Accelerating the growth of your Company LinkedIn profile

A few days ago I asked my #LinkedIn followers what they are having trouble most about understanding LinkedIn. The first response I had was “How does one make a Company Profile prominent?”

Although a self starter business owner myself who is not using this feature, I thought I would go about conducting some research into these questions.

So what strategies should one use to accelerate the growth of your Company profile?

1. Complete the entire profile set-up

As is the case with all online profiles today, you need to complete the entire profile set up. So ensure you have the following correctly entered:

– Logo (ensure you use high resolution)
– Company description
– Website URL
– Company size
– Industry
– Company type
– Location

To be able to update your profile, follow below. This will then take you to the page to update the above dot points.

2. Follower Engagement

You need to ensure your company page has regular posts (LinkedIn recommends weekly, however we recommend daily!) to ensure visibility. Research shows that company pages with over 150+ followers has 5x more profile views. HOT TIP: why don’t you schedule posts to boost your engagement and follows these tips:

Descriptive caption: Helps to provide people with extra context around your content

• Eye-catching images: Clean, simple aesthetic helps your content to stand out

• Hashtags: A great way to increase the visibility of your content to new audiences

Bonus: Add emojis, questions, and bullet points to switch up the look and feel of your content

If you think that you are running out of ideas, why don’t you (sparingly) re-share, or Re-Buffer, your top posts from the past. Due to sophisticated algorithms, there is a possibility only (2-6%) of your followers have seen your posts in the LinkedIn Feed. See below.

3. Link your company profile to all platforms

Set up your social media profiles properly to ensure your brand remains consistent across platforms. Put your business url on all email signatures, and as many social media platforms as possible. BRAND AWARENESS

Give these tips a try and tag me on LinkedIn and let me know if they were useful

https://www.linkedin.com/in/trisha-chapman/

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How to write achievements on your CV

You are more likely to be invited for an interview if your CV is focused on your achievements, rather than on your duties or responsibilities.

According to an interesting research conducted by the authors of “Brilliant CV: What employers want to see & how to say it”, the applicants with achievement-focused CVs are three times more likely to be shortlisted for an interview compared to candidates with duties-focused CVs!

So how do you write those first few lines of your resume—the summary section—to compel the recruiter to keep reading? How do you make sure you get the call—and not the toss? How do you make your summary memorable?

Here’s a checklist:

• Tailor your summary to each job application. Highlight your areas of expertise most relevant to that position.

• Then focus on specific results you’ve achieved in those areas of expertise—how other organisations have improved because of you.

• Note the types of organisations and industries you’ve worked in.

• Include years of experience.

• Avoid generic terms such as results-driven, proven track record, excellent communication skills, team player

Still not convinced your job description will do? Here is some more proof!

Stuck for ideas? Here you go ;)

Completed in-depth analyses for business optimisation projects, reporting tools, back-office programs and payment-processing apps. Measurable outcomes:

— 9.2% revenue growth (2016)

— Up to 45% in efficiency gains

— $575K capital-expense reduction

— $1.1M labor-cost savings

— 97% account-retention rates

— 10% increase in referrals

• Provided executives with analytics and decision-support tools used as the basis for reorganization, consolidation and relocation strategies.

• Partnered with developers to automate manual processes, saving time and money while decreasing errors. Credited as a primary driving force behind a 5% increase in margins this fiscal year.

• Collaborated with stakeholder groups across the organisation to ensure business and technology alignment. Proposed solutions meeting defined specifications and needs.

• Performed quality assurance, system integration and user acceptance testing facilitating on-time, on-budget and acclaimed “go-live” of enterprise implementations for up to 12,000 global users.

Remember:

ANYONE can Google or search LinkedIn for job descriptions. In this current market, you MUST show your value.

Still feeling overwhelmed?

Drop me an email: info@impressivecv.com

impressiveCV Networking Event: creating an impressiveCV

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Last night it was a pleasure to share the stage to deliver a workshop on Professional Profiling where Ms Nousheen Muhktar and Mr Sohaib Hasan and I discussed the essence to personal branding, mastering LinkedIn and CV writing. It was an engaging and fruitful workshop with many key messages to unlock one’s potential.
As a professional, I am constantly learning. Whether it be at networking events, reading books, online forums or listening to colleagues.

Yet over time I have come to realise, it is important to understand the difference between learning and training. Of course, they are inextricably linked, but they are unique aspects of any educational process. Training is the giving of information and knowledge, through speech, the written word or other methods of demonstration in a manner that instructs the trainee. Learning is the process of absorbing that information in order to increase skills and abilities and make use of it under a variety of contexts.

Knowledge with action is the real power.

So here comes my thoughts…

Why is it that everyone is engaged, actively note taking and asking questions yet nearly 80% of the follow up emails I receive to review these participants CVs only a minority have implemented the advice and recommendations I provided in the face to face session?? What drives one to implement learning??

At the end of the day, I am a business women, and will indeed gladly accept your money. However I am here to empower.

Use my knowledge to better yours.

Soft vs Hard Skills

During last week’s impressiveCV workshop we discussed the difference between hard and soft skills and understanding that during the job application and interview process, employers look for applicants with two skill sets: hard skills and soft skills.

Successful candidates will ensure both sets of skills are displayed, ensuring the correct words are used to overcome ATS!!

Remember to tailor your skills to EACH job application

What are hard skills?

Hard skills are your technical abilities, they are things you can do. For example:

Intermediate proficiency with Microsoft Excel™

Level II First Aid, MIG Welding

Event planning

Compliance

Budget allocation

Proficiency in another language

What are soft skills?

Soft skills are more about the way you do things, who you are and how you relate to other people in the workplace.  Soft skills can also be referred to as people skills or interpersonal skills, however some soft skills are not really about interactions with others, but about how you are as a worker. 

Soft skills examples include (but are not limited to):

Teamwork

Relationship development/rapport-building

Leadership and motivation of others

Negotiation

Adaptability and flexibility

Conflict resolution, time management, effective listening, and culturally competent practice.

What’s the difference?

The easiest way to differentiate between soft skills and hard skills other than what you can do and the way you do it, are in how we measure them, hard skills – or technical skills – are often absolute, either you have them or you don’t, you can do it or you can’t, where soft skills can usually be measured on a scale.

Which is more important?

The short answer is: BOTH! 

Hard skills may be absolute requirements for a job - in fact they are often pre-requisites to getting the job - and being properly trained in the tools and techniques of the trade will make you more efficient and safer in the workplace. That said, soft skills can be what allow you to really impress at the interview and most importantly they may be the difference between keeping a job long-term or progressing through promotion opportunities over other candidates, so both hard and soft skills should be treated as equally important.

For more on soft skills, stay tuned for next week’s blog on identifying your soft skills, and tips for developing your own!

Overcoming ATS

If you read my last blog, you would have learn that applicant tracking system (ATS) automates an organisation’s recruiting and staffing operations, providing a central repository for candidate data—including CVs and the applications process.

In the ever-changing world we live in, automation and speed can be the differentiator between whether recruitment agencies land the client, place the candidate, or book the interview.

Using features of an ATS like VMS integrations, Back Office and Onboarding solutions, and Appointment reminders will take what was manual work and create a seamless, automated process.

More than 1/4 of all companies use some kind of an applicant tracking system to manage applications and candidates, and this number continues to grow. ATS software is more likely to be used in large companies (more than 100 employees) and certain industries — technology, healthcare, and government organizations. Unless you’re personally handing your resume to the hiring manager, it’s possible an ATS might be used in the applicant screening process.

So how do YOU over come this and land an interview?

Keep reading for some hand hints

1. Distribute keywords throughout your CV from the listed job description.

Stuck about how to identify relevant keywords and phrases?

• Find 6-8 job postings for the type of position you want. Copy the text from the ad into a Microsoft Word document.

• Select all the text and copy it to your clipboard.

• Go to www.tocloud.com to create a tag cloud.

• Paste your selected text into the “text” box and generate the word cloud.

  The word cloud will reveal keywords and phrases that are relevant to the type of job you’re seeking. The larger the word appears, the more relevant it is for that type of position.

You can also use Google’s Keyword tool to find keywords to make your resume more effective with applicant tracking systems.

2. Saving your file

Save and send your resume in a common format. The ATS will work best with Microsoft Word .doc or .docx. You can send your resume as PDF but beware that some ATS systems struggle to scan these documents properly.

3. Keep formatting simple

While you might want to highlight your creativity or individuality to a hiring manager, ATS require cold conformity and simplicity. Therefore, you’ll need to delete any extra touches you’ve added to your resume, like logos, pictures, symbols, and shadings. Also, stick to standard CV formatting in a normal font like Arial, Courier, or Times New Roman—the ATS can’t read fancy fonts and will reject your resume out of confusion.

4. Contact information

The main body of the resume is critical — some ATS software cannot read header/footer information, so if you include contact information in those sections, it may not be read. (And remember, geographic location can be used as a filter.)

5. Qualifications

Try to make your qualifications relate to the specific job. What software packages and technical skills does this role require? Do you need to have any specialist industry qualifications like the CFA or ACCA? Remember to include both the acronym and the keyword or phrase.

Make sure you have an impressiveCV

Applicant Tracking Systems

With hundreds if not thousands of job applicants coming across a hiring manager’s inbox or LinkedIn it is not surprising they are seeking artificial intelligence to give them some help.

So, when you apply for a job online, your CV isn’t necessarily going to go directly to a recruiter or hiring manager. It’s first being scanned and processed by an ATS. Whether that human recruiter ever sees your CV could depend on how well your resume is optimised for ATS algorithms.

What is ATS??

In a basic sense, applicant tracking systems are mainly used to simplify the management applications and sorting through suitable candidates

ATS softwares help literally every step of the recruitment process. From the very beginning, when a recruiter creates a job, ATS starts with helping them reaching out to numerous job posting sites at once. Then, when applicants start applying for the job and send their resumes, ATS stores them, organize them and scores them. Based on the credentials provided by applicant via resume and other details, Applicant Tracking Systems may accept or reject applications, depending on the parameters set by the recruiters.

How many applications do companies receive on average?

On average, companies receive around 250 applications per job opening. If a company has just a handful of new openings, the wasted time and effort starts to add up.

Why do companies use ATS?

Streamline the process– Applicant Tracking Systems help the hiring managers by efficiently selecting and rejecting applications based on the pre-set criteria.

• Save time– ATS saves valuable time for recruiters by going through numerous applications in a very short span of time. Literally no human can have that time or energy to look into thousands of applications one by one. ATS makes sure that the company doesn’t have to lose the chances of hiring the best candidates just because a recruiter doesn’t have enough time.

• Track and keep record of the whole process-ATS does not only seeks out the right candidates for you, but Applicant Tracking Systems track and keep record of the whole process, like how many candidates applied for this job, how many of them have the necessary qualifications, where did they apply from, how did they come to know about the job etc.

• Provide Analytics of recruitment process – ATS Provides valuable analytics measuring the number of applications per job, fill rates (meaning how many jobs are filled and at what speed), billing rates or salary details, efficiency of recruiter etc. This will help in improving efficiency and effectiveness of recruitment process. To sum it up, ATS does almost everything that a team of efficient human assistants would do for recruiters

Stay tuned for the next blog on how to overcome ATS and you could land that job anywhere in the world!

What is the future of resume/CV writing?

Compared to other areas, recruitment has not evolved as fast. This is especially true when it comes to CVs. Some of us still use the same CV formats we did several decades ago. This creates a major issue in the first stage of the recruitment funnel. Recruiters spend a lot of time looking through CVs in order to decide whether to move on to the next one or dig deeper. In theory, a candidate writing a great CV can save us a lot of time. However, the time is not really being saved as much as transferred from recruiters to candidates. In reality, then, the problem is still not solved.

Interactive

Digging deeper into a given section of a CV will allow recruiters to get more detailed and relevant info while keeping the first glance clean.

Metric-Oriented

Some of the best CVs I’ve seen have clear, tangible metrics — e.g., “Improved metric X with action Y.” The CV of the future could immediately provide clear values to key metrics by simply holding your cursor over a particular word to see the graphs

Privacy

Privacy is becoming increasingly crucial. There is no reason to think the CV of the future should contain personal info such as name, picture, or contact details until a connection has been agreed to by both parties. The CV of the future will be focused on your profession, not your background or identity. This would also be enormously beneficial for privacy compliance.

Always keep in mind what your FUTURE employer will want to know about you — it’s not about what you did, it’s about what you can contribute. Impress them with what you can bring to their organization and you are very likely to make it to the next step… the interview!

3 simple tips to writing a successful CV

The common problem for so many employers today, particularly among the millennial demographic is they receive hundreds of CVs across their digital platforms they are simply ignored or paid to with little attention.

1. Executive Summary

So, what can you do to make your application stand out in the right way? First, convert your curriculum vitae (CV) to include a short 4-5 sentence executive summary at the top of your page. It provides the decision makers with pertinent bottom line information that can be scanned in 30 seconds. Therefore, forget the “wishy washy” language and get straight to the point with accomplishments and metrics. This will let the CV do the talking for you

2. Don’t Confuse Duties with Accomplishments

Anyone can Google or search LinkedIn for job descriptions! There is simply no need to list your job description on your CV. Achievements are things you did that had a lasting impact for your company or client. It is a result that you personally bring about while fulfilling a particular role. Typically they are things that you created, built, designed, sold or initiated. It is not the same as responsibilities that come under a job description, as these remain fixed no matter who is employed in the post. An achievement is unique to your experience and tells the employer that you can deliver. So, keep your duty summaries concise, and focus instead on unique accomplishments

3. Keep it Short

Let’s be candid: People don’t read anymore. So, what makes you think employers want to read your autobiography? Hint: they don’t! And this is where your inner scribe shines, since you need to condense your seven years of accomplishments and experience into maximum 2 pages. That might seem impossible, but with some research, creativity and dedication, you can keep it short. Avoid ancient history!!