help. Actually, you can ask for help. I see folks posting that are pretty much doing things right and they're somewhere in my broader LinkedIn circle. And I see somebody make a comment because they've asked for help. They way I put out like 25 applications over the last month. They all seem like really good fits. I don't seem to be getting any traction. Can somebody help me out here? And people will be very generous. I've seen people say, hey, you need to talk to so and so. Well, I looked at your resume and I'm not quite sure that you've hit your target like you think you're hitting our target. And they'll give all so LinkedIn is a great place and people like me give at least limited amounts of free, completely free advice. So I think we put do we put my LinkedIn? Yeah, we'll have your contact information out there.

Carol Ventresca [: 00:42:55

Absolutely.

Sharon Hamersly [: 00:42:56

And I'm always happy to give people a limited amount of free advice. That's just paying it forward though. And again, the more active you are on LinkedIn, the more visible you are. And finding a job is just really hard, we all know that. But using the tools that are available to you on LinkedIn in a strategic fashion will help you move forward to find that next opportunity. Right.

Carol Ventresca [: 00:43:24

And also, just to add in, there are a lot of places to go to get help, both free and for a cost, and we'll have those on our resources sheet. One other thing that we really didn't talk about in LinkedIn. This is a peripheral issue, but the LinkedIn Learning session, if you're looking at trying to update a few skills that you know you need to really hammer into that resume, LinkedIn learning is the perfect place. And if you're in Columbus, you can do that for free through the Columbus Library.

Sharon Hamersly [: 00:43:57

Exactly. Yes.

Brett Johnson [: 00:43:58

Super. Well, thanks again, Sharon, our LinkedIn coach and local expert assisting job seekers throughout Central Ohio. Listeners, thank you for joining us. Don't forget to check out our show notes in the podcast as well as on the website for contact information. As we mentioned, we'll have a list of resources that we talked about today and you can find all of this at www.LookingforwardOurWay.com We are looking forward to hearing your feedback on this and any of our podcast episodes.