Minimize How Recruiters Use Your Data

[svp]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyJTQH459LI[/svp]
Did you know that recruiters are using your LinkedIn data to find people to place in new jobs? Here’s how to minimize that from happening.

 

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There are a lot of different ways that recruiters are able to use people’s data to their own advantage. I’m going to walk you through a few things that you can do to minimize that from happening and save yourself some aggravation.

I say, “save yourself some aggravation,” because, while they are looking at your profile they are able to decide to never call you. Here’s how it works.

Who can see your connections? You can find this in the privacy and help settings by going to the top ribbon, all the way to the right where your photo or icon would be, you’ll find the drop down menu with that is an option. Once you are in the privacy and settings area, you’ll click, “Manage It.”

From there, you want to go to the privacy tab. They are, you can edit your public profile, who can see your connections (interesting! Do you want everyone to see your connections? Probably not. Change that you only you).

How you rank. If you’re someone like me you want everyone to see how you rank. If you are average Jane or Joe, you may be 1 million down from the top and not want to show that. Next is the fun one – – “viewers of this profile also viewed.”

If you look at your home LinkedIn page, you’ll see in the right column that there are other people appearing there with similar kinds of backgrounds to yours.

What recruiters, in effect, are doing is looking at a number of people have profiles at the same time without a lot of effort.

Good for recruiters. Bad for you. Why? Because a lot of you can’t stand up to competition. I also want to say that there is a different level of competition when job hunting in smaller cities versus larger ones (in smaller towns, there are fewer people competing for these jobs). The numbers in a large city make it less desirable to do this kind of stuff because “Look at this profile! There are 1000 more like it.”).

So when you look at, “viewers of this profile also looked at,” you want to change it to, “No,”and reduce your competition.

Followers. Choose who can view your public updates. Everyone! Opened up so people can find out more about you and create a brand impression.

This is a nice feature that allows you to communicate more openly with businesses and with people that you are connected with.

One last thing with regard to LinkedIn and networking. Be involved with groups. I’m sure that you’ve heard this before, LinkedIn advantages people who post regularly in four or more groups.

This may be hard for you to do unless you have community where you use public transportation. Then you have time to do something constructive for your career while you’re commuting.

Hear that message – – LinkedIn advantages people who actively participate in four or more groups.

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Do you really think employers are trying to help you? You already know you can’t trust recruiters—they tell as they think you need to know to take the job they after representing so they collect their payday.

The skills needed to find a job are different yet complement the skills needed to do a job.

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter has been a career coach and recruiter for what seems like one hundred years.

JobSearchCoachingHQ.com is there to change that with great advice for job hunters—videos, my books and guides to job hunting, podcasts, articles, PLUS a community for you to ask questions of PLUS the ability to ask me questions where I function as your ally with no conflict of interest answering your questions.

Connect with me on LinkedIn http://bit.ly/thebiggamehunter