When Kelly, a long-time software engineer, moved from Denver, Colorado to Hilton Head, South Carolina, he didn’t realize how valuable having a local network would be to finding a new job.
After enjoying almost a year off in his new city (thanks to a hefty severance package from his former company!) he was ready to get serious about making connections.
An Unusable Network
As a Senior Software Engineer with 24 years of experience under his belt, Kelly knew that his biggest hurdle would be getting noticed by local recruiters.
“I realized I’m not in my Denver network anymore, I don’t know anybody out here, and I’m not in a tech-heavy area,” he said. “I needed to find a job and have people find me, or have a better chance at submitting a resume online and get noticed.”
Kelly first found Jobscan while searching for a way to update his cover letter, but soon realized the LinkedIn Optimization tool was the best place to invest his time.
Opening the LinkedIn Floodgates
When he first started running LinkedIn scans, Kelly’s match rate was only about 25%, but he saw a huge improvement when he started making the changes Jobscan suggested.
“Probably the number one thing that I was missing that I didn’t realize I was missing was just listing skills individually,” he said. Aside from missing skills, he found that adding certifications and filling out his experience section in more detail and with proper formatting made a big difference.
Eventually, Kelly got his LinkedIn profile up to 90%. And shortly after, the messages started pouring in.
“Honestly, it was like the floodgates opened. Within a week–I think it takes some time for changes to LinkedIn to get picked up by search engines and such, but once that happened–I was absolutely flooded with contacts and people reaching out,” he explained.
Take Your Pick
Before he knew it, Kelly had more interviews for high-quality jobs to choose from than he could possibly take. He chose to take a couple for jobs that he already had his eye on before updating his LinkedIn profile– only now, they were coming to him.
Within three weeks of starting with Jobscan, Kelly was hired as a Senior Software Engineer at a reputable company.
Since using LinkedIn Optimization, Kelly’s network has continued to grow, even after getting hired. “Not only did it get me noticed and get jobs, but I’ve had a couple of people reach out to me and tell me that my LinkedIn profile is as good as they’ve seen.”
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