I Always Feel Like Someone is Watching Me

You know that insurance commercial with the money and the eye balls, where they play that old song "I Always Feel Like Someone is Watching Me". Sometimes being watched can be a good thing, especially in LinkedIn. Here is yet another way to find those people you should be connecting with.


The other day, I found a job lead on the Internet that I was a very good match for. I checked my LinkedIn network to see if there were any advocates within that organization. There were six Level 2's I could reach out to for intelligence gathering and possible support. The next day, I received an invitation from one of them to join their network (see below).

This person is a former executive at my target company and he reached out to me because I had viewed his profile. We had a very productive  conversation and the intelligence he shared with me about the company and it's culture was invaluable. Based on the information, I decided not to pursue the position. However, even though the position didn't turn out,  I decided I should pass on this "new" (at least new to me) networking tip.

After logging into LinkedIn go to the Home Page. On the right hand side of the page there will be a box titled "Who's viewed my profile?"

Click the "See more" link (or the words "Your profile has been viewed by...") and you will be taken to a new page displaying who has checked your profile over the last (x) day(s).

For those of us using the gratis (free) LinkedIn membership, we are limited to a certain amount of days. Those with paid membership, will be able to view more days.

If you click one of the people who has viewed your profile their profile will be opened for you to view. Check out their profile. Who knows, it might be someone you should connect with.











Any people in the list without names are those outside of your network. When you click on those individuals LinkedIn will displayed a new search list based on the criteria from the description on the previous page.


For example: If I click on the fifth link (from the above) a list of individuals within 100 miles of zip code 10021 (NYC) working in the Publishing industry with the key words engineering-information technology will be displayed..







Another bonus for all of us. Once you find someone who has been watching you, you can see who has been watching them by checking the list of names under the "Viewers of this profile also viewed..." area on the right hand side of their profile page.

Again, a possible resource for people you might want to connect with.











Let me know if you have any new (not so new) ways to grow your network using LinkedIn.

Do You Want to LinkUp?

Did you know when you submit your resume to the blackhole for a position you saw posted on a typical Internet job search board over 3,000 other people are submitting their resumes for that same position? Did you also know that when you submit your resume online it will most likely be scanned for keywords by a computer program before it ever is seen by an actual set of human eyes? Do you wish you could find jobs and send your resume directly to the employer and not have to go through the screening software used by recruiters?

First, I want to thank a good friend in my network for informing me about this website: Terrance Seamon. You can visit his blog at http://learningvoyager.blogspot.com/.

We all know about, or should know about, the two big aggregate job search engines on the Internet: indeed and SimplyHired. But there might be a new kid (at least to this blogger) on the block: LinkUp. And LinkUp might be the better of the three depending on what you are looking for. LinkUp positions itself as an aggregate that grabs postings from only the company websites – over 19,000. But I'll let the readers decide with the a sampling of results from each of the aggregators using the same criteria, which by the way, is my personal job search criteria while I am in transition.

A little research shows that LinkUp is registered through GoDaddy.com and might be housed out of Minneapolis, Minnesota. Of course with the Internet, there doesn't need to a brick and mortar office with a web server being located anywhere.

When one looks at the site one has to wonder who LinkUp is trying to appear like. Anyone who has used indeed and SimplyHired can see the similarities between those two. However, I invite readers to comment on what major Internet branding LinkUp might be trying to connect up with.

Criteria used: 50 miles; training coordinator; employer websites only; last 7 days.

InDeed

If I had broadened my search to 100 miles, I would have found 41 jobs. Unfortunately, indeed is only aggregate job search engine that has a radius setting of "100 miles".

SimplyHired

LinkUp

There are some other interesting tools/functions that are available on LinkUp. There is a page where you can check out the Word Cloud. For those who don't know what that is (before this blog neither did I), a Word Cloud is…a tag cloud or word cloud (or weighted list in visual design) is a visual depiction of user-generated tags, or simply the word content of a site, used typically to describe the content of web sites. Tags are usually single words and are typically listed alphabetically, and the importance of a tag is shown with font size or color.^[1] Thus both finding a tag by alphabet and by popularity is possible. The tags are usually hyperlinks that lead to a collection of items that are associated with a tag. Click here to learn more about Word Clouds at Wikipedia.

The Word Cloud in LinkUp, http://www.linkup.com/job-cloud.php, lists a variety of different job categories. After clicking on a job category, the Word Cloud will be displayed. Here is the Word Cloud for…

LinkUp states that one can use these words for job search terms or those hard to find words for your resume. Personally, I think one should look for glossary sites related to their industry and bookmark them.

Because LinkUp posts only jobs from employer career websites you can start networking immediately. Then you can find advocates who can hand your resume to the hiring manager, and supporters who can help you gather intelligence in your target organizations.