The job market is stirring with opportunities and challenges. Millions worldwide want the best paying jobs with the best reputation. But whoever gets the best ones, will depend on those who show their skills the best. Linkedin can sometimes help determine this.
Here are 10 tips to get the help you need to create a Linkedin profile that will help you stand out from the crowd!
How to Improve your Linkedin Profile
This is usually what people read first. Apart from seeing your picture, your headline is one of the key things a busy HR or recruiter will look at. Your space is limited to 60 characters! So this makes it one of the critical aspects of a LinkedIn profile. This space is an opportunity to attract people with a compelling headline with keywords related to your work or skills you have developed.
Create a Compelling Linkedin Profile Headline
Tailor the rest of your profile to support your headline, for example, previous projects, awards, specific work, involvement, committees, or specific work.
After five years of scanning profiles, I prefer to see headlines that also describe the problems the individual solves. For example, “HR Business Partner helping managers maximize their team’s potential.”
Lastly, make sure it’s catchy, shows personality, and is keyword rich.
Story over History
Rather than copying and pasting your resume content, use the “experience” section of your profile to tell your story. Add additional context that helps viewers understand your career progression and explain what you’ve worked on and learned along the way.
Here is an example:
It’s important to help others connect the dots and demonstrate how previous jobs and teams have helped shape you professionally. Here are some details on what you should include:
Describe what makes you different
The focus should be simply one word: Passion! Describing your passion can lead to some of the best, eye-catching summaries.
On top of that, show your page visitors what you love and how it adds value to your career. Think about what makes you feel enthusiastic in a professional sense. Assuming that you are a university student or a fresh graduate with little professional work experience, this could be a good angle to start.
Describe your present role
Put fancy titles aside and describe what you do in simple terms. Since the attention span of people on social media is only a few seconds, you need to get to the point. Share the problems you solve, for whom, and how. Demonstrate your skills, industry knowledge, and/or work style.
Emphasize your successes from the past
Cite the biggest takeaways. Your projects, your roles in them, or the significance of your involvement in a group you worked with. Look across roles and combine accomplishments if you can. Connect the dots if you’ve held seemingly unrelated roles. If your career history is very diverse, focus on explaining why it sets you apart.
Show character
Show who you are as a person. Linkedin is not just for machine-minded professionals, but real people. A story hints at traits of good human values like gratitude, humility, and humor. Be honest with yourself and your visitor.
Show life outside of work
Expose the side of you outside the office. Your identity by sharing a hobby, interest, or volunteer role should not be denied. Your personality is just as important as your skills. Try and relate your outside passions to your work. If you share a personal story, be sure it serves to reinforce your professional strengths.
Here is another catchy summary example you can get inspiration from:
Get under the Spotlight
There are millions of users on Linkedin. And probably several thousand of others looking for the same thing as you. Highlight what differentiates you!
One important suggestion we can give you is to write in the first person. You’ll sound more relatable.
This might be obvious, but many people leave their profiles bland. Make sure that your LinkedIn profile showcases your personality, your unique blend of skills, experiences, accomplishments, and education, as well as what inspires you to go above and beyond.
People gravitate toward those who convey authenticity and trust.
Shine your Experience!
Job titles and descriptions only go so far. Proven expertise and wisdom that comes from overcoming adversity are much more compelling. No wonder! One of the most mentioned questions in interviews is: “What was the most challenging moment in your career?”
This part should contain detailed descriptions of your work experience that are relevant to the position you’re applying for. There is no need to include all of those details on your LinkedIn profile.
According to Zipjob, your LinkedIn work experience entries should be general, less detailed, and not tailored for a certain position, unlike in your resumes.
At each point, your experience descriptions should start with a written summary of your achievements specific to each role. Keep it short with bullet points. This is because containing a lot more information with huge blocks of text is usually disregarded.
Use the project section to highlight a few of your career-defining projects. These examples also give recruiters a glimpse into how you think and approach problems.
What you have to do is make your reader believe that you can deliver what you say you can. Real-life examples provide credibility that helps employers vouch for you and clients to trust your abilities.
Share your Knowledge
Everyone has insights to share.
Every day we manage challenges and decisions that others can learn from. Use the “write an article” section to share your knowledge and experience with your connections.
These posts are more informal in nature and provide an opportunity to share your perspective with a broader audience.
Those with the most influence no longer hoard information — they share it.
Demonstrate what you’re like to Work – Endorsements and Recommendations
Are endorsements really as necessary as many think? Well, yes! LinkedIn automatically defaults to ranking your skills by the number of endorsements you have, but to get more endorsements for the skills you want to emphasize, rearrange your list and move those skills higher.
Here is a tip according to The Muse. Consider picking a day to give endorsements to people you know. You can scroll through your LinkedIn newsfeed and click on a couple of people you have been keeping in contact with and with some that you know better. Endorse them for a few skills that you’ve seen them perform.
While the benefits of listing skills and giving endorsements may not be immediately apparent, it’s a good idea to use them to lay the foundation for either reaching out to people you haven’t spoken with in a while or being found by relevant recruiters on LinkedIn.
Recommendations, in their traditional form, are a nice way for others to validate your expertise and skills. For me, recommendations tell me something that is way more important than skills and knowledge. Recommendations demonstrate what kind of team member you are and what it’s like to work with you on a daily basis.
Potential employers or clients are not only evaluating your skills but also what it would be like to work with you every single day. A good number of endorsements are good perks to have. However, recommendations are what helps you shine and those have to be earned through hard work and of course, requests.
If you might have had enough of your job search and decide to build your own business, we’re here to help. Join our online community of Digital Shapers or download one of these free ebooks from Times International to help you build an online business.
