Eight ways to progress your sales career with LinkedIn

The idea of the personal brand is something we’re all starting to get used to. Many of us are moving from the conventional ways of job seeking, and finding wider audiences who might not only be interested in reading our CVs, but also taking a look into our personal achievements in sales, and recommendations from colleagues and employers.

Here at Simply Sales Jobs, we’ve realised the importance of social interaction, and have begun to move forward in making the gap between the job seeker and the recruiter even smaller. We have an active LinkedIn Group, called UK Sales Network which is already a large forum for sales professionals and sales recruiters to connect, discuss industry issues, and build mutually beneficial relationships.

LinkedIn has been around for a while now, but many sales people are still not sure how to get the best out of the social network – whose sole purpose is to support professionals and enable career progression. So whether you’re already a registered and active LinkedIn member or not, here are our eight steps for making the most out of your profile.

1. Build a strong personal profile
Create a detailed profile on LinkedIn, including employment (current and past), education, and industry. Review your CV and copy/paste the relevant information into your profile. If you’re currently unemployed list your current position as “Open to opportunities.” Don’t forget to add a good quality photo of yourself too.

2. Get Connected
Connections are to LinkedIn what Friends are to Facebook and Followers are to Twitter. You can invite people to become a Connection and be invited yourself. Don’t wait to be invited though – if you believe someone could be beneficial to you, would genuinely like to connect with them on a deeper level, or just find them really interesting, send an invitation out to them. A major advantage of being connected to someone is that you can message them for free instead of having to pay for an upgrade to ‘InMail’.

3. Get LinkedIn recommendations from your colleagues
A strong recommendation from your colleagues, or previous employers, will set you apart from the crowd in the sales job market, and instantly show recruiters what you’re strengths are. These are the first things a potential sales employer will take a look at and will back up what you’ve said about yourself.

4. Join relevant Groups
Join groups of interest, get involved in discussions and get networking. LinkedIn allows group members to freely message each other, making networking easier than ever.
The more relevant the groups you’re a member of, the easier it’ll be to find similar networkers within your field of expertise.

You’ll get more traffic to your profile if you raise your head above the parapet and ‘join the conversation’. One of the best ways to maintain a visible presence on LinkedIn is to join groups and take part in their discussions. If you join several groups in your chosen career field, chances are you will keep coming across a few people who are also in all those groups. People build up a rapport by contributing to one another’s discussions in their shared groups. You can even start discussions asking for advice related to your job search, such as recommendations for good vocational courses.

Many of the specialist Groups have jobs posted into them, with firms looking for particular skills and being very clear about their recruitment needs. As well as the main Jobs tab on LinkedIn, Groups also have a jobs section that you can click through to – and often this is where you’ll find many recent sales-specific job postings, highly relevant to you.

5. Build trust
Being connected to more people, you will again be contributing to the trust factor of your profile. People would rather do business with a contact of a connection or friend than with somebody whom they know nothing about.

6. Get messaging
For serious sales job hunters, it’s important to be able to send a message through LinkedIn. Many LinkedIn Members don’t have their email addresses on their public profile, so unless you know someone personally anyway, you have no way to contact them privately other than through the Messages function. Whether you message Connections to ask outright if they know of any job openings, to tap them for information on their organisation, or to arrange a work placement, do it in the right way. Be clear about why you’re contacting them and what you’re asking for.

7. Share updates
Yes, LinkedIn, like every other social network, has the dreaded status update feature. Use it to your advantage by keeping your Connections up to date with your voluntary work, skills building or networking activities. This lets employers know that you’re being active and creative in your job search-showing them your enthusiasm and commitment in targeting the right role.

8. Finally, don’t leave it too late!
Don’t just use LinkedIn when you’re job hunting, but get your profile in good shape long before you are thinking of changing your sales jobs. It’s essential to keep updating your personal profile throughout your career – you never know when you might need to use it.

If you would like to find out the difference between a strong and a weak profile please download this pdf from career specialists Richmond Solutions http://www.richmondsolutions.co.uk/files/knowledge/goodweak.pdf

Browse our sales jobs today on www.simplysalesjobs.co.uk.

Click here to join UK Sales Network our LinkedIn Group

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