How to use LinkedIn to land an E-learning job after a gap?

I had decided to return to the world of full-time work after a gap of six years.

I had about 11 years of full-time instructional design and e-learning experience to begin with, and was now faced with the daunting task of getting back after such a long gap.

A negative first experience where on the day of receiving an offer letter, I learnt that it was not for the company I had even applied for seemed a setback, but it helped me introspect – about what ‘I’ really wanted.

I thought getting a job was about updating my skills, getting an industry standard pay scale and getting into an MNC. However, after a bit of introspection and after numerous conversations with recruiters and consultants, I found what I really wanted.

This was my list:

· The job had to be remote

· I wanted people who valued ‘people’ more than anything else and an organisation I could trust (I realised that I was tired of interrogations instead of interviews and tones that made me wonder what else lay in store on the other side)

· I wanted meaningful work that I did not get bored doing

· A fair pay was sufficient – I just did not want to be taken for a ride

Once I knew what I wanted for myself, life was much easier.

Most often, recruiters also helped me decide😊 and since I knew what I was now looking for, it was much easier to make decisions. Ironically, I ended up rejecting two global MNCs in the process (the very thing I thought I was waiting for).

This job hunt was a two-month process for me and this was the path I took…

1) I joined LinkedIn – for a start, I saw that there were many people who referred to themselves by fancy titles. I could not ‘get’ it, so I just stuck with what I knew I had done/could do – instructional design and eLearning.

2) I did not ‘get’ why I needed to have ‘connections’. I did not understand the concept, so I chose to connect only with the people I knew/remembered – in short, anyone who I remembered from the past and with whom I had at least one meaningful conversation.

3) I looked around LinkedIn and saw many people who knew a lot about the industry – so I joined eLearning and instructional design groups and followed people who had something meaningful to contribute, in the hope of learning something about eLearning trends. I also learned much from the same people who also had content on YouTube

4) I wanted to reskill, so after spotting LinkedIn Learning, I got a LinkedIn subscription – free for the 1st month, discounted for the next 2 months and began taking many LinkedIn courses related to my skillset and some out of interest

5) I used LinkedIn Easy Apply quite extensively especially since, as a member with a Premium subscription, LinkedIn provides you with certain benefits such as showing you which specific jobs you would be a right applicant/fit for. This was useful especially for remote job alerts and for statistical data on other applicants who had also applied.

6) I tried to learn about the job market and changing trends (for example, remote jobs seemed to reduce as the lockdown in India eased and there seemed to be a slight disparity between the average stated salary for a specific job role and what companies were actually offering/willing to pay) – I quoted a realistic figure as the expected CTC instead of the industry standard figures on the internet and began applying for most remote jobs

7) I learnt to differentiate between HR consultants, company recruiters and organisations and what they stood for. I also used Glassdoor, LinkedIn and at times, Ambitionbox.com to research companies and their work culture. I also used a popular Indian job site (Naukri.com) and often found the same jobs advertised on LinkedIn as well.

Today I joined work.

I had four well-thought-out expectations that I thought I saw in one organisation, I am here and relieved – for now.