Linkedin is one of, if not the one main tool for headhunters, and for a good reason. The professional network brings together over 400 million members worldwide, which represent a vast pool of potential candidates for recruiters and headhunters.

If you don’t have a presence on Linkedin, the chances of you being approached by a headhunter is greatly reduced! We recommend creating a Linkedin account, which only takes a few minutes and will greatly increase your chances of being approached by a recruiter.

If you already have a Linkedin profile or have just created your account, the next important step is to make sure you optimize your profile’s content for headhunter to be able to find you. Simply listing your education, job titles and employers aren’t enough to be found by recruiters. You must also use key terms specific to your expertise and your industry.

When researching for candidates to approach, headhunters will use keywords related to the position they are trying to fill. Placing key terms in your profile that are used by recruiters, make sure you appear in the search results and increases your chance to be approached.

Here Are Some Tips:

- For each positions you’ve held, describe your tasks and give as much details as possible

- Begin your sentences with a verb (i.e. Communicate, Write, Supervise) or a group of words that describes the job well (Interface Design, C# Programming, Training New Employees)

- Complete the “Skills” section with as much relevant data as possible (Examples of skills : Human Ressources Management, Customer Service, Web Marketing, Team Supervision, Management, etc.)

- You can also indicate which softwares you are proficient with, as they are often used as keywords by headhunters (Example: Solidworks, Autocad)

- Try to think of less common skills. If a recruiter uses this specific keywords you will be one of the few to come up in the search.

- Spend some time brainstorming and choose your “Title” well. It must describe your general skills or field in which you want to work in. (Example : Executive, Recruitment Specialist , .Net Developer, Mechanical Engineer)

- Indicate the exact city where you live. If you want to indicate a big city nearby it is best to do so only if you are actually interested in working there. As an example, we see many users indicate “Montreal Area” while they actually live in the suburbs and are not actually interested in working in Montreal. By being specific about the city you live in, it will be easier for headhunters to approach you for position that may really be of interest to your in term of geographical location.

- Fill the “Tips for contacting” section of your profile. This section will allow to share some of your personal information, like your phone number or personal email, to your connections or other members of the network. This is especially helpful if you are actively looking since headhunters will be able to get in touch with you quickly and easily without needing to get in touch with you through the platform first.

- Invite L.I.O.N (LinkedIn Open Networker) to join your network. L.I.O.N are users who accept all connection requests. It is not always recommended to invite stranger to join your network, but when you first start on LinkedIn and you have very few connections, L.I.O.N can help you expand your network a little faster. When searching for candidates, recruiter will typically have their 1st, 2nd and 3rd level connections appear in the search. Having someone with a lot of connection in your network will help appear in search results of more headhunters.

Several websites and job boards like Jobillico, Emploi Québec, Indeed and Monster offer the possibility for candidates to create an account and make their resume directly available to employers. Without even applying for a specific job, a headhunter (or even an employer) could find your resume and get in touch with you and let you know about an opportunity.

In the case of Jobillico, once you upload your resume it can come up in any research made by headhunters or employers if the keywords they are looking for appear in your resume. If your profile shows up in a search, Jobillico will then give your profile ranking score out of 100 to let the recruiter know how much your resume is relevant or not to the search. The higher your rank is, the more chance you have at having headhunters open and view your resume. Just like LinkedIn, keywords are a very important factor, so make sure you :

- Insert keywords in relation to your expertise

- Indicate your « Skills »

- Write a complete job description for each of your positions

- Indicate the industries and fields of activity of the companies for which you worked (i.e. company specialized in plastic extrusion)

If you are still employed and do not want you current employer to stumble upon your online resume, you will need to be cautious. You can adjust the privacy settings on Jobillico to avoid that from happening. The website allows you to block your current employers or companies of you choice to prevent them from seeing your resume.

If you can put yourself in the recruiter’s shoes when writing your resume or online profile, you will have more success being approached. To do this, you can ask yourself the following questions :

- What were my main responsibilities in my previous jobs?

- What are my area of expertise?

- Which industries do I have experience in?

- What are the particularities of my profile, my specialities?

In any case, you must be able to create some connection between your answers and the position you are looking for. The clearer the links between the two, the more relevant your application will be and the more likely you will be approached by a headhunter!