This blog post is offered to Public Libraries and written by LinkedIn to assist community members with job search. We gladly post it here in our business blog at Naperville Public Library to inform local job seekers and entrepreneurs.
LinkedIn is helping job-seekers from around the world tap into their professional community—whether they realize they have one already or not.
Trying to land your dream job is a tall order. But here’s the good news: There are roughly 11 million job openings per month in America at any given time. Sure, you don’t want all those jobs, but you want some of them—and some of them want you!
LinkedIn connects qualified candidates with companies and organizations that crave top talent. With these tips, you’ll be well on your way to snagging a seat at the professional table.
LinkedIn is helping job-seekers from around the world tap into their professional community—whether they realize they have one already or not.
Trying to land your dream job is a tall order. But here’s the good news: There are roughly 11 million job openings per month in America at any given time. Sure, you don’t want all those jobs, but you want some of them—and some of them want you!
LinkedIn connects qualified candidates with companies and organizations that crave top talent. With these tips, you’ll be well on your way to snagging a seat at the professional table.
Why LinkedIn?
- 80% of LinkedIn members consider professional networking to be important to new job opportunities and career success, according to LinkedIn research
- 70% of people were hired at a company where they had a connection
- More than 20 million professionals including recruiters, hiring managers and decision makers use LinkedIn every week
Let LinkedIn do the work for you
More than a quarter of professionals say they have no time to search for a new career.
But worry not, with search alerts you can get notifications and updates to a saved search via email or shared with you on LinkedIn. Use advanced search filters to narrow down opportunities by industry, location, experience level and more. Once your filtered search is set, simply create the alert.
Let recruiters know you’re open to new opportunities by simply flipping a switch on your LinkedIn profile. It’s called Open Candidates, and yes, it’s that easy. Open Candidates is accessible from the "Preferences" tab on the LinkedIn Jobs home page.
By flipping the switch, you privately signal to recruiters that you’re interested in new opportunities. Don’t forget to update your career interests. This helps you appear the search results that recruiters are regularly scouring. Additionally, this helps inform the daily job recommendations LinkedIn sends you and surfaces on the jobs homepage.
But worry not, with search alerts you can get notifications and updates to a saved search via email or shared with you on LinkedIn. Use advanced search filters to narrow down opportunities by industry, location, experience level and more. Once your filtered search is set, simply create the alert.
Let recruiters know you’re open to new opportunities by simply flipping a switch on your LinkedIn profile. It’s called Open Candidates, and yes, it’s that easy. Open Candidates is accessible from the "Preferences" tab on the LinkedIn Jobs home page.
By flipping the switch, you privately signal to recruiters that you’re interested in new opportunities. Don’t forget to update your career interests. This helps you appear the search results that recruiters are regularly scouring. Additionally, this helps inform the daily job recommendations LinkedIn sends you and surfaces on the jobs homepage.

Discover your earning potential
LinkedIn tapped into its network of more than 530 million members to give you deep salary insights into the compensation landscape. You can also dig deeper into compensation insights about specific companies you’re interested in so when the time comes to talk money, you’re ready.
This salary comparison tool includes wage, bonus, and equity data for specific job titles, and the different factors that impact pay such as years of experience, industry, company size, location, and education level.
This salary comparison tool includes wage, bonus, and equity data for specific job titles, and the different factors that impact pay such as years of experience, industry, company size, location, and education level.
Connect with alumni
One of easiest ways for students and alumni to make connections is through the LinkedIn Alumni tool. It’s an easy way to explore people who graduated from your same school, where they work now and in what cities. Simply search for your school and select “see alumni” to get started. You can now access your alumni center and view career paths for more than 23,000 colleges and universities worldwide.

Entrepreneur? Create your own job — become a freelancer
- Nearly 20% of freelancers confirmed they'll make six figures or more this year through their entrepreneurship, according to LinkedIn
- More than half of freelancers confirmed that they will never return to more traditional, full-time employment
- 80% of freelancers do not actually have any concern about their freelance work being replaced by technology, artificial intelligence, or automation in the next 10-20 years.

Seek career advice from others
- More than 80% of professionals on LinkedIn have stated they either want to have a mentor or be one to others
- More than half of these professionals don’t know where to begin and more than one-third have a hard time finding the right person
Learn the skills needed for your next gig
- One-third of job-seekers have expressed concern that they don’t have the necessary skills to be competitive in the job market
- Many people who are looking for work from home jobs use LinkedIn learning to gain the skills needed to be an ideal candidate for remote work.
What now? — Get started
Create or update your LinkedIn profile today. This provides other LinkedIn members with a better understanding of the unique skills, interests, and experience that make you — you.- Make sure you have a profile photo - it will help get you recognized and connect to potential opportunities. Members with a profile photo receive up to 21x more profile views and 9x more connection requests.
- Members with current positions are discovered up to 16x more in recruiter searches
- Members with more than 5 skills are 27x more likely to be discovered in searches by recruiters
- Including the city where you are based makes you stand out up to 23x in searches
Posted:
Monday, May 21, 2018 - 10:00