When it comes to getting hired, first impressions matter.

‌Fortunately, there are several ways to make a positive first impression on your future employer both online and in person. Whether you use your resume, LinkedIn profile, or biography, you should consider these application materials as value propositions — because essentially they are.

A value proposition is a business term that encompasses materials used to market a service or product. Companies use value propositions to persuade prospective clients to choose them based on the value they can bring to the client’s life or business. You can use this strategy in your application materials. Aim to persuade potential employers by demonstrating the value you can bring to their brand.

What Values Should You Highlight?

When you begin your job search, it can be challenging to know what qualities to highlight in your application materials. Editing your resume and LinkedIn profile to list your most up-to-date technical skills and qualities is an ongoing process, but there are some essential skills you can use to improve your resume at any stage:

‌‌Candidate Skills

Once you’ve homed in on the jobs you want, one of the first steps toward demonstrating your worth is including the right hard skills. These are technical abilities you’ve gained through education or experience — such as computer skills, data analysis, or editing.‌

How do you know which hard skills to include? Start by considering the company goals of the organization you’re interested in. Gaining an understanding of the work it does and the ways you can concretely contribute to its goals will put you on the right track when crafting your resume and professional profiles.

‌When listing your hard skills, the goal is to demonstrate why you would provide a skill-based fit for the company. Craft your resume to include your most relevant work experience. Make sure to go into detail about the hard skills you have, how you’ve earned them, and the ways you have amassed a proven track record of using them in a professional setting.

Cultural Skills

While hard skills are certainly valuable, cultural skills can be equally as important during the hiring process. How can you demonstrate to your prospective employer that you will be a great cultural fit for their organization? You can highlight an awesome cultural fit by clearly emphasizing the right soft skills — such as time management, organization, initiative, and leadership.

‌One way to tailor the soft skills on your resume to match the needs of your employer is to clearly display that your employee goals align with the company’s goals. A cultural fit is based on the way you will mesh with other employees, contribute to positive workplace culture, and inspire continued productivity. When your goals and values as an employee align with the goals of your employer, a cultural fit is natural.

Value-Added Statements

To paint an undeniable picture of the benefit you will bring to your prospective employer, it’s important to use value-add statements — also known as value-added statements — to your resume, profile, and bios.

‌In business, value-added statements are documents that outline the positive outcome a product or service can bring to its customers, often monetarily. When crafting your resume and profiles, using a value-added strategy can quickly elevate your application materials. ‌

On your resume, you can incorporate value-added statements in the description of your work experience. For example, rather than simply mention that you’ve improved sales at your previous companies, include specific examples with strong action words. “Boosted sales by 3% over six months” provides a concrete example of the value you bring to a company.

Whenever possible, use specific details to describe your soft skills, too. For example, “managed a team of 20 professionals with collaboration and leadership skills” is more persuasive than simply listing “collaborative” or “strong leadership skills.”

Once you’ve crafted value-added skills for your resume, you can easily weave them into your professional profiles and bio to paint a vivid picture of the worth you will bring to an employer.

How Capstone Resumes Can Help

The way you craft your resume, LinkedIn profile, and professional biography will depend on the industry and type of job you’re vying for. No matter what your professional goals are, it is important to illustrate the concrete ways you can help employers reach their goals.

It can be challenging to identify which of your skills and qualities align most with potential employers. Making these connections can help you land among the top applicants at your ideal company. Fortunately, Capstone Resume Services can help you zero in on your most important strengths and showcase them to prospective employers.

Get Acclimated To LinkedIn’s Features

LinkedIn is adding and removing features all of the time. If you haven’t been on the site in awhile, set aside some time to peruse the various features and settings. See how your profile looks to others and check out how your connections are using theirs. LinkedIn also has a company blog where it provides current information and announcements for users.

Know Your Privacy Settings

Is your job search public or private? If you currently have a job, then you probably want to keep a lid on the fact that you’re looking for other opportunities. LinkedIn allows customization of your privacy settings to control how much of your activity others (like your boss and colleagues) can see.  To keep your job search private, pay special attention to these settings: activity broadcasts and activity feed,  those that show you’ve viewed someone’s profile,  and the visibility of your groups. Note that even if a group is not visible on your profile, your activity in a group can be seen by other group members. You can, however, respond privately to another group member’s post.  Finally, if you purchased a premium subscription, note that LinkedIn adds a “badge” to your profile. You can hide this badge (a briefcase icon) so others will not know that you have purchased the premium subscription.

Strut Your Stuff

What better way to showcase your abilities than providing specific examples?  The summary, experience and education sections of your LinkedIn profile allow you to either “Add a link” or “Upload a file.”  Use these features to create a visual portfolio and include samples of your best work for others to see.  These examples bring your job description to life and enable hiring managers to see how you’ve gone above and beyond your stated job duties.

Ask For Advice Or Information, But Don’t Ask For A Job

Networking is about building relationships, and relationships are built in steps and over time. The first step is not asking someone for a job, or asking them to pass along your resume. They might not tell you so, but your contact could be offended if they haven’t heard from you in ages and now you’re there to ask for a job. Find ways to continually engage and stay connected. We provide some tips for that below. Approach a contact to ask for their opinion or advice, or ask them if they’ll share information with you. If you’ve spent time getting to know others and provide value, in time you might not have to ask for a job or a referral, you’ll be the first to come to mind when the right opportunity arises.

Be An Active Participant

LinkedIn provides many opportunities for active involvement. Status updates provide a blank canvas for connecting with your LinkedIn contacts and staying visible in their activity feeds. You can share interesting articles, information, job opportunities, events and inspiration, or ask questions or ask for advice.

You’ll also see in your activity feed what your connections are posting and updates such as new positions or work anniversaries. You can comment on any of these posts, share your support and expertise with your network and celebrate their accomplishments with them.

Groups provide another avenue for being active on LinkedIn. You can participate in alumni groups, groups based on professional interests or specific fields.  Engage in discussions and ask or answer questions. Groups are a great way to meet, network with and stay connected to others who share your interests.

Capstone resume writers with recruiting and hiring backgrounds create affordable resumes, cover letters and LinkedIn profiles that get results. Get started today!

Expand Your Professional Network

LinkedIn is foremost an online professional networking forum. Networking is critical to your job search, and the site allows you to do it from the privacy of your home and the convenience of your computer or mobile device.

LinkedIn lets you to connect with people you already know, see who they are connected with, and if desired, request introductions. This is a great way to grow your network, and LinkedIn makes it easy to facilitate these introductions.

You also can use LinkedIn to seek out people in your target industry who you might not otherwise know. When you invite someone to connect through LinkedIn, the site provides a generic personal note template to send with your request. If you do not know the person you are trying to connect with, take the time to write a personal note explaining why you would like to connect with him or her. Many people will be happy to connect with you when they know how you can help one another.

Find Employment Opportunities

LinkedIn is an essential tool for your online job search.  You will find many job postings on LinkedIn, and keep in mind that employers are often searching LinkedIn for qualified candidates to fill positions they have open, which might not be posted. It’s critical to have a complete and current profile so they can find you.

Utilize LinkedIn’s jobs section to search for employment opportunities, save job search parameters and job postings, and set up email alerts.  In some instances, you can apply directly to a job by clicking the “Apply with LinkedIn” button.  Your profile then serves as your resume, which again underscores the importance that you have a recent and comprehensive profile.

It’s imperative to remember that recruiters and managers are also using LinkedIn to critique you.  It’s common for employers to look at your LinkedIn profile to validate the information on your resume or to confirm what you say in an interview.

Demonstrate Your Skills

It’s easy to list skills on your resume, but to get the job, you have to prove that you can walk the talk. Your LinkedIn connections can endorse you for specific skills and provide personal recommendations for work you have done. This third party validation is a nice feature that a potential employer is not going to find on your resume.

You can also demonstrate your skills by including examples of your work, in some cases doubling your LinkedIn profile as an online portfolio. To demonstrate skills that you’re not using in your job, consider adding the volunteer work section to your profile to highlight additional skills you’ve developed outside of traditional employment.

Stand Out From The Crowd

LinkedIn is always adding features to make it more interactive and engaging. With millions of users, your LinkedIn profile alone may not always be enough to get you out in front of potential employers, but there are actions you can take to get noticed.

Try participating in the groups that are available on LinkedIn. You can find groups for college and company alumni, and groups based on interests, skills or industry.  Not only are groups a great source of information for your job search, being an active participant in them can help your profile get noticed.

Another way to stand out is to regularly publish content.  The “Share an update” feature is your opportunity to ask questions, share your thoughts and ideas, and distribute interesting articles or other information that your contacts can see in the activity feed on their LinkedIn home page. Engaging with the content your contacts are publishing also gets you out there.

Plenty of tools and resources are available online to help you create a stellar LinkedIn profile. To save time, you could hire the professionals at Capstone Resume Services to get you started with your LinkedIn profile writing so you can remain focused on being an engaged participant.