5 Keys to Managing Your Executive Job Search on LinkedIn

You should seriously consider upgrading your LinkedIn presence – whether it’s for executive search or personal branding. LinkedIn strategies for mid-career professionals will need to be considered.

Many executives limit what they share on LinkedIn for company confidentiality reasons or other reasons. LinkedIn executives are often approached more than other users, either by potential employers or recruiters who are interested in their qualifications.

This activity may require a less formal presence at the site while still delivering a solid leadership message.

These changes can be implemented to build a solid but discreet LinkedIn presence that supports your strategic executive job search.

1 – Give (More!) Details about Your Career Progression.

Many executives do not start at the CEO or COO level. Instead, they have held increasingly challenging positions. This story will help you tell your brand story.

It will help you get more traction in leadership positions if you show at least part of your career path, not just your executive roles. Although most professionals have 10-15 years of experience, executives often provide more detail about their backgrounds.

You can include positions in your Profile’s Experience section that demonstrate how you were qualified for an executive position, even if the details are not relevant.

2 – Allow Confidential Surfing

LinkedIn displays information about other profiles when you view them. You may be required to monitor the activity of your staff on LinkedIn and vet recruiters. Or, you might need to look at profiles of other leaders in your industry.

You might want to disable these visitor statistics for the receiver end. You can do this by going to Settings, then Privacy Controls. Select “Select what other people see when they view your profile.” This option should be set to “You will remain completely anonymous.”

Now you can visit the Profiles of hiring authorities, CEOs, and recruiters. You can visit the Profiles of hiring authorities, CEOs, and other executives as many times as you need. There is no risk of being “found out.”

LinkedIn requires you to upgrade your account if you want to keep your identity anonymous but still have the ability to view who has viewed your Profile. This can be a good investment if you are interested in analyzing traffic and keyword statistics. Premium accounts will provide more detailed analytics.

3 – Position yourself at the Executive Level

Your LinkedIn Headline should be updated to reflect your executive career status, but you can also add Profile information to help employers understand your goals and to help them find you.

You can insert job titles that you are interested in into different sections depending on how confidential you want. This sentence from a LinkedIn Summary, for example, sets the stage for an open executive search by defining job titles as goals.

You can add job titles to the Skills & Expertise section. This will allow you to search for a less obvious job. The profile SEO will show less-endorsed skills at the bottom. They are not visible at first glance and, therefore, not easily spotted by other users.

You can use the Interests section to help you target your career. A discreet note, such as “I’m looking for CTO/VP of Engineering opportunities that leverage my background in product strategy and release management” or “I have additional interests”, could be added.

4 – Control Notification Broadcasts

LinkedIn makes all information public. You will need to have a well-planned strategy in place so that your new Profile is discovered by your employer, board members, staff or other executive peers.

Privacy Controls can be found under your Settings. You can adjust them so that no one else is notified about your Profile changes. This means that your staff and the executive team won’t be notified.

These options can be managed by going to Settings and then Privacy Controls. Choose “Turn on/off activity broadcasts.” Check the box that says, “Let others know when you modify your profile, make recommendations, and follow companies.” This will stop Profile change alerts from being sent to your Connections or appearing on your list for recent activity.

If you plan on posting articles or feedback about areas of industry interest to contacts, you will want to make sure your Activity Feed (another privacy option) is ON. Click on Privacy Controls and click on “Select who may see your activity feed.”

You can adjust the options by using the drop-down menu.

5 – Be More Open to Networking

LinkedIn is a popular platform for executives to connect with others. They then begin to review each request suspiciously and may refuse invitations or ignore their Profiles.

It is essential to understand the purpose of other users in reaching out to your site, but being too cautious will lead to losing the purpose of the site. LinkedIn is a popular social networking site that many executives consider unnecessary. They don’t realize the volume of recruitment it hosts.

Your LinkedIn Profile will be more engaging if you include relevant sections such as your Headline, Summary and Experience, Contact information, Education and Contact information.

LinkedIn has no magic number of connections. However, profiles with fewer than 100 contacts indicate an inability to network online. You’ll also find that you will have greater access to key industry people and recruiters if you invite more Connections.

You’ll reap the benefits of building your LinkedIn network contact-by-contact. This will allow you to quickly filter out invitations with questionable intent. Your success will depend on your offline professional relationships. This is why it’s essential to include them in your job search strategy.

These strategies will increase your LinkedIn presence from both an SEO and social media perspective. You’ll gain serious traction for your executive job hunt while still maintaining some confidentiality.