10 Things You Can Do Today to Make Your LinkedIn Profile Better
Take an hour to make your profile better. It will be worth it:
Don’t wait until you’re looking for a job. Develop your LinkedIn profile to build networking opportunities with colleagues, customers and, eventually, potential employers. If you’re concerned that updating your profile will raise attention with managers and colleagues, be sure to turn off notifications for changes to your profile. (Settings & Privacy options)
Dates and information should be consistent between your LinkedIn profile and resume. Employers may question discrepancies.
Add experiences that you had to cut from your resume due to space. That could include volunteer or community service, certification programs, and past work experience that didn’t make the resume cut.
Consider what you can upload or link to within job descriptions. This could include sales materials, blogs, news articles, YouTube videos, or anything that demonstrates your work.
Give extra attention to your headline. This is important for keyword optimization and grabbing the reader’s attention on your profile. LinkedIn will give you a default headline of your current job title. Take the time to write a stronger headline. It allows 250 words but I recommend much shorter.
Write a summary that optimizes keyword searches and grabs attention. Show your true personality and your passion for the industry. The summary can be up to 2,000 characters and LinkedIn makes things a bit tricky. They don’t allow bold text or bullet points. Instead, you will need to copy and paste other characters into the body of the Summary in order to break up the text and make it easier to read.
Add a professional profile picture. Not stuffy, not too casual. Then find a banner image that represents your industry or you as a person. That could include a photo that you’ve captured that represents your work or you. Or, use a photo or graphic that represents your industry.
Ask for and give recommendations. Quality over quantity.
Carefully consider all of the options under the “Accomplishments” header. This includes awards, honors, organizations, patents, languages, etc. Think of how you can leverage this section to optimize your profile.
Follow companies and/or groups. Some should be related to your industry but you can also follow groups that you’re interested in beyond your industry.
