A Survival Guide for... LinkedIn | LinkedIn is a fantastic tool for networking with professionals and connecting with people that have similar interests to you. Here are a few tips and tricks for using LinkedIn that you might not already know about…

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http://www.interquestgroup.com/

- 1- Message almost anyone – Join Groups | There are probably a lot of people out there that you’re interested in messaging, but if you are not connected to them, you won’t be able to. An easy way around this is to find a LinkedIn group that this person is in, or is likely to be in, and join it. Group members can message each other even if they are not directly connected. All you need to do is click on the name of the person that you want to message when you are in the group, then next to the Follow button there is an arrow button with a “Send message” option in the drop down list:

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http://www.interquestgroup.com/

http://www.interquestgroup.com/

- 2- Avoid annoying your contacts with profile updates | If you update your profile a lot or are spending a week making sure that your profile is completely up to scratch, it might be wise to hide your profile visibility in order to avoid spamming your connections with constant updates. To do this, head to your profile and from there go into editing mode, scroll down to the bottom of the page where there will be a “customise visibility” button next to “connections”. Click on that to turn off activity broadcasts and change the settings for “select who can see your ac-tivity feed” to “only you”. Your update alerts will now be hidden... Remember that it might make sense to turn this setting on, when you want your network to see a future profile update.

http://www.interquestgroup.com/

http://www.interquestgroup.com/

http://www.interquestgroup.com/

http://www.interquestgroup.com/

- 3- Become ‘invisible’ | Whenever you look at somebody’s profile on LinkedIn they will be notified. This can be annoying if you are taking interest in what previous experience your employees or colleagues have, if you’re looking for a new job or trying to find new talent for your business. There is an option to make yourself anonymous by changing your viewing settings to “anonymous” in “Select what others see when you’ve viewed their profile”. Once this is changed and you look at someone’s profile, they will be notified, however, it will not tell them who viewed their profile. This is of course down to personal preference, as visibility can help you network and connect with professionals.

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http://www.interquestgroup.com/

http://www.interquestgroup.com/

http://www.interquestgroup.com/

- 4 - Keep track of your connections | LinkedIn allows you to download a spreadsheet of your connections, including their name, job title, email address and company they work for. To do this, click on connections at the top of the page, then click the gear icon on the right hand side. On this page, on the right hand side again there will be an Advanced Settings title, under this, click “Export LinkedIn Connections”. You will then have the option to export your connections to a number of places.

http://www.interquestgroup.com/

http://www.interquestgroup.com/

http://www.interquestgroup.com/

- 5 - Customise your URL | You can make your profile look more professional and easier to share by customising your URL. LinkedIn will au-tomatically give you a URL that contains lots of numbers at the end, which can look messy and confusing. A personal URL will make you more searchable and easier to find on google. To customise your URL and make it sleek and sophisticated, visit your profile and click on the ‘pen’ icon next to your LinkedIn Contact Info. Once you have done this, you will be directed to another page. On the right hand side of the page you will see the ‘Your Public Profile URL’ section, which is what you need to click on in order to customise your URL.

http://www.interquestgroup.com/

http://www.interquestgroup.com/

http://www.interquestgroup.com/

Now that you know some secret LinkedIn tricks use them to your advantage and build your network of professionals!

For more tips on professional development and to see all of our latest opportunities, CONNECT WITH THE INTERQUEST GROUP.

InterQuest Group plc is an award-winning, specialist recruitment organisation providing contract and permanent services within niche disciplines globally. The Group is di-vided into specialist businesses, with each one aligned to one of the following market sectors, Finance, Retail, Public Sector, Not for Profit or in an area of technology such as testing, analytics, ERP or digital. These are augmented by other businesses specialising in services which span the various vertical niches - such as recruitment outsourcing or executive search and selection. As specialists in contract, permanent IT and analytics recruitment, the InterQuest Group trades as distinctly branded, individual, specialist re-cruitment businesses.