Filling out your profile is important, but that's not all. After that, you need to make it work for you, meaning you need to work on networking. These actions are necessary to appear in the search results of HR specialists. Networking can be quite challenging and requires long-term and regular effort.

Start by searching for people and adding them to your contacts.

Let's use an example and then generalize. Suppose you want to find a job as a Java Software Developer in Germany. What do you need to do?

Java university

Set your location to Germany.

Each day, add 3-5 HRs who hire Java developers to your contacts. In the message, you can write: "Expanding my network. I'd be pleased to have you in my contact list." You can add all IT HRs or choose companies that interest you.

You can also add other developers, team leads, and managers from companies and projects you're interested in. If you're active, these professionals might take an interest in you, and when they're looking to add to their team, they might remember you.

Why is this important? It's quite simple. When you have a good number of HR managers and developers in your contacts, one fine day you can publish a post saying you're looking for a job. All these people will see this post. Even if they don't need a developer right now, they might know someone who does.

So, for extending your network, search on LinkedIn daily using the filter "HR + Location" and connect. Always add a note explaining why you want to connect and search relevant groups.

Be active

This point is also very important. As in any social network, an active LinkedIn profile ranks better than a passive one. Therefore:

  • Leave comments and likes on relevant posts.
  • Make reposts.
  • Write your own short publications about work, studies, or your IT-related interests.

LinkedIn. Conclusions

Of course, working with LinkedIn won't produce immediate results – it doesn't happen overnight. This is a task that needs to be done over months.

In summary, our main actions with LinkedIn are:

  • Create a LinkedIn profile.
  • Fill out the LinkedIn profile.
  • Prepare a note for connections.
  • Every day:
    • Add 5+ HRs.
    • Engage in activities like likes, shares/reposts, and your own publications.

To repeat and summarize everything, you can read the following article:

Hire me! How a novice programmer can put together a cool resume and LinkedIn profile.