Corporate Survivor with Mei Phing : Career Growth In The Corporate World - Ep204: Do I need LinkedIn Premium? Should I write post on LinkedIn?

Episode Date: February 8, 2024

✅ Watch FREE WORKSHOP, newsletter, work with me ⮕ http://www.meiphing.com ✅ Corporate Survivor™ is the ultimate career course for 9-to-5 working professionals, just like *you*, who want to enhance corporate world mindset, skillset and strategy so you can NAVIGATE + GROW your career with clarity, confidence & opportunities... 🚀 ⚡ 📌 ABOUT THIS PODCAST: Welcome to Corporate Survivor with Mei Phing — ex-Corporate Leader turned Career Coach & Founder of The Corporate Survivor™. On this podcast, Mei Phing shares her corporate world insights, experiences and wisdom so you can grow your 9-5 career with clarity, confidence and opportunities. ✅ WEBSITE ⮕ https://www.meiphing.com ✅ FREE GUIDE ⮕ https://www.thecorporatesurvivor.co/freeguide ✅ NEWSLETTER ⮕ https://www.thecorporatesurvivor.co/mondays ✅ CAREER COURSE ⮕ https://www.thecorporatesurvivor.co ⚡

Welcome to the Corporate Survivor Podcast, where we talk about how to grow your career confidence, build your skills and value, increase your salary, and the many lessons we learn in the corporate world. For more career support, click on over to www.mayping.com. This is Mayping, your corporate leader turned career coach. I hope you enjoy, like and subscribe. Should I actively apply for roles on LinkedIn? Is LinkedIn premium worth it? Do I need to write viral content in order to grow my career using LinkedIn?

In this episode, I'll answer the top three questions that you have about LinkedIn and the common misconceptions that many people have about utilizing this professional networking platform to help you grow your career. If you are someone who is in a 9-5 job, you want to attract new career opportunities, then make sure that you understand how to exactly utilize LinkedIn and some of the things that are basically unnecessary in order for you to attract new career opportunities. And if you want to learn a little bit more, next month, I'm actually organizing a LinkedIn profile branding workshop to help you build a strong LinkedIn profile that can clearly sell your value, experiences, and skills so that you can get headhunted for the next opportunity that you want.

And as I go through the questions in this episode, it's going to be very clear to you as to why you need a very strong LinkedIn profile if you're someone who is serious about getting new opportunities. So if you want to grab your spot to book your free LinkedIn profile review with me, you can check out my career program, The Corporate Survivor at www.mapin.com. Let's get into the questions. So question number one, should I actively apply for jobs on LinkedIn? Yes, yes and yes. You should be utilizing LinkedIn as the main platform in which you are applying for jobs. The reason why LinkedIn is the best platform to make any job applications is because it is basically the professional platform that

many HR recruiters and hiring managers are hanging out to find the next talent for their company. So therefore, you also want to be at the right place and making applications for all jobs published on LinkedIn because you know that that's when your application will appear and get looked at by the hiring manager, HR and recruiter at the earliest as compared to some more traditional platforms out there such as

JobsDB or Jobstreet. The other advantage of applying for jobs on LinkedIn is because of your LinkedIn profile. When you apply for a job on LinkedIn, your information in your LinkedIn profile also gets sent together with your application as well. If you have spent some time to build your LinkedIn profile the right way, meaning that it clearly explains your background, skills, experiences, and and value that profile goes together with the job application that you make on linkedin if you see a job that you like then definitely apply apply and apply so moving on to the next question is linkedin premium worth it well in my view i think it's not worth it now the reason is because i have used linkedin for more

than 10 years and for the 10 years that i have worked in the corporate world applying for new opportunities getting headhunted, I did not have LinkedIn Premium. The reason is because if you apply the right LinkedIn strategies that I teach, in which you build a strong LinkedIn profile, you apply as early as possible, you know exactly the jobs that you're looking for, you know how to engage the hiring managers and recruiters,

you actually don't need LinkedIn Premium. The only benefit I think LinkedIn Premium gives you is just some stats around the other applicants who have applied for the same job and which jobs actually meet your requirement more. But you don't actually need LinkedIn Premium in order to do that. I think it's about like $500 or $600 US dollars in which, in my view, you can actually better save that money and maybe join a career program such as my program that actually teaches you the step-by-step to be able to use the right strategy to get the opportunity, get the messages from HR and recruiters without having to waste time. Because I can tell you that I have hundreds of students in my career program. Many of them have

utilized LinkedIn to get their next opportunity. They get multiple messages from HR recruiters on jobs that are multi-six figures. You're talking about 100K, 200K, 300K, and they are not on LinkedIn Premium. Don't have the belief that you need LinkedIn Premium in order to be found. That is not true. You need a clear LinkedIn strategy. You need a good LinkedIn profile so that you can actually appear during the HR and recruiter searches. And that's actually down to your LinkedIn profile. It's not down to LinkedIn Premium. Okay. It's your LinkedIn profile. And that's why I continue to emphasize the importance of having a good LinkedIn profile.

In fact, actually what will be even more helpful is to have a very clear job search strategy and LinkedIn is one of the enablers as part of the job search strategy. And this is something that I also teach in my 30-day job search course and that is also included in my career program, The Corporate Survivor.

And that's something that I tell all my clients. We start with career clarity. We know how to sell your value in your resume. Then we translate it in your LinkedIn profile. And then the LinkedIn drop-sale strategy will serve to enhance that. So it's kind of like

an overall drop-sale strategy and LinkedIn strategy to get new opportunities and not just like one piece of the puzzle. Like you need to see the whole jigsaw puzzle. And therefore,

I am very, very confident to say you don't need LinkedIn premium because I've never used LinkedIn premium. None of my clients actually invest in LinkedIn premium. Then they invest in programs that can actually help them sell their value, learn how to get recognized at work

and know how to have like a broader career development strategy. And I think that actually makes more sense if you're someone who's looking for long-term career growth and utilizing LinkedIn as one of the elements to be able to help you grow your career. So now that we are clear that the goal is for long-term career growth,

I want to answer the third question. And the third question is around, should I write viral content on LinkedIn? Now, in my view, if you're someone who is working in a 9-5 job, you're looking for new career opportunities, you don't need to write any viral content. Because to be honest, what is the point? Writing viral content may get you certain kind of attention.

And I'm sure that's all every personal branding strategies is going to tell you that. Every social media strategy is going to tell you that. But I can tell you as a career coach and someone's actually worked in the corporate world before, you don't need that. Because the goal for you on LinkedIn is not to write viral posts to get attention. Because who are you attracting? And what has that got to do with the new career opportunity? Most of the time, it doesn't go hand in hand so it's actually much better use of time to go and

update your LinkedIn profile make sure that it's strong it clearly sells your value it clearly reflects your professional achievements as a nine to five professional that can attract HR and recruiters to send you a message of interest right send you a message of new career opportunities that you can pursue that That should be the goal if you're someone who is looking to grow your career on LinkedIn and not trying to become an influencer because that is totally something else.

So you don't need to write viral content in order to attract new opportunities because like I said, you just need to focus on fixing your LinkedIn profile, optimizing your settings, knowing how to apply for jobs on LinkedIn very strategically and know how to engage hiring

managers, recruiters, and HR very strategically. And this is something that I do teach step-by-step in my 30-day job search program. And a huge portion also covers LinkedIn. So that is the goal. And I also want to make a very quick note, right? The people who are trying to write viral content, trying to become a personal branding guru on LinkedIn, most of the time, their goal is not career growth. So if you follow that kind of advice, then don't be surprised that you are not getting the opportunities and you are not growing because that is not the intention of the people who are creating those kinds of content. And the other thing I also wanted to share with you, and I think this is something that a lot of people don't talk about, in which a lot of people who are trying to write helpful posts on LinkedIn, viral posts on LinkedIn, many of times they actually have a lot of problems in their career. It's like educating

the rest of the people, but also maybe escaping a little bit from their struggles at work. Now, the reason why I know this is because these are the exact people who are sending me and sharing with me a lot of their career problems in my DMs, in my messages, but they never seem to take action because they think that writing viral content on LinkedIn will help them solve their workplace problems. And I'm telling you right now, your career problems will not get solved just because you write a viral content on LinkedIn. You need to go and work around your workplace skills, your core skills, gaining clarity about your job. You need to go and talk to your boss. You need to implement a visibility strategy so

that you can grow your career. And that comes now to your broader career development plan that's about you getting mentoring, that's you getting support to really solve the existing issues that you have in your career. To be able to apply a strong LinkedIn strategy, particularly updating your LinkedIn profile so they can continue to attract new career opportunities without actively looking for them. And this is something that is 100% possible because I have hundreds of my clients who are able to do that in which they are not writing viral content. They are focusing time at their real job, adding value at their real job. At the same time, knowing that they have set up their LinkedIn profile correctly, that they can still get headhunted on LinkedIn, even though they're only spending one hour a week or one hour a month. You don't have to spend a lot of time if

you know what you're doing is basically my point here. So I hope that the top three questions that I've answered give you a much broader perspective as to how we can better utilize LinkedIn to grow your career and really the foundation of LinkedIn. And the foundation is actually a strong LinkedIn profile, which is something that many people are not willing to make an effort to build their LinkedIn profile in a way that clearly sells their value. Because I give you an analogy here. If you're going out there writing viral content, but you have such a lousy LinkedIn profile, it's kind of like you're going out there telling everyone, hey, come and visit my house, come and visit my house. But when they come to your house, which is your LinkedIn profile, and it's in a mess, then who is going to send you

a message for new opportunities? The recruiters won't want to message you, the HR won't want to message you because the whole thing looks like a mess. And that's the kind of analogy that I hope that you have to really further solidify as to the thing that you need to focus on is to go and fix your LinkedIn profile and not all this blah, blah, blah activity on the side. That one, if you want to, because you're really, really free, that's fine. But I want you to make sure that you are not confusing those activities as something that can actually help you attract new career opportunities. So I hope that this kind of gives you a bit of an idea as to what you can do and what you should focus on.

And like I said, next month, I'm actually hosting a LinkedIn profile branding workshop in which you can also get a free LinkedIn profile review with me in which I will give you the first impressions of what HR hiring managers are seeing

when they see your profile and how you can better update and fix your profile to better sell your value so they can attract job opportunities without spending hours and hours and hours on LinkedIn. And that is really the goal, to be able to have a career growth strategy at your current job to get recognition, promotions, but also to have the other career growth strategy so we can attract new opportunities while you're adding value at your real job. And that is really the goal. If you're someone who wants to check out

the LinkedIn Profile Branding Workshop, this is definitely something that is only exclusive to my Corporate Survivor Career Program students. So if you want to check out, you can go to www.maping.com and I'll see you there.