Changes and Features in the New LinkedIn User Interface

LinkedIn Gets All Dressed Up – (sourced from LinkedIn Blog)

LinkedIn quietly launched a new user interface in March and is slowly rolling it out to their more than 200 million members over the next several months.  This article will look at what’s new in the LinkedIn user interface - including some new features - so you are ready for the changeover, especially as some features have been relocated to new menu items and others have been removed completely.

Current vs. New LinkedIn User Interface – I have copied examples of the Old and New LinkedIn User Interface below.  As you can see, the new interface has a cleaner look with fewer tabs and it even includes some new tabs.  This rest of this article will identify the changes, new features and help you prepare for the new interface.

Old LinkedIn User Interface

New LinkedIn User Interface

Search bar – The search bar is now front and center and besides using icons instead of words for categories, it also has some new features.   If you do not specify what you want to search, LinkedIn will provide matches across whatever categories have matches.  For example, if you type “Recruiting” into the search bar you will get results from Connections, Companies, Groups, Features and Skills.

Profile – The options under the Profile menu item have been drastically reduced in the new interface.    The old interface included the following menu items:  Edit Profile, View Profile, Recommendations, Profile Organizer and Following.  The new interface only has Edit Profile.  To view your profile in the new interface, you simply click on the Profile menu item.

Network – The Network menu in the new interface includes links for Contacts, Add Connections and Find Alumni.  The old menu item for Contacts has been absorbed into the Networks menu.

Jobs – The Jobs tab is still in the new interface but the drop-down menu items in the old interface (Find Jobs, Jobseeker Premium, Post a Job, Manage Your Jobs and Talent Solutions) have been removed.  Clicking on the new Jobs menu item takes you directly to the Jobs page which is the same page if you click on the top Jobs menu item in the old interface.

Interests – Interests is a new menu item and combines the former Companies, Groups and News tabs.  In addition, News is now referred to as Influencers.  The Influencer section is actually worth exploring as LinkedIn is expanding their footprint by turning into a content engine in addition to being the leading business network.

When you click on the Influencer menu item, you are taken to LinkedIn Today which is a compilation of news customized for each individual.  LinkedIn has signed up a number of authors and industry powerhouses to provide unique content directly on this page and I always find an interesting article or two every day.  You can sign up for specific authors or select which channels you would like to populate your LinkedIn Today page.  Clicking on the Like button for any of the articles you read on LinkedIn automatically posts the article as a status update in your newsfeed so all of your connections can see what’s important to you.

What Else is New? – Here is a summary of what else is new in the revised interface:

Search Bar – The Search bar is now front and center in the menu, and besides using icons instead of words for categories, it also has some new features.   If you do not specify what you want to search, LinkedIn will provide matches across whatever categories have matches.  For example, if you type “Recruiting” into the search bar you will get results from Connections, Companies, Groups, Features and Skills.  For categories with Advanced search, the word Advanced appears to the right of the search box (People and Jobs).

Privacy & Settings – The Privacy & Settings menu can now be found by clicking on your LinkedIn picture in the upper right corner of the menu.  Your picture has replaced your name

Inbox – The Inbox has changed from a menu item to an icon in the upper right corner of the menu.  Click on the Envelope icon to access your Invitations and Messages.

Add Connections – There are two ways to add connections in the new interface.  You can select the Network menu item and click on the Add Connections sub-menu item or you can click on the icon next to your picture in the upper right corner.

More Menu Item – The More menu item is gone which directly impacts two key features – Help Center and Skills & Expertise.  You can still reach these pages, but it is not as easy in the new interface as it was in the old interface.  You can always reach Help from the footer at the bottom of every page or by typing in help.linkedin.com.    To get to the Skills & Expertise page, you will need to search for skills by typing a skill into the search bar or type in the URL to access the Skills homepage - 
http://www.linkedin.com/skills/
.

All in all, the changes in the new LinkedIn user interface will make it easier to use in the long run, but you may experience some initial confusion when your account is transition to the new interface.

Social Media Marketing: Why Google+ is a Must

[a guest post by Emma-Julie Fox from Pitstop Media]

Most business owners who use social media sites have accounts on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram. However, relatively few have learned to appreciate Google+ as much as other social networking sites. If you’re an entrepreneur or an online marketer, you may have recognized the potential of social media as a marketing and SEO tool and may even have started using it in 2012.

Perhaps you’re now wondering if it will be worth your while to consider using Google+ for social media marketing in 2013. Should you give up on this platform or is there something you can look forward to?

Well, you may not really have much reason to think so right now, but this social network packs a lot of power, and if used right can make your social media marketing campaign more effective. Here’s How:

1.       Circles

One of the key features of this social network is Circles that allow you to segregate your audience into online communities comprised of individuals with the same or similar interests. You are therefore able to target particular messages to specific audiences.

For example, let’s say you want to organize a webinar for your high value clients, now creating a public post about it would mean everyone would be able to see it. But, by marking the post to your ‘circle’ of VIP clients you can share the information with the relevant group only (assuming they have added you to their circles as well).

Having said that, if you have a new business, you may have some trouble in getting people to add you to their circles, since Google doesn’t allow pages to circle people till they circle the page. Therefore it’s a good idea to have a personal G+ account as well, connect with new people through the same and introduce your business page to them.

Here’s a great resource for finding people to network with, based on the industry you are in.

Google+ Communities allow you to deliver your message to targeted audiences. Image source

 2.       Hang Out

This is a brilliant tool that many businesses have already put to good use. Hangout lets you have a video-conference with up to 9 people at one time. This means you can use the feature to conduct online workshops, promotional events or just about any form of client/customer interaction programs.

For example, Cadbury’s used the ‘Triple Chocolate Tasting On Air Hangout’ as a customer engagement tool.  What did they do? They answered fun and interesting questions about chocolates and had fun!

A more creative example though is perhaps of the Giveaway organized by Taylor Guitars through hangout. They got together with singer Daria Musk to organize a series of concerts and giveaways through hangout to generate more buzz about their company.

3.       Webmaster Tools

Webmaster Tools allows you to track your content and see how it is affected by Google+ likes in terms of search results performance.

Therefore having an active presence on this platform will help you determine which of your site content promotes greater engagement with your target audience.

 4.       It’s Google!

There’s no question about it; Google is the world’s number one search engine! So, it is only logical that content shared on it’s own social network will be indexed a lot more quickly than content shared on any other social media platform.

Facebook may currently be the most popular social media tool, but Google will always crawl through its own pages first.  The search engine already takes G+ recommendations into account while tabulating personalized results.

Content on Google+ will be indexed more quickly in Google searches. Image source

Final Words…

There’s a lot that businesses can do with Google+, from improved search rankings in personalized search results to brand engagement through the available tools, it’s all about how creative one can get!

Emma-Julie Fox writes for a Vancouver-based company that provides white hat SEO services, Pitstop Media. If you would like to invite the author to guest post on your blog please contact http://www.pitstopmedia.com

The Adventures of Juno the Puppy

We just got a new puppy last week and my daughter really wanted to write a book about her.  So, we sat at the computer last weekend and here is our creation!

Do You Know What Motivates Job Seekers?

SimplyHired released their third annual survey of job seekers yesterday, titled Today’s Job Seeker Report: A survey of job seeker behaviors and motivations.  The survey presents findings in the following three areas:

• Finding work (satisfaction on the job, mobile job search, social job search)
• Workplace priorities (passion for work, benefits, going green, working parents, working environment)
• Today’s economy (the great recession, new work opportunities, home away from home, seasonal work)

James Beriker, the new president and CEO of Simply Hired had this to say about the survey:

“Understanding the needs and wants of today’s job seekers is a critical element in helping employers find the right candidate for the right job” 

Confidence and optimism in the economy appears to be growing now that it looks like unemployment is trending downward, albeit too slowly for many people.  The survey also showed the impact of millennials on the American workforce as job satisfaction and passion for work are becoming more important to job seekers.

Some of the highlights in the survey include:

Salary and Company Culture are the 2 most important factors in accepting a job offer, representing 79% of the reasons selected

Copyright Simply Hired, Inc.

Doing what I love and advancing my talents and abilities are the two more important factors in defining career success accounting for 77% of the total

Copyright Simply Hired, Inc.

 The recent recession definitely had an impact on workers as 72% said it set them back in their career

Copyright Simply Hired, Inc.

There are many more insights in the full report, and you can download the entire report here.

[originally posted on the AppleOne blog on November 15, 2012]

How Body Language Shapes Who You Are

In a TED conference earlier this year, Amy Cuddy, a researcher and professor at Harvard Business School, gave a talk titled “Your Body Language Shapes Who You Are”.  Specifically, she discussed how non-verbals govern how we think and feel about ourselves and she specifically mentioned the impact of Power Poses.

So, what is a Power Pose?  A power pose is where an individual makes the body expansive and stretches out their limbs.  One of the more famous examples that Amy uses is the “Wonder Woman Pose”.  Other power poses include stretching out your arms in victory as if you just won the 100-meter race in the Olympics or putting your arms behind your head.

Amy’s research has shown that “power posing” can increase your testosterone (the dominance hormone) and lower the cortisol (the stress hormone) levels in the brain, and impact your chance for success.  The impact can even measured when a person does not feel particularly powerful or confident – and she refers to this phenomena as “fake it until you make it”.  As an experiment, she suggested that posing for just two minutes in front of a mirror in a “power” position before a big meeting or interview can have a profound effect on how you feel and on how other people perceive you.  The idea is that “our bodies change our minds” and even tiny tweaks in our posture can lead to big changes.

Similarly, low power or weak poses can have the opposite effect.  In low power poses, people tend to collapse inwardly to protect themselves which causes the opposite effect of power poses on your hormones and can negatively impact your performance and attitude.

You can watch Amy’s entire TED talk in this embedded video:

Amy is also studying how individuals can project warmth in their nonverbal communication.  In this Q&A interview on the TED blog, Amy mentions that demonstrating warmth is just as importance as projecting power.  Warm natural smiles and inviting body language can be used to promote warmth.   A preparatory warm pose is to force yourself to smile by holding a pen horizontally between your teeth for one minute.  This approach forces you to contract the muscles around the month and eyes, and her studies have shown that it actually improves your mood.

At the end of her talk, Amy urges the audience to”try the power pose and share the science.”  It may be just the edge you need for your next important meeting or interview – or it may become part of your daily routine.

October Jobs Report Shows Persistent Economic Growth

The October Jobs Report was released by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) today and the key results showed that the total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 171,000 in October, and the unemployment rate was essentially unchanged at 7.9 percent.  Economists were expecting 125,000 jobs to be added, so the October numbers are a mild surprise.

The BLS also added that Hurricane Sandy had no discernable effect on the employment and unemployment data for October.

Paul Dales, senior United States economist for Capital Economics, provided this assessment of the Jobs Report for the NY Times:

“Generally, the report shows that things are better than we’d expected and certainly better than we’d thought a few months ago, but we’re still not making enough progress to bring that unemployment rate down significantly and rapidly.”

The economy has added jobs for 25 straight months.  Over the last twelve months, the economy has added 1.7 million jobs, including 700,000 in the last 4 months:

More on the October Jobs report can be found at:

• NY Times
• CNN Money
• The Atlantic

 

[Originally posted on the AppleOne Employers Blog on November 1, 2012]

Employee’s View of the Talent Paradox

Deloitte Consulting and Forbes Insights just released their 2012 report titled Talent 2020: Surveying the Talent Paradox form the Employee Perspective, and there are some interesting insights in the report.

One of the more interesting was that 80% of employees say the plan to stay with their organizations over the next year (compared to the 65% of employees who said they were planning on leaving their organization in 2011).

Companies should not be complacent with these results.  The report goes on to say:

“As more employees appear to be sitting tight in their current positions, companies may be tempted to neglect their talent and retention strategies out of a false sense of security that their employees are here to stay. However, we warn that companies’ most critical employees are also those with the most opportunities for movement.”

 Based on the survey results and analysis, three challenges were identified:

1. Engage employees with meaningful work…or watch them walk out the door.  Employees who are seeking new employment believe that their job does not make good use of their skills (42%) or that their position lacks a career progress (37%) or lacks challenge (27%)
2. Focus on turnover “red zones.  “Red Zones” are employee segments most at risk of departure.  Two groups with a high risk of turnover are employees with less than 2 years on the job and Millennial workers (those younger than 31).
3. When it comes to retention, employees are telling us that leadership matters.  More than 60% of workers who plan to say report high levels of trust in their corporate leadership, while only 27% of employees planning to leave exhibit that same trust.

The report delivers three clear takeaways for leaders:

1. Focus on utilizing, engaging and developing employee skills
2. Emphasize and reward authentic leadership
3. Don’t underestimate the returns on communication

A copy of the entire report is embedded below and is worth a detailed read if you are concerned with employee retention at your company.

Deloitte global talent 2020 september 2012 surveying the talent paradox from Fred Zimny

Is Your Company Using Pinterest Yet?

Have you checked out Pinterest yet?  If not, you should.  Pinterest is one of the hottest social media sites on the web today and has experienced exponential growth over the last 2 years.

What is Pinterest?  Pinterest is a place for people to save, organize and share images on the Web.  Here is the official definition of Pinterest directly from Pinterest, “we let you organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web.”  Most users use Pinterest to keep up with the latest fashions, plan their weddings, decorate their homes, and organize their favorite recipes.

Here are a few quick stats  from Fast Company:

• In June 2011, Pinterest had 608,000 monthly U.S. unique visitors. One year later? 20,470,000.
• The site has 1.5 billion monthly page views in the U.S.; 1.9 billion worldwide
• Pinterest’s user base is 79% female, 21% male
• Pinners are predominantly 25 to 54 years old
• In regard to mobile devices, 55% of pinners use iPads, followed by Android (28%) and iPhone (17%).

Pinterest for Business - Most retail and catalog companies have taken a giant leap into Pinterest, but Pinterest can also be used by other businesses too – even for companies in the staffing industry and other B2B businesses that you would not think of as visual.  At AppleOne Employment Services where I now work, we have been using Pinterst for several months and use it to post information about:

• Career resources
• Career tips
• Career books to read
• Resume tips
• Resume tips
• Company overview

We even have a couple of “fun” categories such as Career Humor, Songs about Jobs and Apple recipes.  Check out the AppleOne Pinterest account.

 

Getting Started - If you have not visited Pinterest yet, the best starting place would be to lurk and explore the site first.  You can search for specific content or just start clicking on images to see where you end up.  Otherwise, getting started with Pinterest is pretty simple.  You sign up for an account, complete your profile and can then start pinning.  You put your pins onto boards and you can create new boards on the fly.  Pinterest has a Pin It bookmark applet that makes it easy to pin any web page.  I highly recommend getting the Pin Page applet from Snapito.  Since most of the content in the recruiting and careers industry is not visual, the Pin Page applet takes a snapshot of the page or article I want to share, and that becomes the visual to share.

What Else Is Cool About Pinterest? - You can pin YouTube videos and Slideshare presentations into Pinterest — and the cool part is that they will automatically embed themselves on your Pinterest board.

What is the Pinterest payoff? - Obviously, shopping and e-commerce is fueling a lot of the Pinterest growth.  The average order value for items ordered after seeing a picture on Pinterest is 2 to 3 times what a similar post on Twitter or Facebook can draw.  For other businesses on Pinterest, it is mostly about experimenting with the platform and planting a flag as another source for raising brand and company awareness.  My recommendation to all companies is to experiment, start small and see where it takes you!

Learn more about Pinterest - You can learn more about Pinterest and their CEO Ben Silbermann from Fast Company’s October 2012 issue.

Build a Better LinkedIn Profile

[One of my more successful blog posts has been 5 Ways to Maximize Your LinkedIn Profile from July 2008 and I updated the blog post in November 2009 with a post called 5 Ways to Maximize Your LinkedIn Profile - Advanced Edition.  While working on a social recruiting project for AppleOne - my current employer - I have come up with new instructions for building a better LinkedIn profile.  This post is my latest thinking on what makes a great LinkedIn profile]

LinkedIn is the premier professional networking website and currently has over 175 million users worldwide and more than 80 million users in the US.  LinkedIn is the de facto destination for maintaining your electronic professional profile and it is important to keep it up-to-date throughout your working life — whether you are currently employed and especially, if you are seeking a new position.

The best starting point with LinkedIn is to make sure that your profile is up-to-date and has outstanding “curb-appeal”.  Just like when people are selling a house, they spend time to make their property appealing by adding a fresh coat of paint, mowing the grass and sprucing up the interior.  In a similar manner, you want to do the same thing with your LinkedIn profile.  With LinkedIn, you are essentially advertising your brand and your skills, and a complete profile makes people trust you more which will increase the likelihood that they will want to connect with you.  Even if you have been on LinkedIn for a while, the following tips will make give your profile more “curb-appeal” and set you up for higher success.

By following these ten steps, you will be able to differentiate your profile from your competitors and make it easier for you to grow your network.  Most users should be able to follow these steps and update their profile in about an hour.

1.  Add a professional picture
When you have a picture in your profile, you come across as more believable and people tend to connect more readily when they visualize what you look like.  They are also more likely to reach out to you as your photo helps to personalize and humanize your personal brand.  It is important to select an appealing photo that strikes the right image and professional tone.  Remember, your profile represents you AND the company you work for.

2.  Write a strong headline
After your picture, your headline is the next thing that a user will see.  By default, your headline is the job title from your latest position – but that does not really tell people much about yourself.  You want to create a great first impression and the headline is the place to do.

3.  Write a compelling summary
The summary section is best described as an overview for the rest of your profile – by providing the highlights of who you are, what you do and why someone should connect with you.  You want to leave a lasting impression and one way to do that is to add in excerpts from your company’s corporate mission statement and marketing messages into your summary.  There is also a Specialties section in the Summary where you can list a number of key words that describe you and your career and can include titles, names of companies, skills, industries, strengths, etc.

4.  Add your company websites
LinkedIn lets you add up to three websites to your profile and you want to make it easy for people to find links to what is important to you.  At a minimum, you should add your company’s primary website and you may want to add a link to the company’s careers site, social media page, a personal blog or a profile on another site.

5.  Update your public profile URL
By default, LinkedIn assigns your profile with a URL that includes part of your name and some random numbers and slashes.  Smart LinkedIn users know that they can get a personalized public profile URL which makes the link easier to remember and share with others—plus, it raises the visibility of your brand on Google searches.  The good news is that getting a custom LinkedIn URL takes less than a minute and is one of the easiest profile upgrades you can do.

6.  Document your work history
When you are documenting your work history, be sure to include a brief description of the company and your key tasks and accomplishments.  Add a bulleted list of your key responsibilities and accomplishments and be sure to include key words.  You can also note any accomplishments such as earned achievements and awards.

7.  Add at least 10 keywords in the Skills & Expertise section
The Skills and Expertise section is where you can highlight your strengths.  When you add a skill you can also identify your proficiency (Beginner to Expert) and the number of years of experience you have with that skill.  After you add a skill to your profile, you can click on the skill to go to the LinkedIn Skills & Expertise discovery tool (
http://www.linkedin.com/skills/
) where LinkedIn provides a description of that skill and suggests similar or related skills.  You can add up to 50 skills, so try to add as many relevant skills and expertise to improve your findability in LinkedIn searches.

8.  Document your education
Make sure you document your college education and majors under the Education section.  If you add the years when you were in college, it makes it easier to connect with others whose college experience overlapped yours.   Do not forget to add in your collegiate activities and societies.  By the way, it is not necessary to add in your high school education.

9.  Join at least 4 groups and update your Interests and Honors
LinkedIn has more than one million different groups organized around professions, geographies and interests.  LinkedIn Groups provide an excellent way for you to connect with others, gather information and brand yourself as a subject matter expert.     To find a group, go to the Search bar and select Groups and then type in your search criteria.  By the way, LinkedIn lets you join up to 50 groups—and you should join at least four groups as a starter.

10.  Review and update your privacy settings
LinkedIn experts say that you should control LinkedIn and not let it control you.  In the privacy settings, you can set how often you receive emails from your groups, who can see your connections, who can contact you and other productivity enhancements.  Be sure to review your settings by clicking on your name in the upper right corner of the LinkedIn homepage.  Another way to get people to trust you more is to change the visibility of your connections so only you can see them.

The Social Economy – A Research Report by McKinsey & Co.

McKinsey & Co. just released their latest research report into the impact of social media on the economy.  Here is the Slideshare version of that report.  Enjoy.