How to leverage LinkedIn to your advantage

This guide covers how to leverage LinkedIn so that you can get compensated for your work as a Salesforce professional. I'm going to talk about some of the tips and notes I've written down about how I've leveraged LinkedIn to get compensated well for the work I'm doing.

Sometimes what this leads to are corp-to-corp positions that pay more than a W-2 Salesforce position, working six-month contracts to year-long contracts, and paying upwards of around $150 to $200 an hour, depending on what the position is, how long it is, and the type of work you'd be doing.

So what I'm going to do is just talk about some of these tips or things that I've written down that have helped me kind of leverage LinkedIn to my advantage.

Don't be a victim, even if you are one

The first thing is more of a mindset thing, but what I wrote down was: don't be a victim, even if you are one. 

What I mean by this is oftentimes on LinkedIn, you will see sappy posts about being laid off or not being able to find a Salesforce job. While I do really sympathize with the people that are going through this, posting it in that kind of "woe is me, I'm a victim" way—I again, like I do feel for the people that are going through this—but what it does for recruiters is it sends this message. 

It's this weird thing where these recruiters are not going to reach out to these people because they're going to think, even if it's not true, "Oh, I don't want to reach out to this person because they are probably going to cause a problem for my client. They might be sappy and mope around on the job, and even if they're good, I don't know if I want to put them in front of the customer."

That's really unfortunate. And that's the reason why I'm saying this is because I've spoken with recruiters and somehow we've gone on this topic, and when this topic does come up, it's like again, on a human level, we all feel for the people that are going through this. But it doesn't let the recruiter know that they're going to be good at their position. And if they do see a trend in their recent content that, you know, they are posting about this all the time and not posting about something else like, "Hey, this is what I learned in my last position" or things like that, then they're definitely not going to reach out to you, and it will only exacerbate the problem.

So again, don't be a victim or don't act like a victim, even if you are one, right? People are going to reach out to you if you're posting content around the skill set that you know and that you're good with. I think that one might be controversial, but it worked for me. 

Respond to every LinkedIn DM

The second one—and this one will compound if you do it—this benefit will compound if you do it often. And it's: respond to every LinkedIn DM, especially if they're from staffing agencies or recruiters. Right. So if your name of the game is to find a paid position, respond to every LinkedIn DM, even if you see it looks like it could be a scammer, respond. Because what it does is, in my opinion, I think it tells LinkedIn that you're active, and that sort of active status that LinkedIn will set on your profile will let other recruiters know that you're active, and you will start to notice other messages coinciding. You will start to see an uptick in the number of LinkedIn messages that you receive.

So just respond to every DM. And when you respond to every LinkedIn DM from recruiters or staffing agencies, they're going to tell you about the position. It's going to be a very generic message. And one thing that's worked for me is I will just straight up ask: "What's the compensation range for this position?" And recruiters will do one of two things. They will either say, "It depends on experience." And if they ask you that, you can just ask the question again: "What's the compensation range?" And they'll tell you.

And then you can say—and if they lowball you—you can call it out and be like, "Hey, that's just way too low." And if it's way too low and you think you can get them up to your range, then you can say, "Hey, it's way too low. It's on the lower side, open to discussing what the range should look like." You get them on the call and you have a conversation and they figure out you're a real human being and not a scammer. And then you're off to the races, right? Then you have an opportunity to land a Salesforce position.

But if they're just way off base, then what I like to do is just say like, "Hey, that's just way too low. I don't think we'll ever be able to match or be able to come close to the value that I should be able to be compensated for. Wish you best of luck in your search." And then what they'll do is they'll come back and say, "Hey, you know, what are your expectations?"

And it's really up to you. If you think you can have a relationship with this recruiter, then what you can do is say, "Hey, I think we should just get on a phone call and just talk because what I think the client is doing is I think they're putting you in a precarious position to find a unicorn at the rate that you're looking for."

And recruiters will be pretty grateful for this information because they don't know the Salesforce industry like you do. Right? You're the one that knows the Salesforce industry. You're the one that knows what the ranges should be. All the recruiters are doing is they're taking a range, and they're just trying to find somebody that hits that. And if you know your skill set and if you know that you should command a higher range, it's a great education to let the recruiters know that they're just way off base, that the client is way off base.

And guess what? Eventually it might not happen overnight, but in three or six months, when they come back and say, "Hey, we're able to get an increase, are you still interested?" then you're going to be the first person that they come to because you helped them out. And you've demonstrated yourself as somebody that's knowledgeable about the SFDC space. So that's why I like responding to every DM. And I like responding to recruiters even if there's a lowball, I'll be honest with them and still try to have a conversation with them. I won't get upset at them, right? Because I don't come from a position of malice. Just assume that that's what the client gave them and they're trying to find somebody for that rate. And it's up to you to hold firm and say that that's frankly just not the range that you're looking for.

Call recruiters directly

In that first LinkedIn DM, sometimes a recruiter will have their phone number at the bottom of the message, and it'll be like a pre-canned message that they're sending out through some sort of software. But they'll have their phone number at the bottom. Call them, right? Give them a call. Fifty percent of the time they'll pick up, fifty percent of the time they won't pick up. If they don't pick up, leave your name and number. Refer to the fact that they left you a LinkedIn message, and you're calling in response to the position. More often than not, they'll call you back to set up like 15, 20 minutes to talk, and you'll stand out from all the other people that they're reaching out to. Right?

Even if you're not interested, right? You should look at it as if you're in a position where you don't need a Salesforce job. I like doing this to really expand your network. And when you do potentially fall on hard times, you can leverage this to your advantage and reach out to them because of all the touchpoints that you've had with all these different recruiters over the years.

Post relevant content about your industry

The last thing that I think is helpful is to just post some content that's relevant to the industry that you're in. So let's say you're a Salesforce administrator for a wealth management company. You can post about some of the challenges that wealth management companies have been facing with Salesforce and how you've solved it.

And this goes back to the first point that I mentioned, which is to not act like a victim, even if you are one. Because if you're a recruiter and you come across somebody's LinkedIn profile, all things being equal with their skill set, and you see one profile has information saying, "You know, I got laid off from my last job. It really hurts. I'm so sorry that happened to me. Woe is me, woe is me," and then you see somebody's profile that's in the same position, but they're posting about lessons that they learned from the wealth management company, issues that they solved for in the past, and have a point of view on how to help solve it for other wealth management companies. Who do you think the recruiter is going to reach out to? They're going to reach out to the second person.

So this goes to say, having some sort of content about the relevant industries that you've been in in the past would go a long way. You don't have to start saying you're going to post every single day or once a week or anything like that, but just have something so that when the person goes to your profile and they skim it for 30 seconds, they'll see some posts that you've had in the past.

And to them, all they really want to see is, "Is this a real person?" Right? Do they have a profile? Do they have some sort of likes or comments, or do they have some sort of posts about the industry that they've been in? They do? Cool. We'll give them a call.

These are the four or five things that stood out to me as actions that I've taken to make LinkedIn really work for me as a Salesforce professional.