SEO Werkt!

LinkedIn has just released Q2 earnings, and the enterprise-focused social network continues to rise. It’s posted revenues of $228.2 million and earnings per share of $0.03 (non-GAAP EPS: $0.16). This puts the company past earnings estimates from First Call of $216.3 million, and Yahoo Finance, which had estimated revenues of $216 million. It also beat First Call’s EPS of $0.01, as well as LinkedIn’s own guidance of revenues of $210-$215 million.

Q2 saw LinkedIn get hit with what might have been its worst publicity disaster in recent times, when some 6.5 million passwords were stolen. Although the company moved quick to create password changes, the breach would have put off users from relying too much on putting data into that social network, or using it for and paid services, but these results show that clearly it was not hit as hard as people might have thought.

Here’s how some of its divisions performed:

Hiring Solutions: Revenue totaled $121.6 million, up 107% compared to the second quarter of 2011. Hiring Solutions revenue proportion is going up. It’s now 53% of total revenue versus 48% in Q2 2011.

Marketing Solutions: Revenue totaled $63.1 million, up 64% versus Q2 2011. Marketing Solutions revenue represented 28% of total revenue in the second quarter of 2012, compared to 32% in the second quarter of 2011.

Premium Subscriptions: Revenue was $43.5 million, up 82% versus Q2 2011. Premium Subscriptions represented 19% of total revenue in the second quarter of 2012, compared to 20% of revenue in the second quarter of 2011, LinkedIn said.

We’ll be listening in to the call at 2pm PT. Some things we’ll be looking for:

Mobile in Q1 accounted for 22% of LinkedIn’s visitors, and with the introduction of LinkedIn’s iPad app, investors will be looking to see whether the company has been able to capitalize on that further. In the release, LinkedIn notes no numbers but does say the iPad app has been “received positively, and engagement trends are encouraging.” More than half of page views on the app are being generated by content-focused products such as updates, news and groups — meaning potentially more routes for monetizing on those down the line.

User engagement, as some have noted, is another focus. The company in May bought enterprise content sharing platform  SlideShare for $119 million, and just weeks ago it launched a redesign that is also geared to making the site a place where users would like to spend more time, with an enhanced LinkedIn Today story stream and more options for communicating with other LinkedIn members.

LinkedIn’s revenue guidance for Q3 had been $235 million, and now it’s bumped that up to $235 million-$240 million. It’s also raised its full-year forecasts to $915 million-$925 million; in its Q1 call, LinkedIn had given the range $880 million$900 million.

In Q1, LinkedIn had impressed analysts with a set of very strong results, producing earnings per share of $0.15 against estimates of $0.09, and revenues of $188.5 million against an estimate of $179 million.

More to come. Refresh for updates.

LinkedIn continues its winning streak with the report of a profitable second quarter in 2012. Once again, hiring solutions brought in the most revenue for the professional network, followed by marketing solutions and premium subscriptions.

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Hiring incredible talent, notably engineers, has become a crushingly hard challenge for most startup founders. While hiring seems like a good problem (you’re growing), try searching for a new Ruby engineer for six months, while your traffic takes off, feedback emails flood in, and product development grinds to a halt.

The main issue? Engineers are starting their own companies, getting boatloads of money offered to them by Google, Facebook and other tech juggernauts, or simply haven’t heard of or don’t care about your startup.

Solving this challenge was the reason behind the recent War For Talent conference, which brought Silicon Valley elite together, ranging from Ron Conway to Dave McClure, to discuss creative hiring solutions for scrappy entrepreneurs and growing tech companies. One of the most talked about strategies was how converting interns into full-time employees can be a scalable competitive advantage in the talent wars.

At InternMatch we have found that more and more startups have started hiring interns (in fact in a recent survey including YC and 500 Startups companies, over 93% of early stage startups said they are planning to hire interns in the next three months), but we have found that few startups have mastered the critical conversion step that creates a real win.

Here are three keys to converting interns and saving your company from the hiring chokehold (if you’re interested in how to hire rock star interns, check out our post from last year).

The economics of conversions

The first step to being able to convert interns is convincing yourself and your team that it matters. While interns are a powerful, untapped market to draw from, hiring the best students still takes time, money, and considerable internal focus. One good way of thinking about this is on a monetary basis:

The average tech recruiter will take anywhere from 20% to 35% of a new hire’s starting salary. Low-balling an engineering salary at 100K annually, this is anywhere from $20,000 – $35,000.  The cost of paying an average tech intern salary for 10 weeks is $8,000!

This means you can hire four talented summer interns for the cost of a recruiter fee. If you convert just one of those interns, you come out on top, because your interns have been cranking on code all summer, and you’ve had ample time to test your new hire for fit with your team and culture. If you hire two, three or all four of your interns (as many companies do), then it is an even bigger win.

A 10-week reverse interview

The second trick to converting interns is realizing that this is a 10-week long reverse interview. While students are looking to impress you and gain their first professional experience, they should constantly be exposed to why your team, company, and vision are fantastic.

This does not mean taking interns to baseball games or on rafting trips, although that’s not a bad thing – it does mean exposing them to real projects, dedicating consistent time to teaching them new skills, and taking them to meetings with advisors, business partners, and more. Nest, for example, partners every intern with a mentor and has them create a final project that is incorporated into their product.

Making an offer

The biggest mistake most startups make is not knowing what to do at the end of an internship. If a student is heading back to school for nine months and your company will change rapidly in that time period, can you make them a full-time offer?

The answer is yes. The biggest companies have mastered the trick of taking on interns, showing them an incredible summer, and then getting them committed to joining full-time before they explore other options. Ernst & Young converts over 90% of its intern class this way. Google makes offers to students and then allows them to take two years off to pursue activities like Teach For America.

The point is that your company might change dramatically over the course of a year, but you will always need top talent. You shouldn’t hesitate to make an offer to someone who is a good fit and ready to join your team. An offer letter and 10% signing bonus is a great way to lock a student in.

Ultimately, winning at hiring is about developing a process. Few opportunities exist like the constantly refreshing pool of new talent that stems from universities. Pursuing college talent with intensity and focus will bring you stronger talent at a lower cost.

Nathan Parcells is co-founder of InternMatch.com, a leading website to help students find amazing internships and help companies find amazing interns. Nathan has spoken at universities across the country on intern hiring issues.

[Top image credit: Goodluz/Shutterstock]

Filed under: VentureBeat

Expectations were astronomically high for LinkedIn’s first quarter 2012 earnings, and the professional social network more than delivered with $188.5 million in revenue and net income of $5 million.

The revenue figure is up 101 percent from the same quarter last year and represents the seventh straight quarter of greater than 100 percent year-over-year growth for the company. Net income more than doubled, growing from $2.1 million in the first quarter of 2011.

“We saw strength across all key metrics from member signups and engagement to significant revenue growth across our three product lines,” LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner said in statement.

Analysts projected that LinkedIn would report earnings of $0.09 a share on revenue of $178.8 million for the quarter. LinkedIn, however, posted Q1 earnings of $0.15 a share on revenue of $188.5 million.

LinkedIn is making a majority of its revenue (54 percent in Q1) from its hiring solutions. The products combined revenue for the quarter totalled $102.6 million. The company made $48 million from marketing services and $37.9 million from premium subscriptions in Q1.

In an earnings conference call Thursday afternoon, Weiner said that LinkedIn, which has 161 million members, saw 58 percent year-over-year growth in member sign-ups, and is adding new members at a rate of two per second. More than 60,000 developers are using the company’s APIs, Weiner added.

The professional network said that revenue for the second quarter of 2012 is projected to range between $210 million to $215 million, and also upped its full-year 2012 revenue guidance range to $880 million to $900 million.

Today’s earnings report came on the heels of news that the company would be acquiring presentation-sharing startup SlideShare for $119 million in cash and stock.

LinkedIn’s stock is up nearly 3 percent in after-hours trading. LinkedIn earned $167.7 million in revenue during the fourth quarter of 2011.

Photo credit: nan palmero/Flickr

Filed under: deals, social

Professional social network LinkedIn has just released Q1 earnings. Revenue for the first quarter was $188.5 million, an increase of 101% compared to $93.9 million in the first quarter of 2011. Net income for the first quarter was $5 million, compared to net income of $2.1 million for the first quarter 2011, in increase of 140%. Non-GAAP EPS for the first quarter was $0.15. Analysts expected earnings of $0.09 cents per share, with quarterly revenue in at $179 million. Clearly, the company blew past Wall Street expectations.

“LinkedIn’s solid performance in the first quarter built on the company’s momentum in 2011,” said Jeff Weiner, CEO of LinkedIn. “We saw strength across all key metrics from member signups and engagement to significant revenue growth across our three product lines.”

LinkedIn says this is the seventh consecutive quarter of revenue growth for the company.

Revenue from Hiring Solutions products totaled $102.6 million, an increase of 121% compared to the first quarter of 2011. Hiring Solutions revenue represented 54% of total revenue in the first quarter of 2012, compared to 49% in the first quarter of 2011. Revenue from Marketing Solutions products totaled $48.0 million, an increase of 73% compared to the first quarter of 2011. Marketing Solutions revenue represented 26% of total revenue in the first quarter of 2012, compared to 30% in the first quarter of 2011. Revenue from Premium Subscriptions products totaled $37.9 million, an increase of 91% compared to the first quarter of 2011. Premium Subscriptions represented 20% of total revenue in the first quarter of 2012, compared to 21% of revenue in the first quarter of 2011.

Revenue from the U.S. totaled $120.8 million, and represented 64% of total revenue in the first quarter of 2012. Revenue from international markets totaled $67.6 million, and represented 36% of total revenue in the first quarter of 2012.

Revenue for the second quarter of 2012 is projected to range between $210 million to $215 million.

For LinkedIn, it’s been nearly a year since the company’s IPO in May of 2011. And the company has been steadily increasing revenue and profits. In Q4 of 2011, LinkedIn doubled revenue and increased profit, surpassing Wall Street expectations. And the company is currently valued at over $11 billion.

From the product iteration standpoint, Q1 was a slightly slower quarter for the network.

In March, LinkedIn introduced a new version of People You May Know. LinkedIn also launched an embeddable “Follow” button that companies can add to their websites. And LinkedIn made the acquisition of contact manager Rapportive official.

Last week, the company debuted its iPad app, which was a key step in the company’s mobile strategy.

We’ll be following the earnings call in an hour and updating this post with additional details.

Earnings Call:

LinkedIn now has 161 million members, adding 15 million members over the past quarter. The company is seeing the fastest growth in Latin America, Asia Pacific, and Europe.

The company will refresh many of its pillar products this year. LinkedIn is expected to have 5.3 billion professional searches in 2012.

Mobile continues to be the fast growing product for LinkedIn.

Does your business have a LinkedIn company page?

Keep reading for tips to create and grow a following for your LinkedIn company page.

Why LinkedIn Pages?

LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network. The network has 150 million members worldwide, and is adding 10 new members every 5 seconds!

LinkedIn is a publicly traded company now (symbol LNKD), which means that information about their revenues, operations and earnings are publicly available.

You can gain a lot of insight about a public company by following their investor relations communications to better understand how the business is growing, and what the areas of focus are for the company.

For example, 50% of LinkedIn’s revenues come from hiring solutions, and 30% are derived from marketing solutions. This means that a total of 80% of revenues for LinkedIn come from brands, corporations and businesses. The remaining 20% of revenues come from premium member subscriptions. All areas of the business are growing very rapidly (triple-digit growth).

Also, keep in mind that LinkedIn has a more educated and affluent audience than some of the other popular social media sites for business.

Given that the majority of LinkedIn’s revenues are derived from companies and brands, LinkedIn company pages are going to continue to grow in importance and relevance for the network.

Jonathan Lister, LinkedIn’s VP of North American sales for marketing solutions, was recently interviewed on Business Insider and had the following to say about LinkedIn company pages:

“The product we are most bullish on is a product that allows members to follow companies, and companies to message members.”

Also referring to LinkedIn company pages, Lister says,

“We’re seeing some of our highest engagement rates across the board on status updates to members.”

Bottom line? Build a LinkedIn company page for your business now! Invest your time and resources where LinkedIn is investing their time and resources.

Building Your Company Page

To build your LinkedIn company page and take advantage of all of the features offered, review this article: 5 Tips for Using the New LinkedIn Company Pages.

The newest feature of company pages is the ability to post a status update. That status update can be viewed in the streams of your followers. If you don’t have followers for your company page, your status updates won’t get any visibility outside of your company page itself.

In order to build followers for your LinkedIn company page, you will have to run some campaigns such as:

• notify your employees to follow your page,
• send out an email to your existing contact database to follow your page,
• place a Follow button on your website or blog, and
• cross-promote your page on other social channels, including LinkedIn Groups.

For the purposes of this article, I pulled together a few examples of best practices on companies that are using LinkedIn company pages to grow their visibility on the network and engage followers.

Best Practices for LinkedIn Company Pages

#1: Maximize the Overview Tab on your LinkedIn Company Page

On your company page Overview tab, only the top portion of your company description is visible. You need to make the most of this real estate.

HubSpot has done an awesome job of this. Not only do they give you a reason to follow their company page, but they also provide a call to action to keep you on the company page by driving you over to their Products tab.

On the Products/Services tab of the HubSpot company page, you will find a “Free Demo” call to action for HubSpot software, and you will find a list of free eBooks and webinars. These are all calls to action that generate qualified leads for the company!

HubSpot uses the valuable Company Overview real estate to build followers and convert them to leads.

#2: Create Interesting LinkedIn Company Page Updates

Status updates that either create dialogue (grow your visibility) or contain a call to action (generate leads) are the most effective forms of updates.

Sure, company news updates or blog posts are great from time to time, but the updates that get the most visibility are going to get members talking. For every like, comment or share by your page followers, that update has the potential to go viral and provide your business with significant exposure!

Here are a couple of examples of LinkedIn company page updates that created dialogue or contained a call to action:

A recent “engaging” status update from LinkedIn’s own company page:

Watch LinkedIn's own company page updates for tips on engaging your page followers!

Here’s a “call to action” company page status update from HubSpot:

Clicking on this company page status update takes you directly to a landing page to download the handbook!

Here are some additional suggestions that have worked well in helping company page status updates “go viral”:

• Donate to charity in exchange for followers
• Hold a contest or a drawing
• Showcase compelling stats or data
• Ask for a “like” or a “share” with the update
• Use catchy images and/or videos in your updates

#3: Encourage and Showcase Your Products or Services

When LinkedIn members visit your company page, they can see which of their network members have recommended your products or services.

When a member recommends your products or services, their network connections are notified and the recommendation also lives on your page (you can control which ones are visible).

When visiting HubSpot's Products/Services tab, I can view members of my network who have already written a recommendation!

You can easily ask your best customers to recommend your products or services through the LinkedIn “Request Recommendations” module. This can be found on a specific Product page. See the example below.

• Navigate to the specific Product page and click the “Request Recommendations” button.

Use the "Request Recommendations" button to easily ask connections to recommend a product or service.

• Fill in the “To” box with names of your connections (this field will prepopulate, and the message can be edited).

A pop-up window will appear with a prepopulated message asking for a recommendation!

#4: Use LinkedIn Ads

You might consider utilizing LinkedIn social ads to build company followers and/or recommendations for your products or services.

LinkedIn’s social ads are still affordable, and can be very powerful for driving visibility. You can run a LinkedIn social ad to ask members to follow your company or recommend your products or services, and you can strategically target these ads. (You can also run targeted ads to build group membership.)

Here's an ad that asks readers to recommend or share HP products.

In reviewing company case studies on LinkedIn, much success with LinkedIn company pages is  a function of Followers + Engaging Updates + Product/Service Recommendations.

In addition, evaluate whether an investment in social recommendation ads or follower ads is worthwhile and appropriate for your company and has also contributed to the success of the companies in the case studies.

Use LinkedIn Company Pages

Right now I believe there is a tremendous window of opportunity for small- to medium-sized companies to significantly grow visibility and market share on LinkedIn because there is little competition. Many companies are not yet utilizing LinkedIn company pages to their full extent, and many more have not begun to consistently update their company page status. The stream is not yet crowded. Think of the early days of Facebook pages—now almost every business has a Facebook page and it is very difficult to get into the news feed of your fans.

It makes sense to invest where LinkedIn is investing. LinkedIn company pages are only going to grow in significance, and if your audience is there (influential, affluent, educated members), you must build and activate your company presence!

What do you think? Are you using LinkedIn company pages? Leave your questions and comments in the box below.

Professional social network LinkedIn just reported stronger than expected fourth quarter 2011 earnings today. Earnings came in at $0.12 per share. Revenue for the fourth quarter was $167.7 million, an increase of 105% compared to $81.7 million for the fourth quarter of 2010. Net income for the fourth quarter was $6.9 million, compared to net income of $5.3 million for the fourth quarter of 2010. Analysts expected the company to earn $0.07 per share on revenues of $159.72 million.

Non-GAAP net income for the fourth quarter was $13.3 million, compared to $5.2 million for the fourth quarter of 2010. For the full year 2011, revenue increased 115% to $522.2 million from $243.1 million.

“Q4 once again exceeded our expectations for member engagement and business growth. It was a fitting end to a memorable year in which we reinforced our position as the pre-eminent professional network on the web,” said Jeff Weiner, CEO of LinkedIn in a release. “We believe continued focus on our members and technology infrastructure positions us well for accelerated product innovation in 2012.”

In terms of revenue breakdown, sales from Hiring Solutions products totaled $84.9 million, an increase of 136% compared to the fourth quarter of 2010. Hiring Solutions revenue represented 50% of total revenue in the fourth quarter of 2011, compared to 44% in the fourth quarter of 2010.

Revenue from Marketing Solutions products totaled $49.5 million, an increase of 77% compared to the fourth quarter of 2010 (and represented 30% of total revenue in the fourth quarter of 2011, compared to 34% in the fourth quarter of 2010). Premium Subscriptions revenue totaled $33.3 million, an increase of 87% compared to the fourth quarter of 2010 (and was 20% of total revenue in the fourth quarter of 2011, compared to 22% in the fourth quarter of 2010).

By geographic area, revenue from the U.S. totaled $112 million, and represented 67% of total revenue in the fourth quarter of 2011. Revenue from international markets totaled $55.8 million, and represented 33% of total revenue in the fourth quarter of 2011.

LinkedIn is now adding two new members every second, and just hit 150 million members (up from 135 million last November) in over 200 countries and territories.

In terms of guidance, revenue for the first quarter of 2012 is projected to be in the range of $170 million to $175 million and revenue for the full year will be in the range of $840 million to $860 million.

LinkedIn is past the excitement of the public offering and now coming into its own as a public company. As Weiner recently told TechCrunch, “The event itself was memorable, but for us it was really just a stepping stone.” The fourth quarter was relatively quiet with regard to new products compared to past quarters. The network debuted a new version of business card organizer CardMuch (which they acquired in early 2011), and updated Groups with new functionality.

LinkedIn also announced Talent Pipeline, a new product that allows recruiters and hiring managers to manage, track, and stay in touch with active and passive candidates, regardless of source. Talent Pipeline is currently in pilot testing phase with select Hiring Solutions customers, according to the company.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that LinkedIn is slowing down. We hear there’s much more in store for the company for 2012, especially in mobile. Steve Sordello, CFO of LinkedIn said in the release that the company will “continue to invest in our product, engineering, and sales infrastructure to capitalize on our long-term opportunity” in 2012. It will also be interesting to see how acquisitive LinkedIn is in the coming year. The company just picked up contact manager Rapportive for $15 million.

If you’re applying for jobs, you should consider LinkedIn as a landing page that sells … well … you. Earlier this year, LinkedIn hit the 100 million user mark, making it the fourth American social network to do so. And it’s not just the job seekers that log in — 73 of the Fortune 100 companies use LinkedIn Hiring Solutions.

In other words, expect potential employers to search for you on LinkedIn. And between applying for positions directly on LinkedIn and HR checking you out beyond your hard-copy resume, your profile could determine if you secure an interview and, ultimately, the job you want.

This is why optimizing your LinkedIn profile, like you would a product’s landing page, is important to your job hunt. Let’s see how we can apply MarketingExperiments’ research about landing page conversion to help optimize your LinkedIn profile page. To refresh your memory, we have developed the MarketingExperiments Conversion

Sequence heuristic to help marketers optimize landing pages for conversion:

C = 4m + 3v + 2(i-f) – 2a ^©

Wherein:
C = Probability of conversion
m = Motivation of user (when)
v = Clarity of the value proposition (why)
i = Incentive to take action
f = Friction elements of process
a = Anxiety about entering information

In this situation, let’s define conversion as convincing a hiring manager that you are worth an interview. And to keep this blog post at a decent length (and focused on elements of the LinkedIn page you can actually optimize), we’ll focus on optimizing your value proposition (after all, you have very little control over the actual layout of the page).

After all, LinkedIn offers many interesting applications and add-ons, but you must first focus on the heart of your profile: the value proposition. In this blog post, I will show you how to optimize your LinkedIn profile by focusing on 3 value proposition-based steps.

Step #1. Achieve Congruence

Congruence is having every element of your page either state the value proposition or support the value proposition. What does this mean for your LinkedIn profile? Lots. Specifically, your headline and summary are the two main places to state your value proposition and let it shine.

I’ll go over two actual profiles I found on LinkedIn using the keyword “SEO strategist” in the search tool. The example below wastes a great opportunity to showcase her value to potential employers with the headline.  Instead, she uses the headline to state her current position; however, the position is restated just below as well.

The headline should state all that she has to offer and where she wants to go. Don’t limit yourself with a single title, you may never move past it.

The gentleman below maximizes his value proposition in the headline. He lists the most valuable skills he can bring to a job, definitely setting himself apart from the majority of LinkedIn users who simply use their current job position. Using the vertical bar character (|) to separate skills also gives the headline a nice, clean appearance.

Think of the headline as an email subject line. The goal is earn a click open, not a sale. The headline should entice prospects to open your full profile. And like the first few sentences of an email, the summary should convince them to stay and read the rest.

A value proposition is the ultimate elevator pitch. In a single, instantly credible sentence, you should articulate exactly why you should be hired over the pool of other applicants. Skip the easy sales-driven approach. Present the value you have developed in verifiable ways. Self-proclaimed titles, like “social media guru” or “WordPress king” should not appear in your summary (or anywhere else on your profile).

Your summary should answer this question: “Why should my ideal employer interview me instead of other applicants?” Think about this answer. Look at your ideal position’s job description. What qualities and skills do they ask for? If you have them, prominently present those qualities and skills to make the decision to call you for an interview easy for employers.

But if you want to really stand out, stating the skills you match is not enough. You must excel in at least one element of value.

Find what sets you apart from the competition. You may not know the individuals you’re applying against, but the LinkedIn search tool can give you valuable insight into professionals with similar career paths as yourself. Search job titles similar to the one you have and the one you want. Compare yourself to their claims and skills.

You’ll find two things: where you excel and where you need improvement. Highlight the area you excel in your summary and value proposition.

While the headline and summary best state your LinkedIn value proposition, don’t forget the other sections that should support your value proposition:

• Job descriptions
• Industry category
• Specialties
• Skills
• Courses
• Organizations
• The many applications available

All of these should support what you claim as your value proposition.

Step #2. Accomplish Continuity

Continuity is making certain that each step of the LinkedIn process either states or supports the value proposition.

As I mentioned in Step #1, everything on your profile should support the value proposition presented in the headline and summary. If the prospective employer read about your SEO skills in the search box, they will expect to see explanations of those skills once they click to see your full profile. If the prospective employer doesn’t immediately see the connection between what they viewed in the search box and what they find on the full profile, they could leave your profile and move on to the next one.

Focusing only on your LinkedIn profile for continuity could hurt your results. You need to look at the whole picture. Where are your profile viewers coming from? While some will come through the search tool, not all of them will.

List where you have links to your profile: personal website, blog, online portfolio, Twitter, Facebook, Google Profile, Google +, etc. Make certain that each online site you maintain a profile on that either directly or indirectly links to LinkedIn either states or supports the value proposition. A simple call-to-action can get the job done with a link to your LinkedIn profile: “If this site perked your interest in me, then learn more on LinkedIn.” While your focus should be on those that connect to LinkedIn, you should consider stating or supporting your value proposition on all sites you maintain a public profile on.

Continuity expands further than just online. An easy mistake to make is not updating all of your resumes together. If you update your hard-copy version, then you electronic ones should be updated, and vice versa. Make sure your LinkedIn and value proposition match the resume and application you’re sending to job openings.

Step #3. Attain Credibility

Credibility is making certain that every statement of value is communicated in a way that is instantly credible. There are several ways to do this using Transparent Marketing:

-  Let someone else do your bragging

When you want to convey subjective information about yourself, then do so through the voice of your previous employers, colleagues or clients. LinkedIn allows connections to write recommendations. Take advantage of this great tool. Claiming you work hard or thrive in a deadline-oriented environment can’t compare to the previous employers confirming those skills or qualities. Keep in mind, though, that quantity doesn’t trump quality in this instance.

- Tell (only) the (verifiable) truth

It can be very tempting to stretch how far your job responsibilities and results really are. Helping to coordinate one aspect of an event does not equal “Planned and managed promotions event for 200 people.” Did you help with the promotions event? Yes. Did you plan and manage it solely or in its entirety? No.

Don’t inflate responsibilities or results. A hard-hitting interview question or a quick call to your former employer can verify that you’ve told the truth, or that you have lied on your LinkedIn profile and/or resume.

- Substitute general descriptions with specific facts (qualitative vs. quantitative)

General job descriptions can start to run together. Using quantitative facts can make each job and responsibility stand out. Using quantitative results in your descriptions can also portray you as a results-oriented person, a characteristic that many employers desire. This would include project ROI, budget managed, number of people managed, email clickthrough and open rates, etc.

Not This …

… But This

According to Forbes, a very common lie people make on their resumes is about technical skill levels. If a position requires proficiency in Photoshop and you say you it have when you don’t, that could come to haunt you very quickly if you secure the position. My resume lists my proficiency in multiple software programs as “beginner-level” – weakness or not, it’s the truth. And multiple interviewers have commented on how refreshing is to see someone truthfully give their skill level.

Related resources:

MarketingSherpa Marketing Careers newsletter – Dozens of marketing job openings sent directly to your inbox every week

Marketing Career: Can you explain your job to a six-year-old?

Marketing Career: How to get your next job in marketing

Marketing Career: How to overcome dissatisfaction in marketing jobs

In its second quarter as a public company, LinkedIn posted Q3 earnings today. Revenue for the third quarter was $139.5 million, up 126 percent from the third quarter in 2010. GAAP Net loss for the third quarter was $1.6 million (or a loss of $0.02 per share), compared to net income of $4 million for the third quarter of 2010; Non-GAAP net income for the third quarter was $6.6 million (or $0.06 per share), compared to $6 million for the third quarter of 2010. Analysts expected LinkedIn to break even on an earnings on a per share basis with revenue expected to come in at $128 million.

Members grew to 131.2 million, an increase of 63% from the third quarter of 2010. “LinkedIn had a strong third quarter, with significant, broad-based growth across all of our revenue streams, member engagement metrics, geographies, and sales channels,” said Jeff Weiner, CEO of LinkedIn. “Our results underscore the long-term strength of our global platform and our business model.”

Revenue from the U.S. totaled $94 million, and represented 67% of total revenue in the third quarter of 2011. Revenue from international totaled $45.5 million, and represented 33% of total revenue in the third quarter of 2011.

LinkedIn’s main revenue channel, from Hiring Solutions products, totaled $71.0 million, an increase of 160% compared to the third quarter of 2010. Revenue from Marketing Solutions products totaled $40.1
million, an increase of 113% compared to the third quarter of 2010. And revenue from Premium Subscriptions products totaled $28.4 million, an increase of 81% compared to the third quarter of 2010.

In terms of the outlook, revenue for the fourth quarter of 2011 is projected to be in the range of $154 million to $158 million. Revenue for the full year of 2011 is projected to be in the range of $508 million to $512 million.

As you may know, LinkedIn filed to go public back in May, and has seen its stock remain steady for the past six months. And the product itself has been luring in more engagement and activity. Traffic is up post IPO, and LinkedIn now has more unique monthly visitors than MySpace and Twitter. And LinkedIn is now adding two new members every second.

In the third quarter, Linkedin continued to push its data-focused products, unveiling a new feature called Classmates, which gives the professional social network’s users new insights and networking features to connect with fellow alumni of colleges and universities. The company also redesigned its mobile offerings, and adding HTML5 technology to its mobile site. And LinkedIn is seeking to open up new revenue streams with more customized products for recruiters.

The company was more acquisitive this quarter, buying real-Time, hosted search startup IndexTank. AllThingsD reported that LinkedIn bought social contact management startup Connected. And in September, LinkedIn hosted U.S. President Barack Obama for a town hall.

We’ve embedded the Earnings call for LinkedIn below, which will start at 2 pm PT. We’ll live blog the call.