Best LinkedIn Profile Tips for Job Seekers | Fusion - WeRIndia

When you’re not looking for a job, it can be easy to ignore your LinkedIn profile.

Sure, you add people you meet at networking events as contacts and accept requests as they come in, but everything else? Eh, you’ll get to it when you need to.

While we don’t recommend this approach, we get that there are times you need a total LinkedIn profile overhaul. And for those times? We’ve got you covered!

Here, we’ve compiled everything you need to know about tricking out your LinkedIn profile—from crafting a stunning summary to selling your accomplishments, projects, and skills—in one place. Read on for expert-backed ways to make your profile seriously shine—and start getting noticed by recruiters.

1. Put in the Time to Make it Awesome

Simply put, the more complete your profile, the better the odds that recruiters will find you in the first place. So, completeness is important from that standpoint.

It’s also important after a recruiter has found you and decided to click on your profile: they want to know what your skills are, where you’ve worked, and what people think of you. So, don’t get lazy—fill out every single section of your profile. The good news? LinkedIn will measure the “completeness” of your profile as you work and offer suggestions on how to make it stronger.

2. Get a Custom URL

It’s much easier to publicize your profile with a customized URL (ideally linkedin.com/yourname), rather than the clunky combination of numbers that LinkedIn automatically assigns when you sign up. How to get one? On the Edit Profile screen, at the bottom of the gray window that shows your basic information, you’ll see a Public Profile URL. Click “Edit” next to the URL, and specify what you’d like your address to be. When you’re finished, click Set Custom URL.

3. Write a Headline That Rocks

Your headline doesn’t have to be your job title and company—in fact, especially if you’re looking for jobs, it shouldn’t be. Instead, use that space to succinctly showcase your specialty, value proposition, or your “so what?” The more specific you can be about what sets you apart from the competition, the better.

4. Be Warm and Welcoming

“The summary section is your primo opportunity to showcase the good stuff about you, with your target audience in mind. Give them a little chance to get to know you. So what do you think the first impression is going to be if you craft your summary like some long, pompous speech? Or worse, craft it in the third person?

They’re going to think you’re pretentious. And it’s going to be hard for that reviewer to get a feel for your personality and style. Be you here. Keep the brand message in line with all of your other professional marketing materials, but realize that LinkedIn is a platform designed for interaction.”

5. Treat Your Profile Like Your Resume

Your resume isn’t just a list of job duties—it’s a place to highlight your best accomplishments. Same goes for your LinkedIn profile: Make sure your experience section is fleshed out with bullet points that describe what you did, how well you did it, and who it impacted.

6. Show Your Achievements

Recruiters spend countless hours scouring LinkedIn in search of the high performers. And when they find them, they contact said high performers. Knowing this, you’ll serve yourself well to market yourself as a high performer in your summary and experience section.

7. Include a Current Job Entry, Even When Unemployed

“If you’ve only listed the past positions you’ve held in the experience section but show nothing current, you’ll probably get missed in most searches. Because most recruiting professionals exclusively use the current title box to search for candidates; otherwise they’d have to sort through thousands of candidates who held a certain role as far back as 20 or more years ago.

The simple workaround, if you’re unemployed, is to create a dummy job listing in the current section that includes the job title(s) you’re targeting—‘Full-Time Student/Financial Analyst in Training’—followed by a phrase like ‘In Transition’ or ‘Seeking New Opportunity’ in the Company Name box.”

8. Add Your Work Experiences

You can do the same thing for each of your work experiences. So, use this to your advantage: Add your company websites, projects you’ve worked on or anything else that can provide a more multimedia look at your work.

9. Manage Your Endorsements

Endorsements can be a great way to show off your skills—as long as your profile isn’t overloaded with too many to really send the right message.

The secret to making them work for you is keeping your skills updated: As you transition between careers, develop new skills, or take on new responsibilities, drop outdated skills from your profile and add the ones you really want to be known for. Now, when connections land on your page, they’ll only see the most relevant skills.

10. Add Your Blog

“If you have a WordPress blog, we highly recommend feeding your blog into your LinkedIn profile. To enable this setting, Select More in the main menu bar and Select Applications. From there, choose the WordPress application and enter the link to your feed. The blog will then appear in your profile and will update each time a new post is added.”

11. Have at Least 50 Connections

Having 50 or fewer connections on LinkedIn tells recruiters one of three things: You are a recluse who knows very few people, you’re paranoid about connecting with others & Technology and social media are scary to you.

None of these are good. We’re certainly not suggesting you need to be one of those weirdos who wears your “abnormally large number of connections” like a badge of honour, but you really should have at least 50-100 people with whom you’re connected as a starting point.

12. Don’t Go Overboard

With all the bells and whistles LinkedIn has to offer, and without being limited by the 8.5×11″ confines of your resume, it can be tempting to, well and while details are good, there’s certainly a thing as too much. Step back, take a look at your profile, and see how it looks to an outside person. Is it enticing—or overwhelming? Edit accordingly.

13. Keep Your Job Search Under Wraps

Many people don’t realize that LinkedIn does have privacy settings—for a reason. When you’re out looking for a new job, and are actively engaged in your current job, you want to be discreet. A tell-tale sign to an employer that you’re leaving is that you overhaul your profile, connect with recruiters, and have an influx of new people.

You can tailor your settings so that your boss doesn’t see that you’re looking for opportunities.’ The privacy settings are easy to find: Just sign in, and then select ‘settings’ from the drop-down menu, where your name appears in the upper right-hand corner.”

14. Make Sure People Can Find You

Don’t forget to add your email address (or blog, or Twitter handle, or anywhere else you’d like to be found) to the contact information section of your resume. You’d be surprised how many people leave this off!

Make your profile more attractive by using these LinkedIn profile tips to make good connections and for job updates.

Photo by LinkedIn Sales Navigator on Unsplash (Free for commercial use)

Image Reference: https://unsplash.com/photos/UK1N66KUkMk