How To Make Your LinkedIn Profile More Recruiter-Friendly

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Getting-The-Most-Out-Of-LinkedIN

By this point, you probably have a LinkedIn profile and are familiar with how to use the site. You’ve filled out the profile requirements and made sure your LinkedIn presence is professional and polished (and if you’re super on top of it, you might have added a cover photo!), but can you say your profile is recruiter-friendly?

It’s a great idea to invest some time in optimizing your LinkedIn profile specifically for recruiters, because many companies use a tool called LinkedIn Recruiter to search for candidates via keywords, location, industry and a number of other parameters. I know this because I was a recruiter  for a number of years, and LinkedIn Recruiter and I were BFFs. Plus, with 250+ million users, you can see why recruiters use this tool A LOT.

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‘Lean’ Product Management: Past, Present, and Future

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Building-Great-Products-The-Lean-Startup-Way

The lean movement has become the rallying cry of entrepreneurs everywhere, keeping enterprise product managers on their toes as they try to understand how, or even if, they should be implementing the iterative learning methodology into their processes.

But beyond supposedly leading to ‘more innovativeness’ more efficiently, what does lean mean for today’s product managers? By understanding where the term came from, I think product managers can better understand where it’s going, and how it impacts them.

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Expand Your Library: Announcing Our New Book Series

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GA_Books_FrontsAt General Assembly we’re always finding new ways to evolve our offerings and grow our global community of individuals empowered to pursue the work they love. To that end, we’re thrilled to announce that the first two volumes of our new, original book series, The Practitioner’s Guide, have been published.

In this series, you’ll get an introductory overview—including first-hand accounts, lessons learned, and useful advice—from seasoned professionals working in the most relevant fields of the 21st century.

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Opportunity Fund Fellow Mentors Teens in Tech

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allstarcode

Jarret Sims, back row, third from the right.

As a recipient of General Assembly’s Opportunity Fund Fellowship, it is a privilege to fulfill my responsibility to give back by volunteering 100+ hours of my time to the tech community. Working in partnership with All Star Code, a non-profit initiative that prepares qualified young men of color for full-time employment in the tech industry, I look forward to assisting in their efforts to provide mentorship, industry exposure, and intensive training in computer science.

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3 Marketing Skills that Every Entrepreneur Should Have

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Marketing essentials for entrepreneurs

As an entrepreneur, I wear many hats. I’m my company’s chief accountant, salesperson, strategist, and product-builder. I’m responsible for making sure that my business stays thriving six months and six years from now. It’s exhausting, scary, and highly rewarding — all at once.

The biggest challenge that I face is that there are only 24 hours in the day. With 8 hours spent sleeping, I have very little time to be everything to everyone. I’m constantly in the trenches, working with my existing customers, which means that I have very little time to build marketing campaigns, guest blog, and build the infrastructure that I need to keep my business growing sustainably.

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5 Ways to Follow Up After a Job Interview

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Interview follow up image

Landed an interview at a company? Congrats! Dedicated time to research the role and prepare questions to ask your interviewer? Smart! Assuming they will let you know what happens next? Nope.

Following up after your meeting matters almost as much as the interview itself, and yet many people opt to do nothing for fear of making the wrong move.

But doing nothing is the wrong move because it increases your chances of being forgotten. With the right tactics, you will stay top of mind, and impress the hiring manager.

These five tips will help you follow up tactfully and effectively after your next interview:

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How to Optimize Your Digital Marketing Resume

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Apprentice-Program

So, what on earth actually happens to your resume when you submit it online? Is it scanned by a computer? Is it submitted to human resources? Does it go directly to the hiring manager for the position? Or is it just lost in the Internet abyss of unread applications?

All of these scenarios are possible—the last one being the dreaded and all too common outcome of the online application.

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Engineered to Code: A Civil Engineer’s Journey Back to Basics

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When Martin isn’t relaxing by the campfire with one of his favorite sci-fi novels, you may find him coding his next project. Having worked as a Civil Engineer for years, an NPR marketplace segment (ironically featuring one of our Web Development Immersive graduates) inspired him to make a career shift. Twelve weeks later, he’s on the hunt for his first job in his new career. 

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4 Key Features of an Effective Online Learning Program

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Advanced-Topics-In-Excel

Around a year ago, when I first joined General Assembly, the zeitgeist held that Massive Open Online Courses, or MOOCs, were dying and that online education was doomed to fail. It was around this time that The New York Times cited a UPenn study that stated that only 4% of MOOC registrants complete their lessons and only half ever even view a single lesson.

So it was with a healthy dose of skepticism that I took on the role of Online Instructional Designer, tasked with building GA’s first online course: “The Essentials of Digital Marketing.” Over the next few months, the Essentials of Digital Marketing grew into an extremely successful and engaging learning platform, boasting a 71% engagement rate of students who complete lessons. To reach this point, my team engaged in a whirlwind of testing and discovery that uncovered a number of defining features for building effective online learning experiences.

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