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7 Reasons to Update Your LinkedIn Profile

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As an IT professional, odds are you regularly update your resume. This ensures you are ready for opportunities as you learn about them.

Similarly, you should regularly update your LinkedIn profile. Keeping your details current and relevant shows hiring managers and recruiters what you have to offer employers.

Engaging with hiring managers and recruiters opens you up to new opportunities. These opportunities can advance your career.

Discover seven reasons to update your LinkedIn profile.

1. An Annual LinkedIn Update Is Essential

Conducting an annual review of the knowledge, skills, and accomplishments you gained in the last 12 months lets you add the details to your LinkedIn profile. You also can delete the information that is no longer relevant to your career path. These actions help hiring managers and recruiters focus on the details that can lead to your next opportunity.

2. Industry Professionals View Your LinkedIn Profile

Hiring managers, recruiters, and other professionals in your industry use your LinkedIn profile to determine your qualifications for roles. As a result, they might reach out about potential career opportunities. Sharing current information facilitates this process.

3. A Recession Is Coming

Entering a recession means economic instability. As a result, you should be prepared for anything to happen within your company and industry.

Having a complete, current, and engaging LinkedIn profile helps you pursue relevant roles if the need arises. It also makes you an attractive passive candidate for opportunities that fit your knowledge, skills, and experience.

4. Position Yourself for Opportunities

Updating your LinkedIn profile ensures it aligns with your career goals. This shows your authentic interest in professional growth. It also demonstrates you are equipped to take on the role you desire.

You also can connect with other professionals, hiring managers, and recruiters in your industry. These individuals might help you land your next role.

5. Gain the Latest LinkedIn Updates

Check your LinkedIn feed when you update your profile. Accept the relevant connection requests you received. Also, respond to the messages in your inbox. Additionally, read articles to find out what is new in your industry. These activities help you prepare for your next career opportunity.

6. Show Relevance in Your Industry

Activate Creator Mode to position yourself as a thought leader in your industry. You can publish content and share your area of expertise.

Creator Mode lets you identify the top five hashtags you want to be associated with. These hashtags sit below your headline to let viewers know more about you when they click on your profile.

7. Stand Out from Your Peers

Updating your LinkedIn profile increases your visibility and credibility with industry professionals, hiring managers, and recruiters. This helps increase your network and professional opportunities.

Include images and videos to provide greater insight into your brand. This helps others connect with you on a more personal level.

Are You Ready for Your Next Opportunity?

Work with RightStone to find your next IT career opportunity. Visit our job board today.

Building a Strong Personal Brand: How to Stand Out in a Competitive Job Market

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Building a strong personal brand helps you stand out in a competitive job market. Differentiating yourself shows what you have to offer an employer that others do not.

Creating a strong personal brand positions you as a thought leader in your field. This shows other IT professionals, hiring managers, and recruiters the value you can provide to an organization.

Having a strong personal brand helps form a lasting impression on hiring managers and recruiters. As a result, they likely will contact you about the jobs you apply for or opportunities that fit your skills and experience. These activities can help secure your next position.

Learn how to build a strong personal brand and stand out in a competitive job market.

Create Your Foundation

Build an authentic foundation that shows who you truly are. Purposefully and strategically showcase the value you provide for others.

  • Ensure your brand reflects your values, beliefs, and passions. Include your interests, skills, and credentials.
  • Focus your brand vision on what you want to be known for. Develop it according to your purpose and what you want to accomplish.
  • Create a brand message that you want to communicate to your audience. Ensure it reflects your personal characteristics and traits.

Determine Your Target Audience

Consider the industry professionals you want your personal brand to appeal to. This should include IT professionals, hiring managers, HR professionals, company leaders, and recruiters.

Your personal brand is designed to attract people in your target audience. This means your brand resonates with these individuals and attracts them to you.

Develop an Irresistible Offer

Determine what you want to sell to your target audience. This may solve a certain problem or attain a certain result.

Focus on the value you provide others, such as employers, in exchange for something, such as a desirable job with competitive income, benefits, and perks and an attractive work environment.

Set Your Content Strategy

Create and share content that helps your target audience. This builds trust and positions you as an authority in the IT industry.

  • List topics that would be helpful to your target audience. You can use an online tool such as Google’s Keyword Planner to conduct keyword research and uncover popular topics.
  • Decide which type of content to create and where to publish it. Types of content include blog posts, videos, and infographics. Publication sites include LinkedIn, YouTube, and Quora.
  • Focus on quality and consistency when publishing your content. You might want to start by creating two content types, such as blog posts and videos, and publish them on two platforms, such as LinkedIn and YouTube, and add more later.

Is It Time to Find a New IT Job?

Partner with RightStone to find your next IT role. Visit our job board today.

Yes, Mondays Are That Bad: 3 Ways to Make Them Better

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Monday has a reputation for being the worst day of the week. Many employees view Monday as disrupting the happiness they experience by not working over the weekend.

Zety research shows that 41% of respondents dislike Monday. They report having the heaviest workloads and lots of meetings, experiencing a high-pressure work environment, and being expected to work overtime.

Further, 80% of respondents say that Monday is the most stressful day of the week. As a result, they feel the least motivated and productive at the start of the work week.

Fortunately, you can help change your employees’ beliefs about Monday to set them up for a positive, productive week. The following suggestions can help.

Implement these three ideas to make Mondays better for your employees.

1. Emphasize the Importance of Each Employee’s Role

Remind your employees of how their work impacts the organization. Provide examples of how their contributions and results help reach company goals and contribute to the bigger picture.

Encourage your employees to tie their work to their identity. For instance, an employee who has a strong work ethic can demonstrate it by being productive throughout each day. Or, an employee who excels at motivating others can show it by positively impacting their colleagues and coworkers.

Support your employees in pursuing personal interests. Experiencing happiness in their personal lives impacts how they feel about their professional lives. This is especially important when your employees return to work on Monday.

2. Monitor Employees’ Workloads

Talk with each employee about their workload. Include the hours they invest and the tasks they must accomplish to attain their results.

Encourage each employee to schedule their work throughout the week to even out the demands of each day. Also, support being as productive as possible each day, especially on Fridays, to complete as much work as possible.

Find out whether an employee is unable to accomplish all the work that is assigned to them. Develop ways to adjust the timeline or delegate when needed. Also, establish ways to maintain healthy boundaries going forward. This encourages your employees to go to work on Monday.

3. Support Employee Relationships

Emphasize the importance of your employees’ building relationships with colleagues and coworkers. Encourage them to spend time together outside of work. Forming work relationships provides motivation and support for your employees to start each week with a positive mindset.

Support your employees in recognizing their colleagues’ and coworkers’ accomplishments. This encourages feelings of value, respect, and cohesion. It also makes it easier to come back to work on Monday.

Are You Looking for Help with Hiring?

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Work-Life Balance: The Evolution

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Work-life balance looks different for every employee. However, balancing professional and personal responsibilities is essential for maintaining a healthy work environment.

Sustaining a work-life balance helps reduce stress. It also lowers the odds of employees experiencing physical or mental health concerns.

Employees who experience chronic stress over an extended period may experience burnout. This can happen when continuously working overtime and not enforcing boundaries between work hours and personal time.

Creating a work environment that prioritizes work-life balance considers the needs of employees from all generations. Understanding the differences in beliefs and approaches to work-life balance can be beneficial.

Learn more about the evolution of work-life balance to better support your employees.

Baby Boomers and Work-Life Balance

Born between 1945 and 1960, baby boomers were exposed to hardships that resulted from World War II. Because earning a living was difficult, this generation desires opportunities for employment and workplace stability. Therefore, work-life balance is not a main concern.

Most baby boomers remain with companies for years. As a result, many hold senior- or director-level roles with significant amounts of responsibility and stress.

Generation X and Work-Life Balance

Born between 1961 and 1980, members of Generation X grew up seeing their parents work long hours. Therefore, Generation X experienced the impact of poor work-life balance on their families. As a result, they understand the importance of prioritizing work-life balance in their lives.

Many Generation X employees prioritize spending time with family and friends. As a result, they tend to use all their paid time off each year.

Generation X employees typically look for flexibility when deciding which companies to work for. This may include remote or hybrid work arrangements, flexible work hours, generous paid time off, and extended parental leave.

Millennials and Work-Life Balance

Born between 1981 and 2000, millennials view work as a part of life. Because their student loans are significantly high, millennials value stable employment to pay for their education and their children’s education.

Covering rising housing costs also is among millennials’ top priorities. Finding career paths that support their lifestyles also is important.

Supporting Work-Life Balance for All Generations

Encouraging employees to fulfill their professional and personal needs promotes productivity and healthy lifestyles.

  • Prioritizing a healthy company culture creates a positive work environment. This encourages employees to feel comfortable working to advance their careers rather than simply for a paycheck.
  • Providing competitive compensation and benefits, and opportunities for career growth increases employee tenure within an organization.
  • Offering remote or flexible work options, a flexible schedule, and generous paid time off increases employee engagement, job satisfaction, and morale. It also decreases employee stress and turnover. This benefits the bottom line.

Are You Looking for Help with Hiring?

Turn to RightStone for help adding professionals to your IT team. Find out more today.