by Brandy Nagel

Technical job seekers often have the most complete and most impressive LinkedIn profiles. While other job seekers struggle to identify measurable results, most technical job seekers express their accomplishments and capabilities with ease. How else can you use LinkedIn to advance your job search? By showing off your expertise.

LinkedIn Answers is an ingenious system where you can ask and answer questions submitted by the LinkedIn community. This is an opportunity to show off your smarts in your area of specialty. Answering questions on LinkedIn is a savvy way to be positioned as the obvious expert without being pushy or annoying.

Access the LinkedIn Answers forum by:

1. Clicking the “More” menu from the navigation toolbar.
2. Select “Answers” from the drop-down menu.

Questions are kept open for seven days. Many LinkedIn members may respond with an Answer to the Question. The creator of the question picks who he/she thinks shared the best response. If your response is chosen as the “Best,” a green box with a star is posted on your profile page, and attached to your name in the Answer area, indicating you’re a proven expert.

All Answers are Valuable

The brilliant aspect of the process is that all answers are saved within the LinkedIn® database. So if at a later point in time a member decides he would rather search through previous answers instead of submitting a new question, those responses are available.

With this capability, there’s no need to worry if your answer is not picked as the “Best” all the time. All answers are logged and have the potential to generate interest and drive traffic to your profile.

How to Answer LinkedIn Questions

To answer a question:

1. Click the question.
2. Select the “Answer” button on the next page.
3. Input all details necessary into the entry form to thoroughly respond to the question.

Question:

Answer:

Take advantage of this opportunity to chime in on the relevant questions of the day and position yourself as an expert.

Brandy Nagel, author of Digitally Famous: Visibility Campaigns for Job Seekers, is a social media coach and LinkedIn trainer. She has trained hundreds of professionals on the technical and practical aspects of social media, as well as providing protocol and productivity advice. She volunteers with MicroMentor, helping entrepreneurs develop social media marketing plans to grow their business. A frequent speaker, Brandy regularly presents on social media and personal branding. She received her B.A. in business from Brenau University and earned her MBA at Mercer University. To read more, check out her blog at www.DigitallyFamousTheBook.com.

You’ve accepted a new job. Now what?

After all the “Congratulations!” have passed, it’s time to think about shutting down your search.

Sure, you could just ignore recruiter calls and employer emails, but you might need those relationships again one day, and you never know when that might be.

Whether you were in the IT job market for years, months, or just a few short weeks, it’s important to close one chapter in your life before starting a new one. To avoid burning bridges, take the proper steps to ensure you’ve shut down your job search appropriately.

Taking your resume down from job sites isn’t hard. Neither is changing the status on your social networking sites. But there is more to wrapping up your job search than you may initially think. Keep these tips in mind to make certain you’ve tied up all the loose ends:

Inform the Right People

Think about all the people you reached out to for help with your job search. You probably enlisted family members, friends and former coworkers, for starters. Let these people know about your new job first, and enjoy the kudos for a search well done.Next, make a list of all the recruiters, business contacts and networking groups you need to update.

Calling personal and professional contacts after you’ve made a decision to accept an opportunity may feel uncomfortable or unnecessary when you’re eager to move on to your new job. Think of that call or email as a courtesy: you wouldn’t want someone to offer your name as a prospective candidate when you’ve already accepted another position.

Preserve the relationship by thanking them for their assistance, and leave the door open to continue to work together in the future. Consider saying, “I really appreciate you introducing me to XYZ Company but I have found another opportunity which is a better match to my goals.” Be gracious and express appreciation. And remember the golden rule: always be professional.

Withdraw Your Candidacy

If you were in an extended or very active job search, you were probably under consideration at a few different companies. Do them a favor and email your contacts at the companies you were in the process of interviewing with to let them know you’re no longer in the running.

Express your appreciation for their interest and tell them you have accepted a new job. Do this out of courtesy! It’s very frustrating for a hiring manager to be surprised when they call a candidate to follow-up on someone they think is an active candidate, only to discover they’re already in a new job.

Keep that positive connection and create goodwill for future opportunities by being proactive and notifying them that your status has changed. This level of professionalism will be remembered, and it may benefit you in the long run.

Send an e-mail to all the recruiters and agencies you were working with, informing them you have accepted a new position. Don’t expect an agency that was actively promoting you to let you go easily; but if the opportunity is a true fit for your criteria, a recruiter with integrity will be pleased for you!

Go Online: Update Social Media and Job Boards

Lastly, don’t forget to take your resume off all job boards and websites, or turn your status to inactive. If you leave your profiles up and active it could indicate to your new employer that you may still be looking, which is not an ideal first impression.

Remember social media sites like LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook where you may have posted a profile or status update about your search. Share the good news about your new position, and add your new job to your profiles.

By taking the time to provide closure to your job search, you’re giving yourself the best opportunity for a new beginning. You’ve most likely put in a lot of hard work to land this new position. So relax, give yourself a pat on the back, and treat yourself before starting your first day.

Image by Sasha Wolff via Flickr.

Everything about the new opportunity you’re presented with seems perfect: the job description fits to a “t”…the company has attractive benefits…and your hiring manager has painted a beautiful picture of what your new working life could look like.  But is this position truly going to be a mutually beneficial match?

How do you know if a job is the right fit or if looks may be deceiving? You could be honestly enthused about it, but are you only interested because you intensely dislike your current job or have no job at all? Accepting a new job is a big commitment, and you want to go into it with your eyes wide open.

From ensuring the job is challenging yet enjoyable, the corporate culture matches your personality and there exists a good opportunity for advancement, here are the steps you should take to make sure this job is “the one”:

• Determine what matters to you
• Research the company
• Assess company culture
• Talk to future coworkers and your supervisor
• Evaluate the job offer

Determine what matters to you
Taking a moment to figure out what matters to you in a job is a step most job seekers skip. You should have some idea of what ideals you’re looking for in your next job (or conversely, know what you’re not looking for based on previous negative experiences). Jot down some of your “must haves” and “nice to haves” such as location boundaries, job hour requirements, travel obligations, and what you would like for salary and benefits. Coming up with a list ahead of time will help you have a clear vision of where you’ll draw the line on certain issues. Know your boundaries and be confident about what you will and won’t compromise on.

Research the company
Naturally, researching the company you’re about to work for is an important step. You’ll want to find out:

• How the company is performing financially?
• How do they stack up against competitors?
• Do they have a good reputation in the industry and are they perceived well?
• How does management reward performance?

See what you can dig up in an online search and by talking to others in the industry.

Assess company culture
While the interviewer is assessing you to make sure your skills are a good fit for the company, you should be doing the same thing to ensure the company is a good fit for you. Consider the company culture and traits such as:

• What are the company values? Are they consistent with yours?
• What is the work environment like?
• Were you greeted warmly by everyone you met at the company? Do coworkers seem to be getting along?

Be an astute observer of your environment, read between the lines and make sure the culture fits with your personality. 

Talk to future coworkers and your supervisor
Asking questions of your supervisor is a no brainer. But it’s important to not only ask direct questions and listen for the responses, but to also listen to what’s not being said. What kind of management style does this boss have? Is he hands-on or hands-off? How is his communication? And what if you only meet with the boss and never get a chance to speak with future colleagues, coworkers and team members, then make a special request to talk to at least two different people at the company on the phone or in person.

Evaluate the job offer
While a lot of the job offer consideration is about the money, face it: money can’t buy you happiness. How is the total package? Are the other benefits attractive, valuable and competitive? Has anything changed from the initial job description or what you learned during the interview? And lastly, take a look at the opportunity for advancement and career path. What will life at the company look like 3-5 years from now?

Final Words: Job Interviewing is Like Dating
Finding a job that’s the right fit is sort of like dating and marriage. You have to date to get married, but not every date will turn into a marriage. Look for small clues and go beyond solely judging the job by its cover.

Results of a recent survey (The Technology Industry Survey 20112) found that one in five IT employees are likely to leave their current employer next year for more interesting projects and/or career opportunities.  80% believe a job change is necessary to progress their career according to the survey findings.

In addition, about 40% of the 650 IT professionals who responded stated that they are planning on having a new job within the next 12 months. For those in technical roles, the number hoping to have a new job rises to almost two-thirds.

Here are some startling findings from the survey:

• 100% of database administrators are looking to leave their current roles.
• More than 90% of CIOs and CTOs, testers, architects and designers believe they have to move to companies to further their careers.
• Over 80% of respondents want more interesting projects to work on.
• 71% want open, honest and consistent communications from the IT organization (especially around offshoring).

As an employer, what are you doing now to ensure your top IT professionals are satisfied with their current roles and projects, and confident that they have the opportunity to grow within your company? Considering time to hire top talent has increased quite significantly in the past two quarters of 2011 (Agile will be releasing its Q3 Market Pulse report later next week with more details regarding days to fill IT job openings), and workers with high-demand skills are increasingly scarce, companies must find new and innovative approaches to retain their IT staff. Agile has blogged extensively on ways employers can retain top talent, and we invite you to review past blogs including this one.

You can also read our free white paper “Four Winning Talent Strategies for the New IT” that includes effective and realistic approaches to not only hiring top talent, but retaining those employees as well.

In a recent blog, we wrote about salary and benefits requirements for IT job seekers – and why candidates need to know everything they want (compensation) before starting the interview process with potential employers. Salary and benefits are key factors when determining whether a job is the right one for you. But there’s one other component in the decision-making process that is very important, and often overlooked, during the job hunt.  While people tend to fixate on the total compensation package, they sometimes forget to ask “is the company’s culture the right fit for me?”

How many of us have taken a job because we were tantalized with the incredible package the company was offering? I’ve been sucked in before. I remember back in the late 90’s being courted by a large telecom company – the job would certainly fast track my career, and the salary and benefits were unreal. I liked the job and employer I was working for at the time – it was a great company with a culture that I really fit into.  But the title, money and benefits the courting company was throwing at me just seemed too good to pass up.  I accepted their offer. And to this day, I regret that decision.  The day I started the job with my new employer, I knew it wasn’t going to work out.  The work environment was stuffy and stifling. Co-workers were always looking out for number one. I felt isolated. I was there for two years but it seemed like eternity.

You see, I forgot to ask about what the culture at this large corporation was like, and how I was going to fit into it. I interviewed with a fellow I had worked with before – he was my manager at a previous employer.  I figured “it must be cool if he’s here.”  NOT.  Shortly after I came on board with the new employer, the manager who hired me (and who I had worked with before) bolted. He forgot to tell me during the interview process that the company’s culture was hierarchical, bureaucratic, and very political.  Not a good fit for me, as my style is less formal and much more entrepreneurial.  I should have done my due diligence and researched the company’s culture. I should have asked the employees I interviewed with how the culture compared to that of my current employer.  But this was the ‘90s and dollar signs were dancing around in my head. I put culture on the back burner. 

 A hard lesson learned. But I’ll never make the same mistake. Yes, money and benefits matter. But so does a company’s culture. Remember, you’ll be working there 40, 50, 60 hours or more a week. You’ll have new processes to follow, new management styles to contend with, and new co-workers that you’ll have to get along with (or try to anyway). And if you’re not comfortable with any of these, you may be starting a new job on the wrong foot – and most likely, it won’t get any better.

Some can argue, like me for example, that company culture is as equally important as the compensation package. Salary and benefits matter to me. But so do the people I surround myself with five days out of the week. The staff at Agile is a diverse group of people with diverse backgrounds and experiences.  They are all professional. They are hard working. Delivering exceptional service to clients is what drives all of us.  Oh, and everyone at Agile is nice, and respectful of others. They are also involved in their communities and give back in many ways.

This past week, I had the pleasure of joining my fellow co-workers at the Komen Atlanta Race for the Cure. Everyone took time out of their busy weekend schedules to support a cause that is so important to our CEO, Tricia Dempsey, an eight year breast cancer survivor.  And everyone participated, not because we had to, but because we wanted to. 

Last evening, our staff celebrated with clients, consultants and partners in honor of their support of our company over the past year. It was one of the nicest corporate events I have attended – and I’ve attended many over the past 20+ years.  Why?  Everyone was personable, friendly and genuine.  And those traits are important to me – both inside and outside of work. The values and culture at Agile fit my personal values and needs.  And that’s why I love working here.

Don’t underestimate the value of a company’s culture.  Money may pay the bills and buy you a deluxe apartment in the sky, but as the old adage goes – it doesn’t guarantee happiness. And who wants to spend half their day (at work) being miserable? Not me!