10 Tips to Improve Your LinkedIn Profile

LinkedIn has rapidly become the top professional networking sites, with close to 200 million registered users.

However, many of the users are just “registered user” and not the active user. In order to make your profile more active, searchable and impressive there are some tips that you can follow, irrespective of the field/industry that you are in.

Here are my Top Ten Tips or 3T:

• Always keep your profile up to date.
• Complete your profile by filling up all sections.
• Join relevant groups and participate in discussions.
• Ask questions and answer question raised by other in the area of your expertise.
• Ask for recommendations and recommend others.
• Build your network.
• Provide a brief and to the point summary for the reader of your profile.
• Share article, news, thoughts and anything worth sharing.
• Perform some activity at least once or twice every week.
• If you want to be approachable, share your contact details including your websites.

Attributes

All of us constantly look for one or the other or a combination of many attributes in each and every individual /institution /product /services that we come in contact of.

Though it is quite challenging to put the attributes in any particular order, however it is these attributes that we look for, that determines, the kind of people we befriend, or we do business with, or the kind of product we purchase or services we buy, it also play a significant role in the marketing or advertisement strategy of any company.

Trust is one of the key attribute that you would look for in any sphere of life and business. Integrity and Honesty would follow.

Commitment is an attribute which is like a rare gem to have.

Attribute to empathize with others, be it family, friend or your customer is always valued but rarely practiced.

To succeed in life, one also needs to have Passion. While discipline is an attribute which all of us are taught as early as in kindergarten.

Let’s stop judging others, what would you say is your key attributes!!

Staffing And Recruitment

So all of you have done some type of searches on search engines like Google, right?

And do you think it is plain and simple or is there anything special that you need to do to source candidates?

Well, while the basic search run, through which you can find “something” is easy, searching/sourcing for recruitment purpose is quite different.

To me there are different levels of sourcing:

1. Keyword based: this is pretty simple.  You just need to put things like Job Title and few skills and look for exact match in the resume.
2. Obvious and Not so obvious Keyword: this requires some basic understanding of the job. So that you don’t just look for exact keyword match based on what is there in the job description but you define your own keyword based on your understanding of the role. An example is use of different sounding title for the same role.
3. Searching something which is not there: a normal job seeker is not trained in resume writing. So what if he is not putting any of the keyword, obvious or not so obvious, in his resume. In such case you have to be a bit research minded, by looking into the talent pool of a competitor company, where similarly skilled candidates are working.
4. You can also source for over or under qualified candidates and then try to seek referral from them.

Power of Social Network

Power of speech can be matched only by the power of silence.

It is this silent power which the social network/media arms with the power of speech.

Though there is no denying the fact that democracy is the best form of government, but even there people get to voice their opinion only after a fixed period of time, usually once in four or five years. There too not everyone speak out and unfortunately it is probably the educated class which opts out of the voting system.

Social media thus provide a great tool to this educated class to share their knowledge & experience. Whether it is retired personnel, or a home maker or a working executive, or a college student, this media allow everyone to participate in the discussion and share their thought and bring together like-minded people.

Over a period of time these thoughts are bound to be heard and appreciated by the ruling class and will have a strong bearing on the policy formulation.

Thus we will have an effective government which creates policies that is openly debated, discussed, followed, tweeted, shared, liked/disliked and thus finally evolved into an act.

Coping with Depression

Recently there was a new item on a research study which shows that it is okay to be not happy when you are not happy.

It raises a question: Do we need to pretend happiness and positivity if we are not feeling that way from deep within?

We are always told to B+, to remain optimistic irrespective of the situation or circumstances. They say that this will help us in getting over a situation.

Move on…is a mantra in life.

Does this new theory of showing your grumpiness is correct.

We need to think.

The important thing is not whether we pretend to be happy when we are not or we irritate everyone else with our own grumpiness.

The key lies in understanding of the situation, believing in oneself and working towards changing things. To have confidence in oneself that he can reverse a reverse situation.

So when you understand the situation and accept that it is not a very good state to be in and you ponder over the reason leading to it…you are just being honest and not grumpy.

Once you have a realization and you decide to move on, fight back and rectify things, you are not pretending…you actually are happy.

Happy with yourself!

Motivating Employees for Community Activity

Do you want your employee to engage in community activities? Do you want them to contribute to the society by partnering or through philanthropic activity?

If the answer is yes, then undoubtedly you have to be the one to take lead and show the way. However, even important is to make them understand why it is needed. Community Partnership or Philanthropic events are not something which you can sell. It is something that you have to make people understand the importance of. On top of that, it is very important that the process of joining in for such activity/event is not cumbersome. At times, people do not participate, not because of lack of interest or time, but due to the hassles involved even before starting.

Performance Management System

What is a performance management system?

It is a well thought out methodology to help every employee in organization perform to his/her full potential. Different individual have different capability. A good PMS should focus on harnessing and enriching and individual.

Three major items will shape up effectiveness of your PMS:

• Clearly defined role, responsibility and performance expectation.
• Communicating the above.
• Honest assessment/measurement and Recognition.

Productive Work Place

We all need to have our own personalized workspace to carry out our daily activity. In such a case, I believe that we should pay attention to the following aspect:

• Minimize distraction from noise.
• Un-clutter your desk.
• Avoid temptation of shuffling work.
• Prioritize work
• Scheduling or Time Management
• Take short and frequent breaks

Stress Management

What is Stress?

Stress is a mental condition caused by our inability to deal with the changes that happens to us every single moment.

There is always one or the other development taking place in our lives. Some people cope with these changes quite positively. However, there are others who find it difficult because of the disempowering beliefs.

Disempowering beliefs are negative thoughts that come in our mind when we are faced with a situation.

If we want to free ourselves from Stress like condition, then we need to get rid of those dis-empowering belief and replace it with positive thoughts.

Add to that good habits-eating healthy, exercising regularly etc. and you will be completely free from stress.

Customer Satisfaction

If you wish that your customers are a satisfied lot then do the following:

• Remain available for them when they need you
• Deal with them patiently, Listen to them
• Help them get what they want rather than just promises of understanding them.
• Get back to them, if they are expecting any response from you, always.

Quality of the services/products that you sell them as well as the cost of the same is going to be crucial factor in establishing a customer-vendor relationship. Similarly terms & conditions of services and after sales support are equally important.

However, once a customer-vendor or client-vendor relationship is established, if you follow the above four, they will be always satisfied with you.