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How to Customize Your LinkedIn Profile – For Today’s Economy

August 7, 2024 No Comments

Sourced from Syfter

Why does your LinkedIn profile matter?

With LinkedIn constantly evolving, it is that much more important for candidates to stay ahead of the trends and grow along with it. By investing time upfront, and being strategic with your changes, you can create a strong, marketable profile that changes the game in your job search and beyond.

While the resume is still important, if you’re going to get a job, odds are it won’t be from posting your resume on a job board. You’re most likely going to get your next job one of three ways:

Friends, family, and personal network
Recruiters or a company you’re already familiar with
Recruiters that find you

There’s not much you can do to increase your chances on the first two (except reaching out to them), so let’s focus on that third one. When a recruiter finds you, they’re going to find you on LinkedIn, and they’re going to do it using the tool LinkedIn Recruiter, which uses certain criteria to populate a shortlist. Your goal is to show up on that list. Then, the recruiter will make the decision to reach out to you to ask you for your resume.

You can see why:

LinkedIn Profile > Resume

The main point here is this – your resume is not what is attracting a recruiter to you. They will only ask for your resume after they’re already interested in you based on your LinkedIn profile.

If you’re on the market for a new job (or even just curious about new opportunities), you should know that the first place any good recruiter will be looking for candidates is LinkedIn. Since this is all any recruiter is going to see to make a decision on whether to open this up and get in contact with you or not, you want to be in control of your first impression.

As an example, if you’re going to choose from the below two people for a job interview, who are you going to pick?

If you want to reach your professional goals, it’s important to own your own story, especially on LinkedIn. In order to own your own story, you need to decide what exactly that narrative looks like and build a strategy around it.

Think about an influencer who often time leverages their network to sell a product. Look at yourself as a business influencer trying to convince recruiters to buy your product…which is you.

Before you start, let’s do some research on our demographic –

After leadership has exhausted their current company’s internal promotions as well as their own personal network, they’ll put the pressure on their internal HR team or the internal/corporate recruiters to find the perfect candidate.

What do we know about these people?

As of writing this, on LinkedIn there are just over 170,000 people in the US with the title “Recruiter”.
The average total pay for a human resources employee in the US is about $44,425.
Internal recruiters typically don’t make commissions.
The average age of an HR generalist in the US is 41.
79.5% of HR workers in the US are women.

This recruiter or human resources worker is drastically different from the future boss you probably pictured earlier, if they’re a CTO whose average pay is $301,267 and 92% of which are men.

Behind the Scenes of LinkedIn Recruiting

Have you ever thought about how recruiters recruit? After years of helping some of the most talented people get hired at some of the greatest companies in the world, I’m going to give you some insight.

Recruiters use an advanced tool on LinkedIn called LinkedIn Recruiter (and let me tell you – it’s not cheap).

Think of LinkedIn Recruiter as Google on steroids. Google filters webpages for what it thinks you’ll be most interested in based on your search criteria. LinkedIn Recruiter does a custom filtered search for candidates based on the search criteria the recruiter types in. I’m going to show you what that search looks like because it’s probably not what you think. Recruiters are not looking at your full “webpage;” they’re only getting a snippet, and from that short amount of information, they’re making a decision (“Do I open that profile?”) similar to (“Do I open that website?”).

Since the recruiter is sifting through infinite profiles, and the most time they’ll spend scrolling through yours is a few seconds, you want to make sure you’re not wasting any prime real estate from your LinkedIn profile.

As a starting point, when a recruiter is searching for the perfect candidate to fill a role, this is what they see after they set up their search:

Recruiters use something called a “boolean search” to find candidates who have the exact experience they’re searching for. Think of this tool as similar to SEO or Google on steroids. Just like companies use certain words to get themselves to the top of Google Search results, I’m going to show you how to get your profile to the top of LinkedIn Recruiter results. Your goal is to curate your profile in a way that will get a boolean search to pull you in a pool of candidates for a recruiter to consider.

If you don’t show up in that search or they don’t click on you, it doesn’t matter how perfect your profile actually is – your chances of getting a call for that job you desperately want are zero. You NEED to be in that selection of potential candidates, and I’m going to show you today exactly how to do it.

Curate Your Profile for Your LinkedIn Target

If your profile is aimed at the typical recruiter and not the CTO of a company, you should be focused on legibility for your audience. Be wary of:

Highly technical details
Coding samples
Industry jargon

Although there are many recruiters who are experts in technology, it is important to remember that not all of them are technical or experts in the industry of their employer. Most HR reps and internal/corporate recruiters are generalists. You do not want to alienate recruiters who don’t understand the technical details of your work. Your technical skills will be evaluated by the hiring manager after a recruiter has contacted you for an initial interview. Remember, you are viewing yourself as a business influencer trying to convince recruiters to buy your product…which is you. The goal here is just to get the initial interview, and creating a LinkedIn profile that is specific but uncomplicated by details is what will help you reach that goal.

This is true especially when you consider that there is a limit to how many people recruiters will contact on LinkedIn Recruiter. So you know – you can send as many messages to your LinkedIn connections as you want to, but to send messages to people you aren’t connected to, you have to send what LinkedIn calls “InMails.” Recruiters do not get unlimited InMails – LinkedIn Recruiter has a certain amount of InMails that recruiters get to send each month, and adding more can get VERY expensive VERY quickly. Recruiters aren’t going to use one of their precious InMails on you unless they’re really sure that you’re worth it, so your LinkedIn profile can’t just be okay. It needs to leave no doubt in a recruiter’s mind that you are THE person that can fill their role the best.

Where should I start?

The first thing you’ll want to do is identify the job that you want – both the title and the general job responsibilities. Then, you want to go and find two or three job descriptions of jobs that meet that criteria. Find what these job descriptions have in common with each other, and if it’s true to you, you need to feature it on your profile. You’re going to use these as guidelines for what you need to get across to any recruiter looking at your profile. Think of it as doing the maze backward from end to beginning.

Notice what pops up in each of the job descriptions, and make sure it makes an appearance in your LinkedIn profile. As an example, these might be things you find in common on job descriptions that you want to make sure show up on your LinkedIn profile as keywords:

A focus on diversity and inclusion
Building a team from scratch
Global experience
Relevant certifications or trainings

When you write a paper on a thesis, every point that you make is supposed to work in favor of proving the point, or thesis, that you’re trying to make. You should fill out your LinkedIn profile the same way. Everything that anyone reads about you on your profile should point back to the fact that you are suited to exactly the role or persona that you want to achieve.

It can be hard to narrow down all of your goals and aspirations to only a few job descriptions. Keep in mind that this is just a starting point. These aren’t permanent – you can change them as time passes or as your goals change.Remember that LinkedIn is a social media page – it doesn’t have to be an exact replica of your resume.

It’s very likely that the new keywords on your profile will be some of the keywords the recruiter will use to begin their search.

Get creative with where you choose to highlight these skills. If you’re mentioning technologies in your About section, there’s no harm in also listing them in your skills section. In fact, LinkedIn Recruiter (which I’ll tell you more about) has a special feature where it will alert the recruiter if a candidate has multiple skills in common with the role that they’re currently recruiting for. Anything you can do to set yourself apart can only help you, so make sure you’re thorough and curate every section of your LinkedIn profile.

Career Trajectory

Creating a story that will emphasize where you’re going in your career is dependent on how you detail your work experience. Looking at your previous titles and companies on your LinkedIn profile, what sort of story do you see?

Everything on my profile is filled out yet minimal so the emphasis is on the progression of my actual career. I’ve moved up seamlessly from an individual contributor to the CEO. My activity, endorsements, recommendations, and interests all support my story with related content.

Whatever your career has been, your experience should show a succinct story. Small changes like re-wording your title, or adding a small description of your work can point to why you made the moves you’ve made and how they’ve enhanced your career.

If there is something that you don’t like as much, such as a gap in employment, don’t think you can fool anyone by cutting it out of your history. If there is anything left unsaid about a gap – or anything that may be negative – recruiters will assume the worst. Instead, be open and address the issue- you want to get ahead of it, and people appreciate honesty. There are certain points in time when people will almost expect to see a gap. If you lost your job in March 2020, were laid off in 2022, or took off some time to care for a sick family member, nobody is going to hold that against you. Just be as honest as you can be and you’ll find people are more understanding than you expect. Recruiters and tech professionals are human beings too!

How do recruiters find you on LinkedIn?

This is How Recruiters Recruit

All the best recruiters use LinkedIn Recruiter to identify LinkedIn profiles that have their ideal search criteria. Within seconds, they can cut a list of millions of LinkedIn profiles down to a few hundred potential candidates. Just for context, there’s over fourteen million profiles just in the Greater New York City Area. This means that no matter how good your profile looks, if you don’t show up in these searches, recruiters won’t be able to find you.

How LinkedIn Recruiter Works

The program searches with boolean filters that apply an exact keyword search to the different sections of a LinkedIn profile. There are dozens of search criteria that recruiters can choose from when narrowing down their search.

This is what it looks like.

To build a good candidate pool, recruiters look at certain qualifications or criteria. Most of them focus first on the following:

Job Functions
Location (postal/zip code)
Tags related to the job

If the information in these specific sections of your LinkedIn profile are out of date or have information that isn’t geared towards your current job search, you won’t even make the first cut.

Can my coworkers see if I’m open to work?

In short, yes – at least on your regular LinkedIn profile. If you put an “Open to Work” green frame on your profile picture and highlight it on your profile, anyone who looks at your LinkedIn profile can see that you’re seeking a new role.

However – on LinkedIn Recruiter, ONLY people outside your company can see in search results that you’re open to work. It’s a slight distinction, but an important one.

If you’re unsure of whether or not to say you’re open to work, it’s better to leave it off. There’s no risk of someone seeing it who isn’t supposed to, whether that’s a current coworker or even a recruiter who is good friends with someone at your company that might happen to mention it.

Plus, they say that people always want what they can’t have, and allowing a recruiter to think they’ll have to fight harder to get you to leave your current role for a new job may end up helping you get exactly what you want out of a new opportunity.

Location on LinkedIn

If you’re seeking a fully remote or hybrid role, your location on LinkedIn doesn’t have exactly the same impact as it would if you were fully on-site. While you should still make sure your location is accurate, it’s very likely that recruiters recruiting on remote roles will be searching for candidates in the “United States” as opposed to just “Dallas, Texas.”

That being said, there is always the chance that you could be looking for a hybrid role that gives you some office face-time. If that’s the case, you want to make sure that your location on LinkedIn is the location where you want to work, even if it’s not the same as where you’re living.

If you’re within commuting distance to a larger city, you should set your location to a wider range. For example, instead of using “Secaucus, New Jersey,” you can set your location to “Greater New York City Area.” This means you’ll now show up in any searches taking place in the wider metropolitan area, which gives you a much better shot of being contacted for an interview.

If you’re looking to relocate, one of the simplest mistakes you can make is not updating your location to where you want to relocate to. You will not appear on a recruiter’s list unless your LinkedIn location is within the boundary they’re looking in, so be sure to keep your location current.

How to Make LinkedIn Recruiter Work for YOU

As you’ve already seen, LinkedIn Recruiter looks very different from the regular version of LinkedIn we use day to day. A recruiter scrolling through LinkedIn Recruiter has certain information highlighted to them. It’s not very much, and they’re not taking a very long look, so you need to make sure these things are optimized to the fullest.

Typically, when your profile comes up on LinkedIn Recruiter, the recruiter will see

Headshot
Full name
About section
Profile headline
Work experience
Education
Location
Industry
Spotlights
Highlights

Some of these are self-explanatory, but some of these are exclusive ONLY to LinkedIn Recruiter.

About Section on LinkedIn Recruiter

I’ve already pointed out the importance of a solid About section on your LinkedIn profile, but LinkedIn Recruiter makes it even more important to make this portion of your profile strong from start to finish. LinkedIn Recruiter will show the first couple of lines of this section – but only the first couple of lines. If you want a recruiter to be wowed by what you’ve written, it’s important to start off strong with something punchy and attention-grabbing. Be careful not to confuse “attention grabbing” for “clickbait.” You want a recruiter to be intrigued by how clever and experienced you are, not roll their eyes and scroll past because you’re trying too hard.

Experience and Highlights on LinkedIn Recruiter

LinkedIn Recruiter will highlight the last few roles that you’ve had, so you want to ensure that these give a strong introduction to the story you’re trying to tell. If there was ever a time to tweak titles and line up date ranges perfectly, this would be it.

The concept of Highlights goes alongside your Experience section. Let’s say a recruiter is searching for a project manager. You’re someone who has been in the workforce for the last ten years working adjacent to project management, but you’ve only gained a project manager title and experience in the last four years. Well, LinkedIn Recruiter knows that, and it’s going to leave a highlight at the top of your experience that reads “4 years of project management experience.”

Now, the only thing worse than a LinkedIn profile that hasn’t been optimized is a LinkedIn profile where someone is outright lying. However, if you know that you’ve been doing the job, but you just haven’t had the right title for LinkedIn Recruiter to register it as a keyword, this is the time when you want to use keywords to your advantage and make some edits to ensure that LinkedIn Recruiter highlights the full extent of your experience for the recruiter looking at your profile.

Skills Match, Interest, and Activity on LinkedIn Recruiter

Similar to the Highlights, LinkedIn Recruiter provides tips for the recruiter doing the search, sometimes based on what the system has learned they’re searching for. Sometimes, it’s as simple as pointing out to the recruiter that you’ve set your profile to “open to work.”

The Skills Match feature tells a recruiter if a candidate has similar skills to other candidates that were saved for this role. In our example above, you can see our recruiter is interested in skills like “LinkedIn,” “Hiring,” and “Recruiting.”

The Interest feature highlights things about a candidate’s profile that may make them a candidate of interest for a search based on common interests or how the candidate’s and recruiter’s networks overlap. Take a look at the example above, and you’ll notice

Whether they’re a follower of the recruiter’s company
If they’re closer in the recruiter’s network
How many mutual connections the candidate and the recruiter have

Lastly, Activity lets a recruiter know what kind of activity this candidate has related to this job. If they’ve already been saved to a different project, or if they appear in the recruiter’s database already, LinkedIn Recruiter will let the recruiter know that.

These are all things that can help give you a boost up. These are entirely reliant on LinkedIn Recruiter, but by optimizing your profile, you can ensure your best chance at getting some extra notice from a recruiter looking for the perfect candidate.

Why haven’t you reached your career goals? Check your keywords.

Optimize Your LinkedIn Profile With Keywords

LinkedIn Recruiter is able to look through every profile on LinkedIn that matches the keywords recruiters use in their search criteria. Keywords are the most important terms related to your career experience such as:

Technologies you use
Words that express your skill level (manager, leader)
Qualifications / Certifications

The keywords you use in your profile tell a story to the recruiters about who you are, what you do, and what jobs you may be interested in. Recruiters don’t care about your exact internal title or the exact timeframe you worked at a job – they care about what you did at the company you worked for and what skills you have.

Having a LinkedIn profile that is optimized for the wrong keywords is lethal to your job search. However, if you use keywords effectively, especially within your headline, summary and work experience, you will put yourself in the right recruiter’s search and boost your LinkedIn profile to the top of their lists.

Using Keywords to Set Your Profile Apart

The trick to writing a really good profile is to have the most information about the roles on the top and the least information about the roles on the bottom. You want to give the best insights into your current and most recent roles. You might not even need to put your oldest roles on your LinkedIn profile – if you were waiting tables in college, that doesn’t need to be listed in your experience.

If you’re seeing paragraphs about jobs you had ten years ago or bullet points about skills you used in your very first part time job, your profile is not going to stand out to a recruiter. If they can’t get what they need to know within a few moments of skimming your profile, they will move on.

Decide on the keywords you want to use to market yourself. Anything that is not related to these keywords can be taken out. Remember: You are a business influencer trying to convince recruiters to buy your product…which is you. Using this mindset, write a short headline and summary that utilize your keywords. If absolutely necessary, you can add a quick sentence or two to your specific jobs within your work experience.

Choosing Keywords

Think about the technologies or skills that you use the most within your current position.

What words associated with your current skills, projects, and job experiences will get you on the list of a recruiter for your dream job?

Go back to those job descriptions you pulled at the beginning. What skills and experience do you already have that you know recruiters will be seeking, and how can you use keywords to sum it all up? If you’re missing exact technologies or experiences, what transferable skills do you have that would align, and how can you best translate that into something a recruiter would be searching for?

Clean Up Your Profile

The details of your profile will make a huge difference in overall appearance and completeness. LinkedIn users are seeing hundreds of profiles, which may get narrowed down to just a few that could be considered identical in skill-set and experience. If one profile is complete, neat, professional, and has a good profile image, while the other is incomplete and messy, the person with the better looking profile will get the best opportunity.

Every opportunity for an image or icon should be used; every company should have a logo, and your profile header should remain professional. It should go without saying, but spell check your profile- you don’t want to ruin what could be a fantastic professional collaboration with a simple spelling mistake.

Preparing yourself to take a risk professionally can often be a stressful endeavor. You’re worried about many things: a history of job hopping, a previous company’s reputation, gaps in employment, finding the right person to work alongside you, but I’m here to tell you that those worries don’t matter. What does matter is how you use the story of your career to get exactly what you’re looking for in your career.

When you’re gearing your profile towards your job search, it’s also useful to consider what skillsets or experiences recruiters want to see in their dream candidate. If you can identify the keywords associated with the next job you want, and they are true to your work experience, they will be the most impactful keywords and ones you should definitely use.

Your LinkedIn Profile Section Checklist

Whether you’re searching for a new role or looking to fill one yourself (or maybe you’re somewhere in the middle), there are some key changes you can make to your LinkedIn profile that will work no matter what your situation is.

When deciding how to update your profile, I find it’s easiest to start from the bottom and work your way up.

1. Interests

This section isn’t necessarily the most important. It can give your audience some insight into your character or what you enjoy, but it’s not a make-or-break.

2. Recommendations

You should have at least a couple of these. If you’re too embarrassed to ask, keep in mind that people don’t know your personal relationship to the people who recommend you. Maybe you have a friend who has a good title at a good company and wouldn’t mind writing one for you. At the end of the day, it’s not a huge deal, but it’s definitely nice to have.

3. Skills

Not everyone is going to look at this section, but it can be nice to have something here. It’s not hard to get people to endorse you, especially friends and colleagues. I would have a maximum of ten skills listed. If you have too many, instead of looking well-rounded, you’ll look like you’re trying too hard, and it will look sloppy.

If you’re someone who is looking for a new job, passively or actively, this section is going to be a hidden key for you. When recruiters are using LinkedIn Recruiter to search for candidates LinkedIn will point out to them which potential candidates have certain skills in common that might make them a good fit for whatever job they’re recruiting on. You’ll want to pay attention and be intentional about what you choose to list in this section.

4. Education

High Schools/Prep Schools- First off, there’s no need to put your high school or preparatory school on your LinkedIn profile. If it is extremely prestigious, then maybe you can make a case for it, but for the most part, if you’ve been out of college, there’s no need to have any education beforehand.

College & University- This section has the most controversy when it comes to opinions, which usually has to do with indecision about putting the dates or not.

Just so you know, the recruiter will think one of these four reasons are why you wouldn’t have the dates:

Hide your age
Didn’t graduate
Something to hide
Forgot

Keep in mind, people will always assume the worst, so my advice is to be honest and get ahead of whatever the problem is. In addition, make sure all of your schools have logos – that is a common mistake. Without them, it won’t look official. Most, if not all, colleges and universities should have logos for LinkedIn.

5. Certifications

If they’re relevant to the field you’re in or the field you’re looking to get into, list them. If not, don’t. If you’re going to list them, make sure they’re not expired.

6. Awards and Accomplishments

This is an “all or nothing” section. You should either put them all or put none of them.

7. Experience

This is where you need to ask yourself, “What is the story I’m trying to tell, and what is the goal I’m hoping to accomplish?” Ideally, no matter what your goals are, you want to show a progression throughout your career. This is the meat of your profile. Have you moved up in various leadership roles? Maybe you’ve managed global teams. What are you trying to show the world?

While everyone has a different story they’re trying to tell, there are some common things you want to ensure you have correct.

Current Title: Your title on LinkedIn does not have to match the one given to you by your manager. LinkedIn is your professional social media page, not your resume. You need to keep in mind the following things:

Write your title the way it would be most commonly written.
Don’t use abbreviations – if you write “Sr” instead of “Senior,” LinkedIn doesn’t always recognize it as a keyword.
Accurately reflect the work that you do.
If possible, keep in mind the job that you want.
The internal title might not mean anything to the outside world. For example, “Programmer II” doesn’t indicate anything.

Often, people get hung up on what their title is within their company. However, it is essential to note that titles that are important internally may not have the same recognition outside of your company. For this reason, it is best to simplify or generalize your title on LinkedIn in order to get the attention of the audience you want.

Your title within your company might be “Python React Developer”, but if you have experience with other languages and want to market your wider skill set, “Backend Engineer” would be a broader title to get you noticed more.

8. Activity

You want to make sure that what you’re interacting with is relevant. LinkedIn isn’t like Facebook or Twitter. What you post on LinkedIn should be something you’d be comfortable with your boss or the CEO of your company seeing. Are you commenting on viral Internet trends or are you responding to a thought-provoking post about the latest developments in technology?

Articles: These fall under the activity section and are a great way to put out knowledge and build up your credibility in your field. They can be long or short, and you can write them about anything, but on that note, make sure what you’re saying is relevant. Don’t be overwhelmed at the idea of publishing something. Your first article can be short- just put something out into the world and see what kind of reaction you get.

9. Featured

This section allows you to pin any customized activity that you want to feature. This is one of the first things people will see on your profile, so if you’ve accomplished something major or if your company has big news, you want to make sure to pin it here.

10. About

This is your elevator pitch. This is the nitty-gritty of exactly what you want everyone to know about you. You want to imagine the recruiter is reading this, so go back to your three job descriptions you chose in the beginning. This should be carefully crafted to showcase your best professional self. You want the recruiter to read this section and feel that you’re a perfect fit for the job they’re working on. Mention some of your great characteristics, projects you’re working on, or current responsibilities. Be careful – don’t make this too long or no one will bother to read it. It’s called an elevator pitch for a reason.

11. Headline

This is what’s written right underneath your name and can be customized. This is the first thing people will see when they look you up. This is prime real estate, as an example, you will most likely make a judgment on a person by the kind of car that they drive. Think about the different personalities that drive an SUV, a sports car, or a motorcycle. Now, imagine if that vehicle has a bumper sticker or a vanity plate. It helps you learn more about them. Your LinkedIn headline can be used for the same purpose – to tell someone a little bit more about you, more than just what your job title is or where you work. Remember that they will already learn your job title and where you work when they look at your Experience section on your profile.

12. Contact Information

If you’re going to put anything here (which you don’t have to), make sure it’s the correct information. There’s nothing worse than realizing all your career-related emails have been going to your hotmail account you haven’t touched in the last decade. Or even worse – to your old work email.

13. Social Media

To keep your LinkedIn profile professional, it is imperative you do not share any social media links that aren’t also professional. If you’re a tech professional tweeting about the latest in AI, by all means, set up that link. If you’re live-tweeting pictures of your kids at a soccer game, LinkedIn is not the place to showcase that.

14. Headshot

You need to have a photo of yourself on LinkedIn. It’s non-negotiable. If people are looking for you on LinkedIn, having no photo will instantly make you less credible than you would’ve been otherwise. It doesn’t have to be a professionally taken headshot, either. You can have it taken on an iPhone. Really the only thing you don’t want to do is crop yourself out of a group photo from an event. This looks sloppy, and your career shouldn’t scream ‘sloppy.’ After all, would you wear a wrinkled shirt to work? One more tip: SMILE! People don’t want to reach out to someone who looks angry.

15. Header Image

This is something that will make you look a lot more put-together. Yes, LinkedIn gives you that generic blue header, but updating it will make you stand out. See what other people in your company have used for their backgrounds, or pick something that represents your personal brand. When in doubt, you want to look at people who have accomplished what you’re currently trying to do. Mimic what they’ve done, because clearly, it’s working.

Who’s Controlling Your LinkedIn Story?

If you want your profile to connect with the right people, you need to think about who your audience is on LinkedIn. A common misconception is that your audience for your LinkedIn profile is your next boss – it’s not. It’s a recruiter using LinkedIn Recruiter.You don’t need LinkedIn to impress your future boss – you need to use your LinkedIn to get the job first before you have any hope of even getting in the same room with the people you’re hoping to impress. Knowing your audience is key.

Typically, when a position opens up within a company, the people running the show are not the ones who are going to be seeking their ideal candidates from the gate. The people in charge of the hiring process are most likely to be someone in Human Resources, an internal recruiter, or a corporate recruiter. They’ll be the ones choosing whom to reach out to, and the odds are that it’s going to be based on a LinkedIn profile. Yours needs to stand out.

At the time I’m writing this article, the national unemployment rate is at 4.1%. The unemployment rate for the technology industry is around 3.7%. Although the news might be filled with stories about layoffs and hiring freezes, the numbers tell us that hiring is still happening. Opportunities are still out there. Companies are still (and always will be) competing with each other to get the best talent on their team. This is great news for you if you’re looking to take the next step in your career, but you still need to be smart about how you represent yourself.

LinkedIn has become the go-to recruiting tool for all recruiters. To impress a recruiter who is going through hundreds of profiles a day, yours must be maintained and kept up to date. This should not take hours and hours of work, but you should definitely give it some thought.

Put Your New Profile to Work

Waiting for a recruiter to reach out to you isn’t the only way that you can leverage LinkedIn. There are typically three types of people in your LinkedIn network.

People you know very well
People you know casually
People you can’t quite remember how you know them

If you’re looking for work, take it upon yourself to be the one reaching out. Send a message that says something like this:

“Hey, NAME, it’s been awhile since we last connected. I would love to chat with you and pick your brain on something.”

If they know and remember you, they’ll likely say yes. If they can’t quite remember you, but are just a nice person, they’ll still probably say yes also.

The best people to reach out to (or the lowest hanging fruit at least) will be people in hiring positions, recruiters, human resources workers, or heads of human resources. Someone you might not consider – but should – is someone who is currently in a similar job to the one you have or the one you want. Let me explain –

If a recruiter reaches out to them with a job that would be a good fit for them, there’s a chance that it could be a good fit for you too. If they’re not on the market or not interested in the opportunity, ask them to refer you to the recruiter as someone who could be a fit and would be interested.

This is an easy way to harness the power of LinkedIn for good and build a strong network. You can even offer to do the same for them or others if the opportunity arises!

To Sum It Up

I’ve explained to you a bit about how to identify your professional goals, how to structure your LinkedIn profile, how recruiters find profiles on LinkedIn, and how you can best enable yourself to take the next big step in your career. However, all of the components I’ve written about can’t help you unless you can bring them together to curate your professional story.

Your professional story is the history of your career along with your professional personality that you have cultivated. Other professionals rely on how you sell yourself on your LinkedIn profile to decide if you will be a good fit for what they’re seeking for themselves.

After you’ve finished cleaning up your profile and creating your story, take a step back and look at your profile on desktop and on mobile. See if it looks professional and is telling the story you want it to tell. Ask a colleague, friend, or a professional to tell you what story they see. Keep these notes in mind whenever you update your profile or have a new goal in mind.

Remember, it’s your career. You’re the only one who can reach your goals, and you’re the only one who can tell your story the way you want it told. Take what you’ve read and apply it to your LinkedIn profile. Once you notice the difference it makes for you, pass along the knowledge and help someone else out. You never know who you could connect with and what you may be able to accomplish!

Sourced from Syfter

In News

A look under the hood of LinkedIn’s many new AI tools

July 31, 2024 No Comments

By Patrick Kulp

There are a lot more AI entities attempting to join your professional network on LinkedIn these days.

From conversational tools for recruiters to newly announced AI-augmented learning features, the Microsoft-owned jobs platform is taking full advantage of its parent company’s AI resources. This week, LinkedIn said it will make its various AI tools generally available to its Premium subscribers.

The rollout comes at a time when it seems like one can’t navigate any online platform without stumbling upon an AI feature freshly jammed into it. Big Tech companies like Meta, Amazon, and Microsoft are all attempting to suss out where the latest wave of generative AI might best play a role in user experience.

But LinkedIn VP of Engineering Prashanthi Padmanabhan told us she sees this latest wave of generative models as an extension of AI that has already governed the updates feed, personalized guidance, and other parts of LinkedIn’s platform in the background for years.

Perhaps more so than other social platforms, LinkedIn users tend to have clearly defined roles—job seeker, recruiter, marketer—and goals for their usage. Padmanabhan said LinkedIn is looking to add generative AI strategically in places that help save time on achieving those objectives, often through written communication or profile enhancement. “Those are the places where I think this technology is becoming very, very handy for us,” she said.

Secret agents: To manage the many hats that LinkedIn’s AI wears, the company has developed a system of behind-the-scenes agents, or generative AI tools, that can perform tasks beyond simple chatbots. It taps a system called retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) to evaluate a user query and route it to one of these agents, which include models dedicated to “job assessment,” “company understanding,” and “takeaways for posts.”

Padmanabhan said the agents-based system and the RAG pipeline can help to add context to, say, a draft message from a recruiter to a job seeker by pulling information from each of their profiles and skills.

“We want to make sure that this agent that is acting behind the scenes, which is essentially a model, it takes this information that is contextual to this job seeker and this recruiter, and it’s actually making sure that this message it’s going to produce as a draft message for you is personalized for that interaction,” Padmanabhan said.

Tweak tally: Once LinkedIn has served up a draft message, Padmanabhan said the platform encourages users to review and edit it. The company then measures a stat called “edit distance,” which collects data around how much the user tweaks the message from the AI-produced draft before they send it off. Padmanabhan said this information is used to tune the system.

“In the generative AI space, you can sort of get that first 80% right very quickly. It’s that last 20%, it’s the last mile that actually takes a lot of iteration,” she said. “Using a combination of both human reviews and member feedback is what’s guard railing this experience.”

Anyone who’s recently had a search engine advise them to add glue to their pizza knows how wonky generative AI responses can be without appropriate guardrails. That review process will be especially important as LinkedIn begins pushing AI into its LinkedIn Learning offering as of this week with help from some of the course instructors on the platform, who can now earn royalties based on usage.

“The more this technology becomes powerful, and it gets better in how to control hallucinations and how to improve accuracy of response, it’s just going to open up a lot of avenues for us,” Padmanabhan said.

Feature Image Credit: Francis Scialabba

By Patrick Kulp

Sourced from Tech Brew

In News

31 Actionable Tips For Promoting Your Business On LinkedIn

July 25, 2024 No Comments

By Kandia Johnson

Whether you’re looking to establish yourself as a thought leader, recruit staff, or connect with key influencers, LinkedIn is a powerful branding tool for businesses.

Whether you’re looking to establish yourself as a thought leader, recruit staff, or connect with key influencers, LinkedIn is a powerful branding tool for businesses. And with more than 800 million members globally, there’s an incredible opportunity to expand your company’s reach.

TO MAXIMIZE ON LINKEDIN, CHECK OUT THE BUSINESS TIPS BELOW:

WeKinFolk, social media, LINKEDIN — via istock

Before a presentation, update your LinkedIn profile; attendees will review it to assess your credibility.
Transform a generic link to your website into a call to action, especially on company profiles.
Create entries for every role you have performed within each job title. It’s OK to have overlapping dates.
Share high-quality information with your network to create connections that become alliances.
The ideal length for LinkedIn long-form posts is 500 to 1,200 words. Tailor the length for your audience.
Skip the “How do you know this person” step. Click “Connect from search results instead of profiles.
Want another user or company to see your LinkedIn status updates? Use @mentions when you post.
Don’t be a wallflower. Your profile is 5x more likely to be viewed if you join and are active in groups.
When introducing yourself, don’t be self-centered. Be generous, genuine, and focus on the other person.
Looking for a new job on LinkedIn? Don’t let your boss know; turn off your activity broadcasts.
LinkedIn users who update their profiles regularly get more job offers than peers who contact recruiters.

follow up, email, contact, birthdays, small stuff, LinkedIn, message, conversation point — (Photo: Katleho Seisa/Getty Images)

Censor yourself. If you wouldn’t say it in a job interview, don’t say it in a LinkedIn group or post.
Schedule time to be active on LinkedIn. Review your profile, monitor updates, and participate in discussions.
Evernote and LinkedIn integrate and can organize business cards, LinkedIn info, and networking notes in one place.
Use your LinkedIn profile as a sales tool. Add a short video about your company to your profile.
Add value to LinkedIn groups: share visual presentations that will interest group members.
Profiles with pictures are 14x more likely to be viewed. Use a professional image with a neutral background.
Avoid profile buzzwords, such as creative and motivated. Minimize adjectives. Emphasize verbs.
Don’t use the automated invitation message: “I’d like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn.”
LinkedIn has found that 20 posts per month can help you reach 60% of your unique audience.
The best times to post on LinkedIn are Tuesdays and Thursdays, between 7 a.m. and 9 a.m. local time.
Company updates with images have a 98% higher comment rate than updates without images.

social media, employees, office, guidelines, policies, — (Photo: PeopleImages/Getty Images)

You are unique. Prove it. Use a creative headline instead of defaulting to your current job title.
Help recruiters, prospects, and potential partners find you; use keywords throughout your LinkedIn profile.
Successful LinkedIn content often provides ready-to-use takeaways in a list format.
Endorse people you respect. Send a thank-you message when someone endorses you.
List volunteer experience on LinkedIn; 42% of hiring managers value it as much as formal job experience.
LinkedIn groups provide one of the best personal branding opportunities you have with social media.
Are you struggling to fill a role in your company? Instead of hiring a recruiter, consider joining LinkedIn’s Recruiter service.
Share original content; “content is now viewed six times more than jobs-related activity on LinkedIn.”
Use visuals; embed SlideShare presentations and infographics into your profile and long-form posts.

Feature Image Credit: Getty

By Kandia Johnson

Sourced from Black Enterprise

In News

What LinkedIn engineers learned while building in generative AI

July 23, 2024 No Comments

By Lindsey Wilkinson

The social media company’s engineers wanted the technology to improve experiences and engagement. But the final product required more tweaking than previously thought.

Around seven months ago, LinkedIn engineers set out to improve user experience and engagement by embedding generative AI capabilities into its platform.

The efforts resulted in a new AI-powered premium subscription offering, which required energy and time to adjust to internal standards and best practices.

“You can build something that looks and feels very useful, that maybe once every five times completely messes up… and that’s fine for a lot of use cases, [but] that was not fine for us,” Juan Bottaro, principal staff software engineer at LinkedIn, told CIO Dive.

Users can turn to the platform to get assistance with effective writing, information gathering and skills assessments. The interface offers job seekers tailored profile suggestions and users can access key takeaways from posts.

Like other enterprises, LinkedIn wanted its AI-generated responses to be factual, yet empathetic.

If a user wants to know whether a job posting in biology is a good fit with their professional profile, despite having no experience, the social media company wanted its AI assistant to suggest LinkedIn Learning courses in addition to saying the role wasn’t a fit — rather than a blunt response.

Enhancing the user experience is a common goal for using generative AI. But just adding technology for the sake of novelty can have consequences.

If solutions are interacting with customers, the stakes can be even higher.

Despite running into a few unanticipated roadblocks, LinkedIn engineers continued to iterate on the product, mitigating risks along the way.

“Don’t expect that you’re going to hit a home run at the first try,” Bottaro said. “But you do get to build that muscle very quickly, and, fortunately, it’s a technology that gives you a very quick feedback loop.”

Crafting quality experiences can be time-consuming

LinkedIn engineers spent an unexpected amount of time tweaking the experience. Bottaro said the majority of the team’s efforts were focused on fine-tuning, rather than on the actual development stages.

“Technology and product development requires a lot of work,” said Bottaro, who has spent more than a decade at the social media company for professionals, owned by Microsoft. “The evaluation criteria and guidelines grew and grew because it’s very hard to codify.”

The team achieved around 80% of its experience target, then spent four additional months refining, tweaking and improving the system.

“The initial pace created a false sense of ‘almost there,’ which became discouraging as the rate of improvement slowed significantly for each subsequent 1% gain,” Bottaro explained in a co-authored report with LinkedIn Distinguished Engineer Karthik Ramgopal.

Evaluation frameworks are critical

In one of the company’s first prototypes, the chatbot would tell users they were a bad fit for a job without any sort of helpful information.

“That is not a good response, even if it’s correct,” Bottaro said. “That’s why when you’re developing the criteria and guidelines, it’s hand in hand with product development. “

Curating the evaluation criteria is specific to the business. Bottaro compared the process to different teachers grading a paper rather than a multiple choice exam.

“We have a very, very high bar,” Bottaro said. “These topics of quality and evaluation [have] become so much more prominent than in other instances.”

Feature Image Credit: Justin Sullivan via Getty Images

By Lindsey Wilkinson

Sourced from CIO DIVE

In News

‘This is how you should do it’: Ex-LinkedIn worker exposes the secret way you can find real jobs after companies keep posting fake listings

July 17, 2024 No Comments

By Vladimir Supica

‘Didn’t even know you could do that.’

A TikToker shared some insider tips on how to navigate LinkedIn’s job board.

TikTok user Giovanna (@giovanna.ventola) posted her findings on April 5 in a video that has already garnered over 1.5 million views.

She started the video off by sharing some “gossip” from her Slack community call that involved an ex-LinkedIn employee. “There are a lot of ‘not real’ jobs that are posted on LinkedIn because a lot of companies are using the job board as a marketing tool to drive traffic to their website,” she said.

To avoid these fake listings, Giovanna shared the ex-employee’s advice. “So you want to make sure that a job posting is verified. Didn’t even know you could do that,” she said.

The TikToker also revealed a secret way to search for job listings on LinkedIn. She said that many companies circumvent paying for job listings by having their employees post about job openings. To find these posts, Giovanna suggested using a specific search query which she wrote out in an on-screen caption, “I’m hiring” AND “Customer Service Manager.”

Giovanna pointed out that you can also search for multiple job titles at the same time if you use the same format but add “OR” between different job titles.

Lastly, the video touched upon another concerning aspect of most social media platforms—oversharing and privacy. “When you like or comment on someone else’s post it shares that to everyone in your network, so everyone can creep on what you’re doing,” the TikToker warned her viewers.

In the comments section, viewers shared their own tips and tricks for navigating LinkedIn’s job market.

One of them wrote, “I’ve also noticed a ton of companies will post jobs as ‘remote’ when they’re not just to get more traction.”

“Also go with #hiring. found a lot of jobs that way,” a second said.

“If a company doesn’t even want to pay to POST a job good luck on negotiating your pay,” a third commenter remarked.

“This is why I always go directly to the company website too.. I feel like there’s so much spam specially on LinkedIn,” another added.

The Daily Dot has reached out to Giovanna via Instagram direct messages and to LinkedIn via their press email.

By Vladimir Supica

Sourced from daily dot

In News

LinkedIn Tells People if You Look at Their Profile. Here’s How to Turn That Off

July 15, 2024 No Comments

Sourced from WIRED

LinkedIn shares your activity on the platform by default. Change this setting and you can snoop on other people’s profiles without them knowing.

LINKEDIN MAY OR may not be the perfect Twitter replacement, but one thing is for sure: It’s a profoundly weird place. Staying active on the platform is basically required for today’s knowledge workers to find employment, which is odd. Also, it’s a place where a lot of people spend time pretending recruiters and hiring managers are fun, interesting people by reacting and replying to their posts. Then there are the LinkedIn influencers, all of whom sounded like ChatGPT long before ChatGPT was a thing.

But perhaps the oddest thing about LinkedIn is how transparent it is about its surveillance features. Where other social networks try to obfuscate how much they are tracking your activity, LinkedIn, at every step, invites you to participate in the gathering of users’ behaviour data. This is a social network that sends you regular notifications regarding who looked at your profile.

By default, every time you look at someone’s LinkedIn profile while you’re logged in, they get notified that you looked at it. I can understand why a job seeker might want this information—you might want to follow up if a potential employer is sizing you up—but I can also understand why it would drive job seekers absolutely insane to know. What are you supposed to do, email someone and say, “I noticed you looked at my LinkedIn profile. Did you like what you saw?” (The mere thought of doing this literally just killed me. You are reading the words of an actual ghost.)

Think about how weird it would be if, every time you scrolled through someone’s Instagram grid looking at their old photos, they got a notification telling them you’d done it. On LinkedIn, the people who pay for a subscription get more complete access to data on who’s peeking; most people can only see a couple of their recent viewers, but paid users get a full list of everyone who has looked at their profile in the past year.

I find this level of radical transparency a little disturbing. The good news is you can turn this notification feature off—it’s just a little bit hidden. Here’s how to find it.

Change Your LinkedIn Viewing Options

Head to LinkedIn. Click on your profile picture in the top-right corner of the browser window and then click Settings and Privacy. (In the LinkedIn mobile app, your profile photo appears in the upper left; click on it to access Settings and follow these same instructions below.)

In the left sidebar click Visibility and then click Profile viewing options.

From here you can select from three options: “Your name and headline,” “Private profile characteristics,” and “Private mode.”

The default choice, “Your name and identity,” informs everyone whose profile page you visit that you’ve done so, showing them your photo and job description with a link to your profile page. They will then click the link, sending you a notification that they did so, a pattern that will repeat until the sun expands and engulfs the earth. You can stop this from happening by changing the setting.

The second option, “Private profile characteristics,” just shows other users a summary—your profession and where you live—when you view their profile. This will make you sound mysterious but will mostly just annoy everyone because of its lack of specificity. The third, much better option is “Private mode,” which allows you to look at anyone’s profile page in relative secrecy.

Note that this choice to withhold sharing permissions goes both ways: Selecting anything other than the default choice of sharing your identity will stop you from seeing when other people look at your profile. To me, this is a win because it means I get fewer LinkedIn notifications. But if you find it useful to know who is looking at your profile, you might want to keep this in mind.

Feature Image Credit: DPA PICTURE ALLIANCE/ALAMY

Sourced from WIRED

In News

LinkedIn Adds New Tools for Job Seekers, Including Job Preference Highlights and AI Assistant Tools

February 13, 2024 No Comments

By Andrew Hutchinson

LinkedIn has added some new features for job seekers, including job listings by different categories, job preference highlights, and new AI job application assistant tools.

Which still seem counter-productive, given that employers probably want to assess a job seekers actual communication skills, as opposed to getting a robot-written message. But inevitably, this is the way that things are headed regardless, so it probably makes sense for LinkedIn to incorporate such direct.

First off, LinkedIn is rolling out “Job Collections”, which will categorize open roles into different sectors and settings.

As you can see in this example, Job Collections will list open roles in various sector and business categories, making it easier to find the job that you want, based on differing parameters.

As explained by LinkedIn:

“Job Collections allows you to expand your job options and explore collections of relevant jobs across a variety of industries, specialties and companies that you may not have otherwise been aware of. To start, visit the Jobs tab on LinkedIn. Look for “Explore with Job Collections” and click on any of the collections that align with your passion and interests, including jobs that offer remote work, good parental leave, or a focus on sustainability.”

It’s a handy filtering tool, which will help to streamline your job search based on a range of additional parameters.

Along the same line, LinkedIn’s also adding a new Job Preferences filter option, which will enable you to set specific parameters and elements that you’re most interested in. Recruiters will then be able to see these preferences, while LinkedIn will also highlight the relevant aspects on every job role displayed to you in the app.

You can see the parameters highlighted in green, adding another way to more easily find relevant options in-stream.

Current preference options currently include: employment type (full-time, part-time, contract, etc.), location type (remote, hybrid, on-site), as well as minimum pay preference for U.S. members.

LinkedIn says that it will look to add more options over time, providing more ways to more easily find jobs with the most desirable elements.

LinkedIn will now also enable you to flag interest in a specific company from a job ad.

This option isn’t new as such, as you can already flag interest in a company on their business profile page. But having the button available on every job will make it a more readily accessible marker.

Finally, LinkedIn’s also testing some new job seeker tools for Premium users, including more advanced job search filters to highlight more relevant job matches, as well a new AI-powered LinkedIn Premium experience to help you assess if a particular job is a good fit for you, and even write an intro message.

As you can see in this example flow, LinkedIn also now enables Premium users to draft both job application and introductory emails via generative AI, which as noted, does seem a little counter-intuitive within the job search process.

But again, you can already do this in ChatGPT anyway, why not integrate it direct, I guess?

These are some interesting additions, which will provide more options for job seekers in the app. And with many more people looking to switch roles or careers in 2024, especially in the early months, it makes sense for LinkedIn to make this a focus.

You can read more about LinkedIn’s latest job seeker updates here.

By Andrew Hutchinson

Sourced from SocialMediaToday

In News

The Fastest Growing Tech Jobs in 2024, According to LinkedIn

February 8, 2024 No Comments

By Elizabeth Yuko

The market is getting more competitive, but these positions are still in demand.

Keeping track of the constantly fluctuating job market over the past few years has often felt like a job itself, as both employers’ and employees’ priorities continue to shift. The skill sets required for jobs have also evolved, changing 25 percent since 2015, according to data from LinkedIn. Unsurprisingly, this is especially true for tech professionals, as the use of artificial intelligence and advanced automation has become increasingly common across industries, even as inflation-driven economic volatility has triggered a wave of tech worker layoffs.

Alarming headlines aside, while tech industry hiring slowed down heading into summer 2023, it picked back up in the last few months of the year, and is now up nearly 12 percent compared to July (versus overall hiring). Even with that growth, there’s still significant competition for tech roles, thanks in part to being the top industry for remote work and hiring stabilization.

But some positions are in higher demand than others—including those identified in a new report from LinkedIn.

The fastest-growing tech jobs in the U.S.

Of the top 25 fastest-growing jobs in the United States included in LinkedIn’s “Jobs on the Rise” report, three are squarely tech roles, while several others focus on business development in tech industries:

Artificial intelligence consultant

What they do: Advise organizations on implementing AI technologies in their business operations and product offerings.
Most common skills: Machine learning, deep learning, natural language processing (NLP)

Artificial intelligence engineer

What they do: Develop, implement, and train AI models and algorithms using programming languages
Most common skills: Machine learning, deep learning, natural language processing (NLP)

Product security engineer

What they do: Ensure the security of a product or system by analysing and addressing potential vulnerabilities through risk assessments, threat modelling, and protective measures.
Most common skills: Threat modelling, application security, vulnerability assessment

Non-tech roles on the rise in tech industries

Other examples of jobs with significant growth in the tech industry include:

Chief growth officer
Director of revenue operations
External communications manager
Recruiter
Influencer marketing manager
Head of partnerships
Instructional systems specialist

How were these jobs identified?

To come up with these figures and calculate the growth rate for each job title, LinkedIn Economic Graph researchers gathered data from the millions of jobs the site’s members started between January 1, 2019 and July 31, 2023. In order to be ranked, a job had to see consistent growth and reach a “meaningful size” by 2023.

The top-25 fastest-growing jobs in the U.S.

Here’s LinkedIn’s full list of 2024 Jobs on the Rise in the United States:

Chief growth officer
Government program analyst
Environment health safety manager
Director of revenue operations
Sustainability analyst
Advanced practice provider
Vice president of diversity and inclusion
Artificial intelligence consultant
Recruiter
Artificial intelligence engineer
External communications manager
Product security engineer
Physical therapist
Grants program manager
Director of land acquisition
Transmission planning engineer
Influencer marketing manager
Director of development services
Director of legal operations
Workforce development coordinator
Head of public safety
Plant director
Infection preventionist
Head of partnerships
Instructional system specialist

Check out the full report for additional data, analysis, and insights into the most in-demand jobs in tech and other sectors.

Feature Image Credit: wavebreakmedia/Shutterstock

By Elizabeth Yuko

Sourced from LIFEHACKER

In News

10 Best LinkedIn Profile Tips to Amplify Your Presence in 2024

February 1, 2024 No Comments

By Sam Driver

Maximizing your LinkedIn profile has never been more crucial in this digital era.

Whether you’re on the hunt for a new job, hoping to grow your professional network, or simply looking to improve your online presence, your LinkedIn profile is your first impression in the virtual professional world.

From creating a captivating headline to leveraging LinkedIn’s unique features, we’ve compiled the ten top tips to enhance your online presence.

So, ready to transform your LinkedIn game?

Let’s jump in!

1. Harness the Power of Your LinkedIn Headline

A compelling LinkedIn headline acts as your digital handshake, initiating your introduction to the virtual professional world.

The headline is more than just a statement; it’s your opportunity to quickly communicate your professional identity and peak interest.

Instead of merely listing “Data Analyst,” for example, consider fine-tuning it to “Data Analyst specializing in predictive models for e-commerce”.

This not only provides more detail about your unique abilities but also differentiates you in a sea of data analysts.

Furthermore, including relevant industry keywords in your headline can make your profile more searchable, increasing the chance of being found by potential employers or clients.

Remember, LinkedIn gives you 120 characters for your headline. Use this space to creatively encapsulate who you are professionally, your key skills, and your unique value proposition.

2. Craft a Stellar LinkedIn Summary

Your LinkedIn summary is essentially your professional autobiography. It’s a platform to humanize your profile, sharing not just your qualifications but also your journey, passions, and future aspirations.

This narrative can create an emotional connection with your reader, making you more memorable.

For instance, if you’re a marketer who transitioned from traditional advertising to digital marketing, this is your opportunity to share your evolution.

Discuss the challenges you overcame during this shift, the new skills you developed, and how this transformation has made you a better marketer.

Sharing these stories conveys your adaptability, growth mindset, and demonstrates your resilience — traits that employers often value.

Use the summary to show that you’re not just a list of skills and experiences, but a dynamic professional with a compelling story.

3. Spotlight Your Work Experience

When detailing your work experience on LinkedIn, think of it less like a job description and more like a highlight reel of your professional career.

It’s not just about what you’ve done; it’s about the measurable impact of your work.

For instance, rather than merely saying you “Managed social media accounts,” describe the specific initiatives you drove and their outcomes, such as “Increased social media engagement by 60% by implementing a new content marketing strategy“.

This illustrates your ability to drive results and gives prospective employers or partners insight into what they might expect if they work with you.

Remember to include specific metrics and data where possible as these quantifiable results can lend credibility to your achievements.

Also, highlight any unique projects or initiatives you’ve led that align with your career goals.

This can demonstrate your leadership, creativity, and strategic thinking to potential employers and connections.

4. Showcase Relevant Skills

Your LinkedIn profile is more than a resume; it’s a living testament to your professional capabilities.

The skills you list should be a curated collection, reflecting your career aspirations and key strengths.

Instead of merely listing a broad range of skills, consider focusing on those most relevant to your field or the position you’re aiming for.

For instance, if you’re a digital marketer, skills such as “SEO writing,” “Content Creation,” or “Social Media Advertising” could be more significant than a general skill like “Good Communication.”

LinkedIn also allows your connections to endorse your skills, adding a level of validation to your listed competencies.

Prioritize the skills you want to be known for, place them at the top, and encourage colleagues or supervisors to endorse you for them.

This not only validates your claim but also increases your visibility when recruiters search for specific skills.

5. Optimize Your LinkedIn URL

Your LinkedIn URL might seem like a minor detail, but it’s a powerful personal branding tool that can enhance your professional image and online visibility.

By default, LinkedIn assigns you a URL filled with random characters. However, you can (and should) customize it to reflect your name and profession.

For instance, instead of a URL like “linkedin.com/in/xyz123456789,” opt for a cleaner, more professional version like “linkedin.com/in/JohnDoeMarketing.”

It’s simpler, more memorable, and reinforces your personal brand.

Think of it as your digital business card. You can add it to your email signature, your resume, or your website.

Customization not only makes it easier for people to find you but also makes your profile look more polished and professional.

6. Understand LinkedIn Premium’s Benefits

While the basic LinkedIn account is free and offers numerous benefits, there’s value in considering a LinkedIn Premium subscription, especially if you’re actively job hunting or looking to expand your network.

LinkedIn Premium provides you with an array of tools not available with a basic account.

One standout feature is the advanced search filter that lets you target specific industries, job titles, or companies, offering a more tailored approach to networking.

With Premium, you can also send InMail messages to people you’re not connected with, opening a direct line of communication with potential employers, mentors, or collaborators.

In addition, it allows you to see who has viewed your profile, offering valuable insights about the types of professionals showing interest in your profile.

These are just a few examples of the potential advantages of LinkedIn Premium.

While it is a paid feature, consider it an investment in your personal brand and career growth. It might just give you the edge you need in a competitive job market.

7. The Power of a Professional Profile Photo

A professional profile photo is much more than just a picture — it’s a visual representation of your brand.

It is what introduces you to the professional world before you even say a word.

This image is the first visual interaction someone will have with your profile, so ensuring it is clear, professional, and friendly is vital.

Opt for a picture with good lighting, a simple background, and appropriate attire. It’s not about the designer clothes or the perfect hairstyle, but rather about showcasing the professional, approachable, and confident individual you are.

A good rule of thumb is to make sure your photo aligns with your desired industry’s standards — a corporate banker’s attire may be different from a creative director’s.

8. Join LinkedIn Groups

LinkedIn groups are your secret passageways into the world of professional networking.

Participating in these groups doesn’t just expand your network; it gives you a platform to engage in intellectual conversations, demonstrate your knowledge and insights, and connect with like-minded professionals.

Start by looking for groups that are relevant to your industry or area of expertise. Don’t just join the group and be a passive member.

Engage in the discussions, ask insightful questions, and share helpful resources or articles. The key is to provide value.

Doing so helps establish your thought leadership, and remember, a meaningful comment or shared insight could catch the eye of a potential employer or collaborator.

9. Embrace LinkedIn Learning

LinkedIn Learning is not just a resource; it’s your growth partner. With a vast library of courses ranging from software skills to leadership techniques, it can help you stay at the forefront of your industry’s trends and requirements.

Courses you’ve completed are featured on your profile, which sends a clear message to potential employers about your dedication to personal development and continuous learning.

For example, if you’re in digital marketing, taking a course on the latest SEO strategies or Google Analytics can make you more valuable in the eyes of recruiters.

By consistently updating your skills through LinkedIn Learning, you’re not just improving yourself; you’re setting a high bar in your professional life and proving your commitment to staying ahead of the curve.

10. Seek & Give LinkedIn Recommendations

The power of word-of-mouth should not be underestimated, especially in the professional world.

LinkedIn recommendations function as mini letters of recommendation, giving weight to your professional competencies and achievements.

Aim to secure recommendations from a diverse array of colleagues, managers, or clients who have a first hand account of your work.

Remember, specificity is key in making these recommendations impactful. Encourage your endorsers to mention particular projects or instances that illustrate your abilities.

For instance, instead of a generic “they are a team player,” a more impactful recommendation would be “they displayed exceptional teamwork in the XYZ project by coordinating tasks effectively and fostering a positive work environment.”

At the same time, reciprocate this goodwill by endorsing your connections.

This not only strengthens your professional relationships but also keeps you on the radar of your network.

LinkedIn is, after all, a social platform — engagement is critical.

11. Make Use of LinkedIn’s ‘Featured’ Section

The ‘Featured’ section on LinkedIn serves as your personal exhibition space. Here, you can spotlight examples of your work that articulate your skills and capabilities better than words.

Showcasing real, tangible work adds credibility to your profile and captures the attention of anyone viewing your profile.

You could include links to articles you’ve written, slides from a presentation, graphics you’ve designed, or even a recording of a talk you gave.

For example, if you’re a content marketer, sharing a blog post that drove significant traffic to your company’s website will highlight your content creation and SEO skills.

Remember, this section is not just a repository for your work.

It’s a dynamic space that should be updated and refreshed as you create new, impressive work.

12. Leverage the Power of Keywords

Keywords are not just for SEO — they’re a fundamental tool to enhance your visibility on LinkedIn.

Using relevant keywords throughout your profile makes it more likely for you to appear in LinkedIn searches, potentially connecting you to a host of new professional opportunities.

Start by identifying the keywords or phrases relevant to your field that potential employers or clients might use.

Tools like Google Trends or Keyword Planner can offer insights into what those might be.

Then, weave these keywords naturally into your headline, summary, work experience, skills, and even your endorsements.

For example, if you’re a digital marketer specializing in social media management, some keywords might be “social media strategy,” “content creation,” “social media analytics,” or “community engagement.”

By incorporating these into your profile, you increase your chances of appearing in searches by potential employers looking for these specific skills.

In the end, remember that while keywords help in visibility, they should not compromise the readability and authenticity of your profile.

Your LinkedIn profile is your digital narrative — ensure it remains a genuine reflection of your professional journey.

Ready to Enhance Your LinkedIn Profile?

In the vast world of LinkedIn, standing out is an art. It’s your first impression, your digital handshake.

Remember, your LinkedIn profile can either be an unnoticed drop in the digital ocean or a vibrant beacon attracting the right professional opportunities.

So embrace these tips, inject your profile with a hefty dose of professional charisma, and watch as opportunities begin to roll in.

Ready to stand up and make some waves?

By Sam Driver

Sam is an Associate Editor for Smart Blogger and family man who loves to write. When he’s not goofing around with his kids, he’s honing his craft to provide lasting value to anyone who cares to listen.

Sourced from SmartBlogger

In News

LinkedIn Shares Insights Into B2B Marketing Trends [Infographic]

January 30, 2024 No Comments

By Andrew Hutchinson

What are the key trends of focus among B2B marketers, and how are they looking to tap into the latest opportunities and market shifts?

LinkedIn partnered with Ipsos to conduct a survey of over 2,000 B2B marketers from around the world, in order to get their insights into what they see as the most important industry trends, and related impacts across different categories.

The results show that AI is a logically a big focus, while maximizing shrinking ad budgets, and customer retention, are also significant considerations.

And of course, LinkedIn remains the leading platform for many B2B industries.

You can check out the full results in the below infographic.

By Andrew Hutchinson

Sourced from SocialMediaToday