Why you should make sure you classify yourself correctly on LinkedIn

Going back to a theme of a week or so ago, in the blog “Why aren’t recruiters looking for you?” – It is important to have an understanding of some of the ways in which recruiters will search for candidates.

I’ll take a simple example – I’m looking for a Sales Manager with experience in hotels, in Ireland.

You would assume that most people would classify themselves under the hospitality category, or maybe Leisure, travel and tourism.

I the recruiter will be under time pressure, so I will have to decide how I am going to run my search. Just putting Sales Manager into my search box for Ireland, returns over 84k profiles! No way can I look through all of those to find my gem of a candidate!

So I will narrow the search and add in the classification of hospitality which gives me around 2400 profiles – more manageable.

In essence – those 2400 candidates have decided that they work in the hospitality industry, which should yield me some candidates.

However – if they have misclassified themselves, as say Marketing & Advertising, because they have some deep rooted desire to be a marketer, I will not find them as part of my candidate search.

So – you will naturally ask then, if I am a frustrated Sales Manager working in a hotel, but I really want to be working in a marketing capacity in a marketing agency, can I correctly classify myself as that? – Of course, but it doesn’t mean to say that the recruiter is going to pick you out as a candidate!

If however, you are serious and authentic about showcasing yourself in the most professional and effective manner as possible, you will carefully choose the industry to which you belong. If you are a recent graduate, with little work experience – of course you will choose the classification that most closely reflects your learned knowledge and your industry objective.