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LinkedIn may still seem relatively new to a lot of us, but it actually hit a milestone birthday this year. If you live in the UK, you could buy LinkedIn a drink. 18 years since Reid Hoffman and his team founded the platform, this site for professionals to interact and seek out new opportunities has gone from strength to strength and has become an essential social presence for today’s workforce. As it’s traffic continues to grow, it can be difficult to stand out in such a saturated marketplace. Take a look at these 9 tips to help you optimise your LinkedIn profile and excel in your field.
Polish Your Pictures
Your profile photo and header image are the first things that people notice when they visit your page. On LinkedIn, you are essentially marketing yourself as a brand, and for brands, looks matter. For your profile photo, you should be using a high-quality professional-looking headshot, about 400 x 400px. For your header image, again choose a high-quality picture that either represents you, your company, or something that you’re passionate about. The ideal size for a LinkedIn header image is 1584 x 396px.
Make Your Headline the Hook
If your photo represents a brand's look, your headline represents its slogan, which is just as important. Your headline describes you and what you have to offer to recruiters. By default, LinkedIn uses your current job title as your headline. Whilst this is convenient, it can also be limiting, especially if you’re currently unemployed or looking to change career paths.
Fortunately, the headline can be edited to better suit your needs. Use a headline that represents you and your skills, and choose terms that are often searched. For example, if you’re a graphic design student looking for a job, a good headline would be “3D Animator/Digital Artist - Looking for Entry-Level Opportunities”.
Tell Your Story with the Summary
Your summary is part of your LinkedIn bio, it expands on your headline and lists your skills and experiences. When it comes to summaries, the most important thing to keep in mind is to have one! A surprisingly large number of people leave the summary field blank, significantly reducing their visibility to recruiters.
Your summary tells your story - who you are, what you do, and why you do it. Make sure to include all of your qualifications, job experiences, and skills within the first 3 - 5 paragraphs of the summary. It should be compelling enough to have visitors and recruiters intrigued, and make them want to connect with you. Write a few drafts, proofread for grammar and spelling mistakes, and keep it as concise as possible.
Build Your Network
Your network greatly influences who sees your profile and whose profiles you see. When you perform a search on LinkedIn your network will affect the results shown. Usually, your first-degree connections are prioritised, then second, and so on. Therefore, the more connections you have, with the right people, the greater your profile’s visibility is.
Similarly, the more connections you have, the more people you can reach out to for advice, information and job listings. Grow your network by reaching out to previous employers, mentors, clients, teachers, and friends. You can also use your mailing list, blog, or website to build a wider network.
Highlight Your Experiences
Unsurprisingly, your experience is a key section on your profile. However, many people use it to list all the jobs they’ve ever had, which can be a detrimental approach. It’s better to highlight the jobs that are most relevant to your current situation. Focus on applicable workplaces and specific accomplishments, such as ‘increased the web traffic of X website within X years’. You should also take advantage of LinkedIn’s multimedia feature to highlight your portfolio, include articles and interviews, anything relevant that will make you stand out.
Flaunt Your Skills
Similar to your experience, don’t just list all of your skills, focus and tailor your list to your current situation. For example, if you’re a digital artist, Photoshop is a key skill that should be included. If you’re an accountant, it’s not so necessary. Just because you can do it, it doesn’t mean you need to.
Whether you’ve mastered a new skill or decided one isn’t relevant anymore - make sure to update your skills regularly. Have your friends and family endorse your skills as a way of verifying your prowess and credibility.
Get Endorsements
While we’ve mentioned getting your friends and family to endorse you, how do you get others to do it? The best way is to begin endorsing others. When you genuinely endorse people who you think deserve it, a lot of the time people will return the favour. Just make sure to check which endorsements you show and which you hide, as sometimes endorsements made may not accurately reflect your goals.
Ask for Recommendations
Recommendations may sound similar to endorsements, but they are different things. Endorsements provide visitors with a quick visual overview of your strongest skills. Recommendations, on the other hand, are personal testimonials of close colleagues and employers about their experience working with you. Recommendations make your profile much more attractive, especially if it’s from a known, reliable figure in your field. Ask key contacts for recommendations, and offer to write one for them too.
Customise Your URL
When you open a LinkedIn account your profile is assigned a URL. LinkedIn’s algorithm decides your URL randomly by selecting a series of letters and numbers. This can look messy to visitors and recruiters. It’s better to promote your profile with a custom URL, which is easier to read and more digestible. Ideally, you should set your URL to your name or a variation of it. This will also make it easier to find your profile through Google or another search engine.
With over 303 million active monthly users, your LinkedIn profile needs to be visible. By using these tips you can create an elegant and professional profile to stand out from the crowd, and force recruiters to take notice.
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