How To Let People Know You’re Looking For A New Job

A few weeks ago, team Zealify went to a meetup called ‘Talent Stuff’, an event that educates startups on hiring best practices. One of the internal recruiters speaking at the event said something that really stuck with me. I’m paraphrasing but; “If I can’t find you online then I’m not interested.” If you think about it, that makes perfect sense — why would someone waste their time looking for people who aren’t findable when there are SO many people that are? Flipping that around; how do you think you’re going to be able to find a job if nobody knows you’re looking for one? I think this is a simple but really important point that many job seekers are failing to realise.

With this in mind, in this post I’m going to outline a few quick tips — that can all be done today — that will make it easier for people to find you if you’re looking for a new job.

Social tagline and bio

The main tool you should be using in your job search in LinkedIn. If you’re not on LinkedIn, you need to be. Even if you’re not looking for a new job right now. We’ve spoken before about how to create a killer LinkedIn profile for your job search.

One thing recruiters will do when looking for people to fill a role, is search LinkedIn for keywords that indicate someone is looking for a new role. This is where your tagline on LinkedIn comes in — if you have keywords that they search for, you’re more likely to be found.

Common keywords / phrases for LinkedIn taglines include the following:

• Seeking Opportunities
• Looking for a new role
• etc

PRO TIP: Include your industry as well as the fact you are searching for a new job. This will make you more visible to recruiters that are more targeted with their search. e.g. “Currently seeking opportunities in x, y, z.”

In a similar way to LinkedIn’s tagline, you can use your Twitter bio to become more searchable by including keywords that recruiters might search for. You can also use Twitter to let your followers know you’re looking for a new role. One of the best ways to do this is pinning a visual tweet to your profile (an image that everyone will see as soon as they hit your profile). Canva is a great tool to quickly create an image, and they have pre-set image sizes so you can simply click ‘Twitter Post’ and have peace of mind that it’s going to look like you want it to when you upload it.

Ask your connections for referrals

Going one step further than letting people know you’re looking for a new role, is asking them for referrals or recommendations.

This tip is simple — use LinkedIn for exactly what it’s tagline says it is, “The world’s largest professional network”. Build your network and then use it to your advantage by asking your connections if they know of any companies that are hiring or might be interested in having a conversation. You’ll be surprised who comes out of the woodwork and introduces you to someone or at least suggests a few companies you’ve never heard of before.

In fact, it’s actually more likely that people you don’t expect to help you out will be the ones that do. Reid Hoffman talks about this in his book ‘The Startup of You’. He argues that ‘weak ties’ are more likely to provide you with opportunities than ‘strong ties’. This is because close family and friends often hold the same information about potential opportunities as you. It is the information on opportunities outside of this circle that will provide the most value. Also, he argues that people are seen as more credible if they endorse someone that is not obviously a strong tie (like a family member) and therefore people are more likely to recommend weak ties.

PRO TIP: Write a post on LinkedIn’s pulse asking for referrals and / or introductions. When you publish a post, every one of your connections gets a notification, so you can guarantee that they will all see it. Remember to include who you are, what your skills are and what you are looking for.

Asking for referrals doesn’t only have to happen on LinkedIn. You can ask on other social media channels or even (shock horror) in real life! In general, people want to help. Just ask. What have you got to lose?

Personal business cards

One thing you’ll need if you are going to start networking and asking people for help in person is some personal business cards. Personal business cards are an essential part of your personal brand when looking for a new job; they will make you look professional, help people remember you and let you leave a great lasting impression on anyone you meet that could help you in the future.

PRO TIP: moo.com is a great site for creating professional looking business cards that don’t cost an arm and a leg.

Email signature

We’ve written a whole post on the subject of using email signatures to help your job search, so I won’t go into too much detail here. Here are the main points:

DO:

• Include your phone number
• Include a tagline
• Include the fact that you’re “Seeking new opportunities”
• Include a link to your blog or examples of work
• Inject some personality

DON’T

• Include too many social profiles
• Include your physical address
• Have your email signature as one image

Think about it; how many emails do you send in a month? You could be letting that number of people know you’re looking for a new job in a professional, non-spammy way. That’s a huge missed opportunity if you’re not utilising it.

PRO TIP: Use WiseStamp to create your email signature. WiseStamp enables you to create a professional looking email signature that gets inserted into any email you send.

Sign up to Job Boards

This doesn’t mean using job boards to spam employers by applying to hundreds of roles with the same application. The idea is that in order to be found, you need to be wherever employers or recruiters are looking. Job boards are obviously a huge source of candidates for employers and recruiters, but not just through applications. Most job boards have a searchable CV database that can be used to find and contact relevant job seekers. You need to be in these databases. So sign up and optimise your profiles on each site to become more visible.

One negative to doing this is you can almost guarantee you will be contacted by recruiters with completely irrelevant roles. The tables turn and you’re the one getting spammed; you’ll get a taste of how the hiring managers feel when receiving hundreds of untailored applications — not very productive is it?!). However, the positives here far outweigh the small bit of extra leg work it creates, so persevere because their could be a great needle in the haystack. As with your job applications to employers, the best opportunities will stand out.

Remember, LinkedIn is not just a professional network, it’s fast becoming one of the world’s biggest job boards. Their most recent report (Feb ’15) stated they had 3 million active jobs posted on the platform. This simply reinforces the fact that you need to be on LinkedIn.

PRO TIP: If you can, purchase LinkedIn’s Job Seeker Premium profile. This will help you hugely in standing out and getting noticed by employers and recruiters searching for potential candidates, with your listing being ‘2 x more prominent than other search results’.

One final thing to keep in mind, is that if you are embarking on a job search you need to be prepared, and if you want other people to help, you need to make it as easy as possible for them to do so. Think about crafting a personal bio that people can use in recommendations, make sure your CV is up to date and in the correct format etc. You could even pre-write whole emails for people to simply click ‘send’. Take as much of the work out of other people’s hands as possible.

So there you have it. Some quick and easy tips that will help you let people know you’re looking for a new job; because let’s face it, if no-one knows you’re looking for something, how are you going to find it?

EDIT: What if you’re looking for a new job discretely (without your boss knowing)?

I was asked this question after publishing and thought I’d share my answer:

It’s a good question and a tough one.

The only advice I can give is to do the things that would seem perfectly reasonable whether or not you were looking for job. In the main part this means networking and starting conversations with people at companies you admire or could see yourself at.

In an ideal world, you will want to be open and honest with your boss about the fact that you are exploring other possibilities and the reasons why. This should help them understand and either accept that it is time for you to move on (and be supportive of your career growth), or work with you to rectify any issues that could be causing your desire to leave. It will also enable you to give your boss the courtesy of working through your notice period or longer, and help them find a replacement if needed, so that you leave no burnt bridges.

Of course this all depends on the circumstances.

Note: This post was originally published on 6th January 2016.