There are many ways to enhance your visibility to these employment process decision makers. An excellent way is to use one of the more popular social networking sites, LinkedIn, in a manner to make you more noticeable.

Most recruiters and companies are increasingly using sites like LinkedIn to identify potential candidates. Here are nine things you can do that will help put you in front of the people who start the interview process:

1. Make your LinkedIn profile complete
• Include all companies, education and awards. These are the key items on which recruiters search. The more robust your profile, the higher you will be in the search rankings.
• Include References whenever you can.
• The more information a recruiter has upfront, the more efficient the search process.

2. Customize your Headline
• Be sure to customize your “Headline” with a strong and descriptive phrase. This appears just below your name on your public profile.
• Headlines are visible in search results, before the recruiter has even connected to your public profile.

3. Post a profile picture that you use on multiple sites
• A picture helps to create and reinforce your online brand.

4. Use the “Specialties” box to fill in keywords
• List as many keywords as possible that are relevant to your roles, capabilities and interests that will help you turn up in LinkedIn searches.

5. Update your LinkedIn “Status” regularly
• Link to articles you have written or in which you are quoted.
• Update status with your latest blog posts.
• Discuss business accomplishments.
• If you are actively looking for a job, tell people what you are looking for.
• Update your status on other social networking sites such as Twitter. Try services like ping.fm that allow you to update your status across multiple sites.

6. Make changes to your profile after every job change or promotion
• The recruiters you are linked to will notice your changes.
• Recruiters are best able to find you for the right position if your profile is current and complete.
• It is harder to be found if people don’t know where you are, so update your LinkedIn profile as you would your change-of-address at the post office.

7. Include your web site and blog links
• Add suitable weblinks to the “Websites” section on your LinkedIn profile.
• This could range from your career blog to your Twitter profile. Alternatively, you can also link to a guest blog post you wrote recently.

8. Do not block incoming emails
• LinkedIn allows you to control how you receive emails and notifications.
• The LinkedIn community is all about participation so feel free to accept incoming communication from fellow LinkedIn users.
• If a recruiter reaches out to you and you are not interested, let him or her know, and if possible refer someone to them.
• No matter how popular you think you are, you will not be overwhelmed by LinkedIn email.

9. Increase your number of connections
• Use the webmail importer to bring your real world professional relationships online and to find the contacts who are already on LinkedIn.
• Depending on whether you’re a browser person or an Outlook person, check out the respective toolbars that will help organize your professional relationship either while you browse or check out your Inbox.

These are just a few tips that will make you a more productive Job Seeker. There is much to know and practice regarding the optimal use of LinkedIn for your career enhancement. If you have other tips that have helped you reach out to appropriate hiring managers or recruiters, please feel free to leave a comment. If you would like be part of my LinkedIn professional network, you’ll find my profile at http://www.linkedin.com/in/dougboswell. Just send me an invite.

Your prospective boss brought up and discussed your starting compensation package.
Hopefully you didn’t bring up the topic of money. That’s a major no-no in the interview-game (But of course you already know that, right Job Seeker?). On the other hand, if they bring it up, it shows a possible interest to hurry on to the next level. They at least want to know if you are realistic about your value, you are someone they can afford, and that your compensation will fit into their structure. It still doesn’t mean you will get an offer, and if you expressed yourself poorly on this topic, it might actually be the end of the line for you.

A start-date was nailed down.
This is not something they’ll bother with if they aren’t interested in you. It’s a positive event, and even though it could well mean you are at least in the running, it still isn’t the best indicator you’ll be the one to get the offer.

Your interviewer went off on a tangent and you spoke about personal things.
Maybe you found out you have some common outside-the-workplace interests. Maybe you shared a few laughs. Any indication that your interviewer made an effort to get to know the real you is a plus. That’s not something they tend to do with people they are not planning to hire.

The interview went longer than expected.
If they determine you are less qualified than other people already interviewed, you may get a shortened version of the interview, known as the courtesy interview. If the interview went long, and especially if the discussion went well into the minute details of the job, the challenges you’ll face and the goals management has for you, then that is a very good sign that you impressed your prospective boss. All the better if at the conclusion of your interview, you were ushered into his/her manager’s office for some additional interview time.

You discussed the actions you’d take once on the job.
It’s a very good indicator when your prospective employer speaks as though you are already on the job. Maybe you discuss how your ideas might be applied to their problems. Maybe you begin planning certain changes you’ll need to implement. Maybe your prospective boss says he/she can’t wait until you get started. If you can see that they are already imagining life as it will be once you take their pain away, you can feel very confident that the interview went well and you are most likely first in line to get an offer.

An offer of employment.
The best indicator is that you left the interview with an offer of employment. This is about as good as it gets, but if it’s only a verbal offer, then you still need to wait for the offer letter to know the deal is closed. Without a written offer, there is still a chance that someone at the company can veto it. Additionally, there are plenty of cases were another candidate, represented by a savvy recruiter with a compelling sales pitch, snatches the job right out of someone else’s month, at the last moment. Still, a job offer during the interview usually means it’s yours.

Ah, but Job Seeker, there is no absolute indicator in an interview that you will get the job. The love-at-first-sight they felt for you can vanish in a flash when the next person they interview out shines you. Or is related to the owner. Or any number of things. But that doesn’t need to keep you from wanting to rate your performance, estimate your chances and place this prospective career opportunity in some kind of hierarchy in relation to your other interviews. Just remember, until you start the job, nothing is for certain. So don’t stop your job search just because an interview seems to have gone well, or even that you received a written offer. Investigate all your options, just as they will do, right up to the moment you walk in the door on your first day of employment.

So before you give notice that you are off to your new job, plan out how to best make your exit. Keep in mind that most jobs require references from your previous employers and if you can’t offer them then you will find it very hard to get a new job at some point down the road. Make sure you don’t create a negative reference for yourself by saying the wrong thing. You don’t know who your boss might know in the industry. You don’t know how much influence he or she might have.

You want to keep things amicable, as many of the people you work with will be moving on to another job in the same industry. As the years go by, you will find out exactly how small a world you live in. The person you “give a piece of your mind” to, in a few years, may be the person you have to deal with for that new business contract.

Tie up whatever loose ends you can. Depending on why you are leaving your job, you may be tempted to just walk out. Yes, people do it, but as a career professional, that’s one of the worst things you can do to yourself. It might be that there are issues in the workplace that could mean just getting up and walking out would save a lot of hassle, but you should at least try to resolve these issues first.

If you have unfinished work, try to finish it. If you are a part of a team, or if other departments are relying on you to do their jobs, then it is a professional courtesy to not let them down. How would you feel if you couldn’t make a deadline because someone else just up and left?

Create a list of pending tasks to complete for your replacement and go over them with your manager. This is a simple enough task and should be the least you can do. Ideally you want to make it as easy as possible for someone to take over your work.

So, when you leave a job for your next career opportunity, plan each step of your exit process. Always give notice, try to finish up any outstanding work, review your list of pending tasks with your manager, and make an effort to resolve any issues you might have with your fellow workers. Keep your focus on your goal to make a clean get away that leaves them with a warm place in their hearts for you. Make your final impression one of a professional making a career move in the manner of a true professional. Dodge that temptation to burn your bridges because sooner or later you are going to need that good reference. And no matter what your profession; accountant, engineer, salesperson… soldier, sailor, tinker, tailor… you will also always be Job Seeker.

Yes there are, but first and foremost, a resume must be written to serve as your introduction to the person deciding on which people to contact for an interview. We say that the role of the resume is to get you an interview in the context that it should not be the interview. It should not be everything you’ve ever done. You need to be careful not to let it become too “wordy”. A good resume needs to be focused. It must incorporate the duties, tasks and responsibilities you have shouldered, and their resulting accomplishments, per the description of the position you are pursuing. This means customizing your resume for each position to which you apply. Your future employer wants to know what you have done that qualifies you for their opening. Don’t make them interpret your experience, no matter how obvious a step you think that might be. If your resume can’t present you as a “must see” candidate, then you will need to go about gaining an interview by other means, such as an employee referral, working your professional network for leads, cold calling targeted companies, or some other way of gaining a verbal introduction. You might even consider the services of a well connected recruiter.

Assuming your resume will come into play at some point, regardless as to how you secured your first interview at the company, you will still need to personalize it according to the information you have gathered about the position and the company. But to write the best possible resume, you should also keep in mind that it will function in various ways throughout the interview/selection process.

An interviewer may organize the structure of your interview by the chronology of your work history and pull information to form questions from what you have written. Write the description of what you did and what you accomplished at each place of employment so that the questions, which come from it, will give you the opportunity to draw compelling correlations to the open position.

After an interview, your resume will serve as a reminder of who you are and why you are being considered for the opening. As it is reviewed and compared to the other candidate’s resumes, the high quality of your writing will enhance the impression you’ve made. A well written resume will create an impression of you as intelligent, organized, articulate, etc., all positive factors in the decision that you want to go in your favor.

Your resume will also have a life long after the start date at your new employer. As a part of your personnel file it will function as a justification of the hiring decision. It will be reviewed as you are considered for promotions and other career changes or transfers in the future.

Although the main purpose of your resume is to accomplish the goal of getting you an interview, as you write it, keep in mind all the other things it will do for you.

Recently I saw a question posted in a discussion group on LinkedIn. It asked, how would you answer this interview question? What is your biggest weakness?

Some suggested a funny answer like, ice cream, to bring some levity to the situation. Others suggested to answer with a strength that at first appears to be a weakness. And so on. Hopefully you always go into an interview prepared to name your strengths and weaknesses and are able to analyze and discuss them. But after reading through the posts in that thread, it appears that many people are not prepare as such.

Just remember, if you are actually asked this question in an interview, you can’t out think it, you can’t be assured that a clever or funny answer will be well received, and a pre-canned answer about a minor weakness, or a weakness that is really a strength will not work on everyone.

You need to go into every interview assessing the the person interviewing you from the first moment. After all, that is what they are doing to you. You should be the first person to speak. You need to start the interview with your first question. (You all know what the first question should be, don’t you?) Listen carefully and observe. Test the interviewer for a sense of humor. If you haven’t been able to get a smile or a chuckle out of the interviewer before they ask for your biggest weakness, don’t go for a funny answer.

So what should you do? Be honest. Just tell them your biggest weakness. After all, this question was originally intended to give you the opportunity to show that you self-evaluate, which is a valuable trait in an employee. Of course now, many decades later, it’s been so over used and beat to death that it’s anyone’s guess as to what your particular interviewer indents it to be. Maybe they don’t even care what your answer is, they just want to make you uncomfortable.

Anyway, once you have made your confession, it is important to quickly follow up by saying, I’m always going to give an honest answer to every question you have for me. Now that you know my biggest weakness, I am very interested to know how you think I can overcome it in the context of my work at this company? What challenges will this create that I will have to overcome?

Now, if the interviewer can’t give you a response that progresses into a conversation about the job, and almost anyone who would ask such a tired old cliché of an HR-type question is probably not going to be prepared to respond properly to this kind of answer, then just say, it’s OK as I am, above all else, a problem solver. And if this or some other, as of yet undiscovered weakness comes to light in my work, rest assured that it is my nature to quickly identify it, and work to correct it, so that whatever problems arise, they are solved. I find that such experiences are not only learning exercises, but tend to turn out to be opportunities for innovation and progress. I’m certain you will hear some inspiring stories about just such situations in my previous work when you check my references.

By the way, if you are being represented by a recruiter, they should be preparing you for each interview so that you can go in with a plan, a procedure, and are armed with the ability to respond to the typically inane questions, like this one, that come from intellectually weak interviewers (read: screeners). Even better, hopefully your recruiter has a strong relationship with the manager you would report to (the hiring authority), and that first stop in HR is only a formality.

- Submissions to job boards seem to be going into a back hole?

- Wondering if HR has you on some kind of No-Fly list?

- Have you concluded that the job search system is flawed? You would be correct.

Today’s assignment is to stop working on what doesn’t work, and prepare yourself to work far harder on your goal, a new place to work.

The mass market is the distraction. It’s not about volume, it’s about accuracy. All else is irrelevant. What will deliver your next career opportunity are the things you do really well.

So you need to start by identifying what you do best.

Next, figure out who needs what you do really well.

Third, determine how you can get on their radar. Whether that company has a position posted is irrelevant because if you can take away their current pain, having a conversation with you is always an option.

It’s hard, detailed work, that requires much research, analysis and creative thought. Just like you are used to doing in your career. Firing off resumes to job postings is easy. Having a resume service mass-market your career highlights is easy. Doing the kind of “roll up your sleeves” work that made you successful in your career is not. But it has always worked for you before, and there is no reason why it won’t work for you now.

This is the starting point of what I expect will be a periodic blog mainly focused on my observations, analysis, review and comments on topics related to the recruiting industry and employment, including their processes, trends and events.