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As a PhD is it’s difficult to let go of thinking that your technical skills are the most valuable thing you will bring to an organization. But, you need to realize that your transferable skills are what will be the deciding factor in whether you get hired or not. A recent survey by Yoh, found that 75% of Americans would hire someone who had the right soft skills but lacked the technical skills required for the position. Companies are more concerned about how you will fit into the culture of the organization than they are about the technical skills you…

LinkedIn is filled with opportunities for you to not only connect with and learn from industry professionals, but to find job openings. According to LinkedIn, 30,000 companies in the U.S. use LinkedIn to recruit, and over 3 million jobs are posted on LinkedIn in the U.S. every month. So if you are not seeing opportunities and you are not being contacted by employers, the problem is your profile, not a lack of job openings.

LinkedIn is the largest and most popular online professional networking platform. According to LinkedIn, there are more than 30 million companies represented on LinkedIn and more than 20 million job openings listed. There is so much opportunity for you on LinkedIn. To ignore this platform will put you at a major disadvantage in your job search. You need to have a LinkedIn profile so that employers can find you online. The Society For Human Resource Management reported that 94% of recruiters use LinkedIn when finding job candidates online. So recruiters are actively looking for job candidates. But you need to…

Your LinkedIn profile is the professional impression that you are giving to the more than 500 million people who use the LinkedIn platform. And, within those 500 million users, there are many recruiters and hiring managers. 87% of recruiters use LinkedIn to find job candidates (Jobvite). What do those recruiters want to see? Well, for starters, including a photo on your profile results in 36 times more message replies (LinkedIn). And, including your location on your LinkedIn profile will cause a 23-fold increase in your appearance in search results (Money). The more you understand about how LinkedIn works and what…

There are 546 million people using LinkedIn (LinkedIn). That is an astounding figure. It’s wonderful that LinkedIn creates a place for you to be able to connect with so many people. But, how can you stand out in the sea of 546 million people? How can you get noticed by the people within your target industry and location? By using keywords. 95% of recruiters use LinkedIn to find job candidates (US News). And, keyword searches are the most common way to find the right job candidates. Recruiters rely on LinkedIn’s algorithm to show them the most relevant profiles based on…

According to Jobvite, 87% of recruiters use LinkedIn to screen candidates. These recruiters use LinkedIn to judge not only your qualifications, but also how you would fit into the company. Your professional profile is your first impression on new connections and potential employers. A study at Cornell University, as reported by Science Daily, found that first impressions, although formed in seconds, can alter the way you are perceived even after 6 months. In other words, there is really no overcoming a bad first impression — you must do all you can to make the best first impression possible, which includes…

You can leverage the new LinkedIn changes to increase your profiles' visibility so that employers and recruiters will start contacting you or will contact you even more. 96% of all employers and recruiters find candidates online (Jobvite). And specifically, 87% of these employers and recruiters use LinkedIn to find job candidates, especially for high-level, PhD positions. 122 million people have gotten interviews from LinkedIn and a further 35.5 million have been hired by someone they connected with on LinkedIn (Statistic Brain). LinkedIn is a powerful tool in your job search. Don’t neglect it and miss out on an amazing opportunity.

Many PhDs make the mistake of ignoring LinkedIn, and their job search suffers as a result. LinkedIn is used by recruiters and other industry professionals, so it is essential that you have a top notch profile. To make your LinkedIn profile stand out from the 500 million other people on LinkedIn, you should strive to increase dwell time, include keywords and transferable skills throughout your profile, add value by posting regularly to pulse, and delete irrelevant skills and endorsements. The 7 hacks outlined here will increase the visibility of your LinkedIn profile and help you get industry interviews.

PhDs face an incredible challenge when it comes to securing jobs. Academia cannot absorb all the graduates that are passing through. On top of this, many PhDs are either unable or unwilling to transition into an industry position. On the other hand, there is an inaccurate image of PhDs from industry. Many companies in industry believe that a PhD’s knowledge base is too specialized. They believe that PhDs have little ability to be multidisciplinary and are trained only for research-type positions. There is a mutual ignorance and mistrust. As a result, if you want a job in industry, you must…

Connecting with someone is a negotiation. You’re trading value for value. The reason people aren’t connecting with you is because you’re approaching them from a position of need. The first step to correcting this problem is identifying why it's happening. Once you know why you're getting a negative result, you can try something new. Here are 10 reasons why your LinkedIn messages are being ignored.