Some good news for job hopefuls: The market is verifiably booming these days. For starters, there are record-high numbers of openings across the board. And that puts power firmly into the hands of workers, as employers compete to reach top talent, bending and stretching to accommodate the new normal. (Mental-health benefits? Remote work? Check and check.) But with so many openings on the table—and more arriving each day, with folks quitting in larger numbers than ever—a simple LinkedIn search can quickly spiral into an endless scroll. That is, unless you take a few key job search tips into account.
Experts in This Article
Ada Yu is the director of product management at LinkedIn. Her team focuses on helping job seekers discover and apply for the right jobs; helping job posters find the most qualified candidates; and driving equitable hiring outcomes for all members.
If you’ve scanned LinkedIn’s job-search function recently, you may have noticed that most listings include the number of folks who’ve already applied; if it’s below 25, it’ll show up in green text. The platform then categorizes that job as one where any new applicants would still be considered “early applicants.” And one of the best job search tips is to actually use that phrase in the LinkedIn search bar.
Recently, social-media consultant Nick Guilloryshared exactly how to do that on his TikTok (his account is full of great job search and application tips for LinkedIn and beyond, by the way). Just type the words “early applicant” alongside your preferred title in the top search bar—so, I’d write something like “early applicant editor,” for example—and then click the jobs filter, adjust your city, and boom: What comes up is a list of jobs posted in the past 24 hours or for which you could be one of the first few people to apply.
From there, you can filter the results by everything from particular job function to whether it’s on-site or remote, the experience level, and even whether someone in your network works at the company, all of which can help you save time and apply only to roles that feel like a true fit, says Ada Yu, director of product management at LinkedIn.
“Applying within the first 10 minutes of receiving a relevant job notification can increase your chances of hearing back by up to four times.” —Ada Yu, director of product management at LinkedIn
Scroll to the bottom of the first page of listings, and you can also toggle the button to “create an alert for this search.” That way, you get a notification or email every time a new opening fits this ideal job metric. “Applying within the first 10 minutes of receiving a relevant job notification can increase your chances of hearing back by up to four times,” says Yu.
Looking for an even sneakier tip for optimizing your job search? Try leaving LinkedIn’s job-search feature entirely by typing “join my team” into the search bar on the main page. This can bring up a whole bunch of posts from hiring managers and other folks looking for candidates for open roles, as Guillory recently shared on his TikTok. You can also refine the search by adding the title of your ideal role (as in, “join my team social media director”) and clicking the “posts” filter, as well as sorting by the date it was posted (past 24 hours, past week, or past month), so you only see relevant posts for your optimal job.
This post-focused job-search tip is a simple way to find openings that employers are really eager to fill (if a current employee is taking the time to share it on LinkedIn, you can bet they want someone ASAP), as well as openings shared by your followers, since posts from those people will come up first. And that can go much further than helping you simply kick off the conversation; according to Yu, you’re actually four times more likely to get hired by someone who’s already in your network. So, consider this a welcome reminder to stay in touch with the folks you know.
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