Randomness

This evening my wife informed me that there were over 16,000 job cuts announced today here in the state of Washington. Grabbing a few of the headlines from King 5′s website.

• Home Depot to cut 7,000 jobs, close Expo chain
• Sprint Nextel to eliminate 8,000 jobs
• Microsoft feels the pinch, cuts 5,000 jobs
• And who can forget… Adobe Company Wide Layoffs, Pulls out of Macworld Expo

It’s getting nasty out there. So my tip today is to let you in on some of my secrets to becoming successful on LinkedIn, even in a time of economic downturn.

Even though I attribute much of my success to being totally awesome… here are some of my tips for success on LinkedIn besides using LinkedIn Jobs:

Never be rude to recruiters

They may just be able to save your bacon someday. When I get an email from a recruiter… even if it’s for a job that I have no interest in. I always respond with a polite, “I’m sorry, I’m not interested at this time. Please feel free to add me as a connection on LinkedIn” response. Given today’s economy… if I was to lose my job, I’d want a group of recruiters willing to help me out.

Update your status

Not many people update their status. Which is a benefit for us, because your status updates show up on the homepage of your connections. It’s a great way to get noticed.. especially if you are connected to recruiters, see above tip.

Recommendations really help

Another great way to get noticed is to have well-written recommendations. Receiving recommendations I’ve found, is a lot like a credit score… sometimes they just take time to grow. Future employers like to see recommendations from many sources over the years. Not just 6 recommendations in the past 2 months.

Also… don’t go on a recommendation spree writing a recommendation for every single connection you have, you will lose credibility.

Answer questions in your respective field

Along the same lines of credibility, LinkedIn Answers is an excellent place to establish your credibility with the community at large. From a high level perspective, answer questions about stuff you know and earn expertise.

Join groups relating to your field

An example of this is the Adobe Flex Developers group, it’s a plethora of job postings all over the world. Also be sure to subscribe to the digest email for updates about the group.

[Seriousnote]
I hope that any of you whom have lost your job, and are reading this post know that any joking in this post is in jest. I’m connected with many recruiters (especially in the Seattle Area) who are looking for talented Flash and Flex developers, go ahead and send me a connection request and I can make an introduction.
[/Seriousnote]

Anyone reading this post is welcome to connect with me on LinkedIn.