The unemployment rate is down to 7.7%. While this is good news, there still are 12 million unemployed Americans out there. However, LinkedIn has recently made some changes to its Jobs page that makes it more effective for job searching.
The best thing about these new LinkedIn features for the unemployed – they’re free! Sure, you can get some extra benefits if you pay for its Premium membership, but a regular LinkedIn membership gives you access to enough so that you can find your next full time gig there.
Here are some of the cool new things on the LinkedIn Jobs page:
- The Jobs You May Be Interested In Section: When you get to the LinkedIn Jobs page, you will see the job openings that LinkedIn thinks you might be interested in. Not every one of the suggested jobs is going to be an exact match, but the majority of the jobs it posts for you are related to your profession. Tip: To get more exact potential job matches, try to refine your profile a bit, adding in some keywords for your profession.
- Discover Jobs in Your Network Feature: The best way to get a job these days is to get a referral from a person who works for a company with an opening. This new feature makes this much easier. The jobs page lists company openings where you have a LinkedIn connection – what a great feature! This can help you get a foot in the door, and get this: LinkedIn also will tell you if one of your connections is connected to the person who posted the job!
- Improved Page Design: This is not a feature, really, but it sure does make the Jobs page easier to use. The new page gives you one stop shopping to do searches, review jobs that were suggested and keep a list of searches that you saved. This makes your job hunting on LinkedIn much more efficient.
This is not the only change to LinkedIn lately, but it sure does make job searches easier. How different job searches are in the new age of social media. And job searching is just one thing that social media sites such as LinkedIn are changing in our lives.