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How To Craft A LinkedIn Profile That Recruiters Love, According To 100 Hiring Professionals

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By Joseph Liu

LinkedIn remains one of the most essential platforms to establish a professional online presence and showcase your skills and accomplishments. With over 930 million users (and counting), LinkedIn remains the go-to platform for recruiters, hiring managers, and professionals looking for potential candidates.

“Your LinkedIn profile is your digital brand,” says Lianne Zhang, a director of talent at Milestone Technologies. “I can’t tell you the number of times where we had two equally qualified candidates and the one with the stronger LinkedIn profile got the job.”

In the personal branding workshops I regularly host, I often get questions about what recruiters and hiring managers prefer candidates include (and exclude) on their LinkedIn profiles. Since I’m not a recruiter myself, I solicited and compiled guidance from over 100 experienced recruiters and hiring managers around the world to find out exactly how to craft a LinkedIn profile that stands out to recruiters.

While I haven’t featured quotes from all 100 of them in this single article, the guidance that emerged from their collective views in response to the most frequently asked questions I receive about each LinkedIn section follows.

1. Photos: Upload Professional Images

What are the characteristics of a good headshot? Does customizing your background banner photo make a difference?

Two primary photos create the initial personal branding people see when visiting your profile: your profile photo and your background banner photo. Make sure to use a professional profile photo.

First, upload a current picture of yourself. You should absolutely include your face on your profile. The lack of a profile photo tends to create a negative impression with recruiters. “The absence of a photo on LinkedIn in some cases can cause distrust for a particular account,” says Oleksandra Syzonets, a recruiter at Reply.io. She says that when a headshot is missing, some employers may question if a real person is behind a profile.

Emma Lindberg, recruiting manager at IT staffing agency Advantis Global agrees that headshots make a big difference to recruiters trying to differentiate between real and fake accounts. “Real accounts are likely to have their background images personalized without stock photos,” Lindberg says.

Second, the photo should be an actual headshot. “Avoid using full-body shots or a photo that looks like a selfie or includes a cluttered or busy background,” says Stacey Mallory, managing director at Altis Recruitment. The photo should ideally not be cropped from another photo because it rarely conveys the same level of professionalism as a solo headshot from the shoulders up.

Third, your headshot should feel professional. “There’s a delicate balance [between] having a profile picture that represents your character or personality while still maintaining some professionalism,” says Trent Cotton, senior global director of talent acquisition at Hatchworks. While you may want to have your personality come through, the picture should still be business focused according to Maciej Kubiak, Head of People at PhotoAiD. “LinkedIn is not Facebook, so the profile picture needs to be business-related,” Kubiak states.

Lindberg does concede that those in the arts, design, or fashion can potentially break away from the typical ‘business professional’ standards of wearing neutral groomed hair, makeup, and formal clothing. “However, across all industries, a clear, well-lit photo is the minimum standard of a good headshot,” she says.

Finally, the image should be high quality. Mallory suggests always using a professional headshot that offers a clear, well-lit view of your face. “Anything that looks amateur or DIY can be a turn-off for recruiters.” These days, you can take a high-quality picture with most phone cameras in a bright room against a neutral background.

“The most important thing is to have a flattering, professional picture,” says Arno Markus, a former recruiter and founder of iCareerSolutions. “This doesn’t mean you need to go out and get a studio headshot, but you want to make sure that the photo is recent, well-lit, and shows you at your best.”

Customizing your background photo is helpful, but not mandatory. Behind your round profile photo sits the rectangular banner image area that appears as a plain grey box by default, but can also be customized. Most recruiters I connected with stated that customizing your background image can be helpful but not absolutely required.

“Having any photo, whether it is a background or a headshot, is a form of self-branding. First impressions are 100% real, and those two images are the first thing people see when they visit someone’s profile,” says Piotr Sosnowski, head of HR at hiJunior. “A background photo is not a must. Some of our best employees didn’t have one during their recruitment process, but it definitely helps recruiters understand what type of person you are.”

According to other recruiters though, while customizing your LinkedIn background image doesn’t hurt, it may not necessarily help either. “Background images don’t really make too much of a difference when you’re being sourced by a recruiter since they are most likely viewing your profile from the LinkedIn Recruiter view, which does not show the background image,” says Weronika Pajdak, talent acquisition manager at Mighty.

2. Headline: Highlight Unique Skills

What’s your view on candidates saying “Ex-[company name]”? What should candidates include in a headline?

Your headline is one of the first parts of your profile someone will see, so it deserves some extra attention. “When we run a search on our LinkedIn Recruiter account, the first thing that shows up underneath your name is your headline,” says Pajdak. “More importantly, it’s the only part of your profile in that search view that doesn’t get cut off by a See All button. It’s literally a recruiter’s first introduction to your experience and a great place to make yourself stand out,” she says.

Selectively Articulate Your Unique Value

Use the 220 characters available in your headline statement to specifically and selectively highlight the title, skills, or areas of expertise for which you want to be known. Margaret Buj, a senior talent partner at Mixmax, shared a few useful frameworks to optimize your headline for keyword searches:

1. Role | Specific achievement

  • B2B Inside Sales Rep | $2.4MM generated in 2020
  • Digital Ads Manager | 5 Years Experience Managing 7-figure ad budgets

2. Role | Years of experience in industry | Fun fact

  • Human Resources Manager | 10+ Years of People Experience |Disneyland Annual Passholder

3. Role | Helping ___ (type of company) do ___ (result)

  • Social Media Manager | Helping software start-ups manage and grow their social media to drive more sales

4. Role | specializing in _____, _____ and _____

  • Content Marketing Strategist specializing in press releases, blog content, and social media

 

The vast majority of recruiters don’t prefer the use of Ex-Company. “I’d advise against using ‘ex-[Company]’ in the headline because a recruiter will be reviewing the candidate’s whole profile anyway,” says Mallory. “Use your Headline to list your job title, skills or areas of expertise rather than using an ambiguous line.” Nathan Deily, chief people officer at nth Venture agrees. “Ex-Company does a candidate no favors in my book. Any recruiter or hiring manager who’s paying attention will see that the candidate worked those places without them bragging about it in a headline,” Deily says.

Note, a small minority of recruiters felt there could be some upside to mentioning your former organization in the headline. “Having a well-known company name in the headline gives me the impression that the candidate has already been vigorously screened and may be very capable of delivering quality projects,” says Lindberg. Although she doesn’t prefer to see “Ex-Company” in a headline, Sosnowski states some recruiters and hiring managers will hire someone who worked at a well-known company rather than someone with similar skills from a lesser-known company.

Nima Mirpourian, a former recruiter and CEO of Will Be Live says candidates should ultimately focus on crafting a headline that highlights their unique skills, experiences, and accomplishments. “Stating you worked for a well-known company does not provide any specific information about your experience or skills,” Mirpourian says.

3. About: Summarize Your Unique Value

How long should this be? What’s the ideal scope of info captured? Err on the side of brevity. Most recruiters prefer candidates to get straight to the point about their professional ambitions, personal brand, and unique skillset in no more than two paragraphs. Mallory believes the About section on LinkedIn is one of the most important. “It’s a career synopsis or professional summary of a resume. In one succinct paragraph, candidates should summarize the types of industries they’ve worked in, areas of expertise, projects they are proud of, and key deliverables.” Mallory states this section also offers a glimpse into a candidate’s writing style.

Selectively Highlight Non-Work Interests

While the About section should be primarily focused on your professional life, selectively highlighting personal interests can help humanize your profile. “Your summary doesn’t need to be entirely focused on your work,” says Kimberley Tyler-Smith, VP of strategy and growth at Resume Worded. “A couple of details about your interests and activities outside of the office will help you seem more relatable and personable,” she says.

End With An Invitation

Markus also recommends including a clear call-to-action at the end of your summary. “Let people know what you’re looking for and how they can get in touch with you,” he recommends. For example, the call-to-action could be an invitation to contact you, visit your website, or check out a certain resource of yours.

4. Featured Content: Highlight Key Accomplishments

How much do recruiters pay attention to your Featured section?

LinkedIn gives you the option to manually populate your Featured Section with posts, a newsletter, articles, links, or media. Most recruiters recommend utilizing this area to draw attention to specific aspects of your skills and expertise you feel are most relevant to those working in areas you’re trying to target. “Use the Featured section to showcase your achievements. Include links, articles and case studies of your work,” says Mallory.

Reinforce Your Personal Brand

Selectively highlight articles, presentations, conference talks, or projects that build credibility around the skills you claim to possess. From a branding standpoint, using eye-catching visuals can increase the chances of this section grabbing a recruiter’s attention. You should also ensure you keep this section up to date, removing outdated or irrelevant content, which can also signal you’ve made the effort to keep your profile current.

5. Activity: Signal You’re Professional Engaged

What impact does one’s Activity feed have on your perceptions of a candidate?

Your Activity section provides a running feed of what you’ve shared, published, and commented on. Being active on LinkedIn can also demonstrate to recruiters that the candidate is actively seeking ways to grow their professional network and skills according to Steven Waudby, senior recruiter at Delta Hire. “Sharing insightful articles, congratulating your network on professional achievements, and updating one’s network on their professional journey shows that the candidate is engaged and motivated to advance their professional career,” Waudby states.

Engage Regularly With Your Network

Most recruiters agree a candidate who’s active on LinkedIn creates a more positive impression compared to those with more static profiles. “Seeing a candidate who is active on LinkedIn – posting, commenting, sharing, connecting with others on the platforms shows a high level of engagement within their networks,” says Jonathan Reynolds, CEO of Titus Talent Strategies.

Share Useful Commentary

Your commentary can also give a recruiter a glimpse into your professional approach, values, or personality. “A post advocating for diversity and inclusivity could reveal a commitment to social justice and equality. A comment praising a colleague for their accomplishments could demonstrate a collaborative and supportive attitude,” says Mirpourian.

Thoughtful activity can even make a difference when deciding between two candidates. “Intelligent and well-written posts, shares or commentary could be a differentiator in a tight decision between two otherwise well-qualified candidates,” says Deily.

6. Experience: Include More Detail

What level of detail is best? Just role & company? Summary of responsibilities? Bulleted list of accomplishments? All of the above? Do you prefer more or less detail?

You can certainly find LinkedIn “experts” who recommend simply including your role titles and company names. I’ve crossed paths with plenty of career coaches who claim a “less is more” approach to the LinkedIn Experience section is more appropriate for an online medium. However, recruiters who weighed in on this article overwhelmingly prefer seeing more detail about your professional experiences.

Include Accomplishments

Detailing out your accomplishments can help recruiters immediately assess your viability as a candidate without having to go through the extra step of requesting your resume. “Your Linkedin profile should be able to act as your resume,” says Brianna Rooney, founder and CEO of TalentPerch.

Your experience section should be treated almost like a resume says Lindberg. “If the resume is not available on the candidate profile, I prefer more detail. Having the roles and companies listed, summaries of responsibilities, and bulleted accomplishments are important.” Lindberg also states that when working for a smaller or lesser-known company, candidates should also include a few sentences about what the company does, which can save recruiters time in having to research that company.

The Experience section should mirror the candidate’s resume, highlighting their skills and experience in as much detail as possible says Mallory. “Since a LinkedIn profile is sometimes the recruiter’s only source of information about a candidate, the more detail they provide in the Experience section, the better because it makes it easier to determine their suitability for the role at a glance. If the recruiter can’t easily see what they’re looking for, they might move on to other candidates,” says Mallory.

Use Bullet Points

A job title and company name are not enough for a recruiter to draw meaningful conclusions about your qualifications. “I’d recommend having a few bullet points listed, ideally tangible achievements,” Buj says. Yes, you can use bullet points, just as you would in a resume, when detailing accomplishments.

“A candidate should list out bullets describing their responsibilities and any measurable achievements from their time at that position,” says Waudby. “Recruiters want to know quantifiable metrics in addition to the soft skills that helped you achieve success and grow your professional development.”

Bullets are indeed an effective format for the Experience section according to Reynolds. “Long paragraphs are hard to read so keep it in bullet formatting and make sure to tie it back to your headline,” says Reynolds.

Buj also recommends starting (rather than ending) bullet points with a quantifiable result. She shared this example: “Instead of saying: ‘Promoted to my current position where I excelled in sales, increasing them by 12% in the first year,’ say ‘Increased sales by 12% in the first year following my promotion.” Leading with quantified results enables someone scanning through your accomplishments to quickly understand your measurable impact.

7. Education

Does it matter if dates attended are included? The verdict on whether to include dates on your Education section is a bit split.

Including Dates Can Introduce Age Biases

The dates of your schooling may have no impact on how a recruiter perceives you, but it does introduce some risk around age discrimination. “I don’t recommend including education dates on your LinkedIn profile because it can trigger unconscious bias related to age,” says Molly McIlvaine, executive recruiter at Hanover Search.

“As someone in HR, I’m concerned that this might create an occasion for discrimination,” says Jennifer Miller, head of people and coaching for Lingo Live. “As candidates hit the category where they’re in a protected class (i.e., ages 40+), including these dates may put them at risk for discrimination.”

But Excluding Dates Can Also Raise Questions

Other recruiters stated that including dates is actually helpful to recruiters trying to make sense of how your education fits into your broader professional narrative. According to Mirpourian, leaving out dates in the Education section can raise questions and appear misleading. “Potential employers may wonder if you are trying to hide gaps in your education or work history. By including dates, you can provide a clear and transparent history of your academic achievements.”

Waudby agrees that Education dates are important to include because they help to illustrate a complete timeline of your career. “At the very least, candidates should include the year they completed their education so that recruiters are able to better gauge the timeline of their professional development,” he says.

You could also take an in-between approach, keeping dates in if you are a recent graduate, but removing them after a certain period. Mallory states, “If the education or past roles took place more than 15 years ago, I don’t recommend including the dates.”

8. Licenses & Certifications

How much does this section matter? What types of certifications are worth mentioning?

Mention Relevant, Prerequisite Licenses Only

Including licenses and certifications on your LinkedIn profile is a good way to showcase your professional credentials and highlight your skills and expertise according to Danielle Bedford, senior manager at Coople. “While there is no hard and fast rule about which licenses and certifications should be included on a LinkedIn profile, as a general rule of thumb, only list those relevant to your current occupation or industry,” says Bedford.

McIlvaine agrees that industry recognized certifications are extremely important to detail on your LinkedIn profile. “Particularly in finance, CFA CFA -1%, CFP, or Series 7 are some important requirements we search for, particularly regulatory ones.”

Signal Professional Commitment

“Not everyone wants to add the letters after their name but adding certifications to your profile shows dedication to continued development,” says Reynolds. “Certifications are a great way to showcase additional knowledge and professional achievements to your profile.”

A certification can signal how much importance a candidate places on continuous learning and skills development says Rooney. “This means this person makes a conscious effort to better themselves and this makes them an excellent addition to your team.”

9. Recommendations

How much does this section matter? Which recommendations carry more weight?

While recruiters are aware that solicited recommendations may contain some positive bias, most agree they can help support your candidacy. “Recruiters are aware that a lot of people trade recommendations, and achievements and skills can be blown out of proportion,” says Sosnowski. However, he states that recommendations do more good than bad because they provide social proof to support the claims a candidate makes in the other profile sections.

Markus agrees written recommendations generally help. “If other people are vouching for your skills and experience, then recruiters will be more likely to take you seriously as a candidate,” he says.

Source Recommendations Through Direct Relationships

Waudby states recommendations from current or past managers carry the most weight when trying to showcase your skills and experiences. He also suggests managers get recommendations from direct reports who can speak to their leadership abilities. “If a candidate has sufficient, relevant recent recommendations, it may even decrease due diligence time and the need for multiple reference checks,” says Waudby.

Use Keywords To Increase Visibility

Having a robust recommendation section on LinkedIn can enhance an individual’s profile’s visibility and searchability. “Recommendations that contain relevant keywords and phrases that can improve an individual’s search engine optimization (SEO) and increase their chances of appearing in relevant search results,” says Mirpourian.

Pace Yourself

Having too many recommendations suddenly appear on your profile, especially before a job change, may be less effective according to Himanshu Jain, managing director of recruitment company ReachExt K.K. “Avoid too many recommendations during a short period of time or several recommendations just before any job change,” Jain says. Instead, consider drip-feeding these out periodically over time to demonstrate a steady track record of positive work relationships across various roles and organizations.

10. Endorsements

Does this section matter at all to recruiters?

Endorsements Carry Little Weight

In short, no, endorsements don’t count for much on one’s LinkedIn profile. While a very small handful of recruiters say endorsements can feed into a candidate’s overall personal brand, the vast majority feel endorsements are not necessarily related to a candidate’s actual skills. “These have very little weight since people can endorse you who don’t even know you,” says Charlie Saffro, president of CS Recruiting. For this reason, Mallory also agrees the Endorsements section “carries very little weight when our recruiters are assessing candidates.”

Get Recommendations, Not Endorsements

Eva Chung of Advantis Medical Staffing explains that endorsements aren’t meaningful because they’re not linked with any concrete details or measurable outcomes. “Looking at the Experience and Recommendations section is more valuable for me as a recruiter to understand where they applied these skills,” Chung says.

Optimizing Your LinkedIn Profile Helps You Stand Out

Your digital persona is part of your personal and professional brand. It often creates that important first impression when someone looks you up online, so taking some extra time to shape your professional narrative is absolutely worth the investment. “Your LinkedIn profile is your personal presentation to the professional world. Don’t miss this opportunity to present yourself properly,” says Syzonets.

Following this guidance from recruiters on how to optimize your profile can help you stand out as a candidate, remain top-of-mind for relevant roles, and increase your chances of landing your dream job in a competitive job market.

Feature Image Credit: getty

By Joseph Liu

Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn. Check out my website or some of my other work here.

Joseph Liu helps people bravely pursue more meaningful careers during professional transitions, applying principles from his 10 years of international brand management experiences. Based in London, he’s a professional speaker, personal branding consultant, and host of the Career Relaunch® podcast, featuring personal stories of career reinvention with listeners in 170+ countries.

Sourced from Forbes

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LinkedIn Releases New AI Tool to Help Create Your Profile

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By Nikki Main

OpenAI GPT models are coming to LinkedIn to help streamline the process of posting jobs and filling out your profile

LinkedIn is using generative AI to simplify the process of writing job listings, filling out resumes, and updating your profile, the company announced on Wednesday. The new feature will be similar to ChatGPT and the company said in a press release that it will “unlock opportunities” and “elevate your career.”

The AI option will provide suggestions in the “About” section and the “Headline” section on each profile, taking over for the user who would otherwise likely spend ample time trying to best describe their accomplishments. Although the new AI tool is meant to streamline the writing process, the company still recommends reading through the generated information and fact-checking it to ensure it reflects the intended theme and style.

LinkedIn is testing the AI tool with premium subscribers, consisting of “some of LinkedIn’s most active members,” a LinkedIn spokesperson said in an email to Gizmodo. She added the members “can provide feedback as we continue to iterate and evolve the tool” and will continue to roll out to the remaining premium user base over the next several months.

For premium subscribers who are listing job postings, the company will also make it easier to write and upload the job description. The process is marketed as a fairly simple one, requiring the user to provide basic information about the position, including the job title and the name of the company. The AI tool will then generate a job description based on the prompts provided and will allow the user to review and edit before posting the job listing.

Tomer Cohen, the Chief Product Officer at LinkedIn, said in the release, “I am excited to introduce new AI-powered experiences, leveraging the most advanced OpenAI GPT models, as we continue to look for ways to create more value for our members and customers.”

Cohen said the company is introducing a surprising addition to the company’s AI-themed news, saying the site will now offer more than 100 AI classes. The classes will be available to all LinkedIn users, free of charge, until June 15, 2023, and will include “What is Generative AI,” “Introduction to Prompt Engineering for Generative AI,” “Introduction to Conversational AI,” and Cohen’s course, “Generative AI for Business Leaders.”

The LinkedIn spokesperson said the courses will remain “available and free to all, regardless of if you subscribe to LinkedIn Learning or even have a LinkedIn profile.” However, after the period ends, the classes will continue to be available to LinkedIn Learning subscribers and will be included in the Premium subscription.

Cohen confirmed in the press release that the company will also roll out an additional 20 Generative AI courses to help users “stay ahead of the curve and acquire the skills needed to succeed in today’s job market,” and said LinkedIn will continue to learn, grow, and leverage AI and other technologies based on the user’s needs.

Feature Image Credit: Getty Image

By Nikki Main

Sourced from GIZMODO

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12 Killer LinkedIn Profile Examples to Inspire You to Update Your Own

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By Neal Schaffer

LinkedIn is a paradise for many types of business professionals, and if you are not finding success on the platform, it might just come down to your personal branding as manifested in your LinkedIn profile. I hope to inspire you to revise your profile by showcasing some standout LinkedIn profile examples.

Since LinkedIn is a great place to find a job or recruit a new employee, everyone on LinkedIn should have a profile that gives their experience and qualifications, which makes it easy to identify opportunities. Likewise, people in sales use LinkedIn to find sales prospects and decision-makers.

Of course, people don’t only use LinkedIn to locate immediate opportunities. Instead, it’s a place for networking and relationship building. Then, when the time comes, professionals have a network they can rely on for help. This could be a job, help fill a position or even a sale.

With that said, LinkedIn wouldn’t be a powerful tool if people didn’t have high-quality profiles to represent themselves online. Here are some tips to create a great profile, and some LinkedIn profile examples to inspire you.

What’s a LinkedIn Profile?

A LinkedIn profile is a LinkedIn member’s page, where they have a picture, career goals, and other material. In other words, it’s like a business card or personal website but with a social media twist. LinkedIn calls the profile a “professional landing page” because it’s supposed to be the first impression people have of you on the platform. Often, this is the “actual” first impression because LinkedIn introduces a lot of people who’ve never met in person.

Why Should You Update Your LinkedIn Profile?

Updating your LinkedIn profile makes sure that your profile accurately reflects your professional life. People go through a lot of transitions, both personally and professionally, over the years. By keeping your profile updated, you’ll make it easier to meet the right people, find the right opportunities online, and put your best foot forward.

Here’s an example. Especially during a recession, lots of people look for new opportunities. They might go get a degree or new certification, get laid off, or decide a new career is their best bet. Some people even start a business or retire early. In turn, their goals and needs on LinkedIn change. If someone switches from recruiting to operational management in another company or industry, they won’t need to find recruiting candidates anymore. Or, a person starting a business might need new employees. Either way, their LinkedIn profiles should reflect the job changes.

The Elements of a Great LinkedIn Profile

It’s difficult to talk about the best LinkedIn profile examples without talking about what makes them great. After all, some profiles are more effective than others. In addition, LinkedIn profiles can be quite different depending on the member, whether that’s related to their career, their personal goals, or individual branding. With that said, here are some “must haves” for a good profile.

Professional Profile Photo

Having a professional picture is important because profiles with photos are 14 times more likely to be viewed. Besides this, a great picture helps you introduce yourself, especially in an era where there are fewer in-person meetings than there used to be. Therefore, a nice profile picture also helps people recognize you when they meet or see you at some in-person event.

However, you should always use a full-focus photo, and it needs to be a close-up shot. This isn’t where you use special effects or a blurry, poorly focused selfie that you adapted from Instagram. Remember, your LinkedIn profile picture is part of what provides a good (or not so good) first impression.

Besides the need for clarity and professionalism, you’ll need these parameters:

  • PNG or JPG file, because this is what LinkedIn requires.
  • LinkedIn recommends a square photo shape of 400 x 400 pixels. You can get this by cropping a rectangular picture to showcase your smiling face.
  • Generally, you’ll want a file size under 8 MB, though you can go larger if needed.

In other words, choose a small, high-resolution photo that has a relatively small file size. These parameters will get you the best results. Otherwise, the photo might not look nice once it’s posted online.

Cover Photo or Background Picture

This is the picture or graphic that you see at the top of someone’s profile, and it’s a great opportunity to make a splash. Generally, I recommend something that promotes a professional accomplishment or other parts of your online presence. For instance, you can promote a portfolio of work, a website, free resources, books you’ve written, or client testimonials.

These aren’t as difficult to make as you might think. A graphics editing tool like Canva can help you create awesome content for social media. You can use several design elements with this tool and others, offering the opportunity to create something special.

Finally, your cover photo should always reinforce your personal brand. While most people are used to a personal brand when job hunting, in the social media age you should project your brand whenever possible. Ideally, people will see you as a go-to person when they need what you have to offer.

A Brief, Powerful Profile Headline

A great headline is one of the most important elements of great profiles, and you’ll see some of our LinkedIn profile examples highlight this element. One reason for this high level of importance is that the headline text gets shown in search results within LinkedIn and Google SERPs. This means that your profile will get discovered more easily if you have a great headline. Plus, a good headline can help you edge out the competition for that often-critical profile view.

Technically speaking, a headline can be difficult to write. That’s because the headline is limited to 120 characters long, so you need to say it quickly. Be sure to include your industry-related keywords, skills, and interests.

Summary or the About Section

Next, there’s the summary. This is the piece of text below your headline, and it allows for more detail about why you’re special. When people click through your headline and see your profile, they are often on the fence about following up, especially if they are looking for an opportunity more than a particular person (you). The job of your summary or about section is to convince people to contact you.

12 Killer LinkedIn Profile Examples to Inspire You to Update Your Own

Even the best LinkedIn profile tips can be hard to follow if you don’t have some examples. After all, these examples can help you understand the best way to apply the tips. In addition, some inspiration is always useful when you’re writing an expressive piece like this. Here are some of the best LinkedIn profile examples I could find. Each of these can give you some inspiration to write a killer profile yourself.

1. String Nguyen

String Nguyen
String Nguyen

Why is this profile great? At first, her profile immediately grabs your attention. You can tell she is an artist at heart (her qualifications bear this out) and that she’s both unique and motivated. However, this is also one of our better LinkedIn profile examples because of its technical excellence.

  • Her headline precisely describes what she does. The string is a serial entrepreneur and creative who makes plenty of money helping other people create wealth (while doing it herself).
  • She uses emojis to make her message more memorable. For instance, since her name is String, she inserts violins (stringed instruments) in several places.
  • Presents a captivating story about her roller coaster ride from a “KFC Chick to building a multi-million brand.” That includes working a 9-5 job in a conventional career and deciding it wasn’t for her.
  • Uses self-deprecating humour: “I could have won Forbes 30 under 30, and I asked: “thanks for recognizing my skills, will I win an award for looking under 30?” They lol’d and said no. ” Somebody who talks like this is generally a competent person who doesn’t let success get to their head.
  • Is inspirational – “If a KFC chick can do it, so can you. ” In other words, String knows what she wants, and will work hard to achieve it. This is very attractive to many employers and potential business partners.

2. Laszlo Block

Laszlo Block
Laszlo Block

Laszlo is actually a prominent business leader, having served as an executive at Google. However, he left Google to start a new business that takes a more humane approach to human resources. This need for humanity in HR is deeply felt by many within the business community.

Why is this a great profile?

  • Besides checking on all boxes, what stands out is the summary section of Laszlo. In five succinct paragraphs, Laszlo weaves his professional story by highlighting his accomplishments and achievements while he was at Google. Then, he talks about his current activities.
  • Then, Laszlo gives you a reason to connect with him on a human level: he has a world record for Greek Syrtaki dance which reveals his personal passion. Of course, choosing this particular fun fact helps paint a picture of someone who knows how to relax and have fun.

3. Lalaina Rabary

Lalaina Rabary
Lalaina Rabary

Among the LinkedIn profile examples we’ve discussed so far, Lalaina’s profile is the most conventional. She tells you what she’s like in simple terms, but doesn’t use humor or fun facts to make herself out. It’s all business.

Why is this profile great?

  • Her simple background image is impactful because it uses simple symbolism to define her personal brand. In addition, she wears an outfit for her profile picture that’s the same color as her background image, boosting the brand message.
  • Reading her summary, you can easily see her passion for her job: She loves it and finds her work very satisfying.
  • She ties the messaging of her background photo as well as the passion for her job together in a convincing way to understand her mission, “to help others discover and nurture the leader within,” in a very memorable way.
  • Lalaina lists her volunteer work, which also helps support her personal brand as someone who dreams big with heart.

4. Ted Schachter

Ted Schachter
Ted Schachter

Ted is someone who’s spent a lot of his career in academia. Nowadays, he teaches marketing and communications to the next generation while staying active in the business.

Why is this a great profile?

  • Note the consistent branding of his glasses, from his background photo to his profile photo to the emoji in his name. Even better, he tries to use glasses on his profile that are similar to the ones in his photograph. Makes me wonder if similar frames are part of his signature look.
  • Ted uses the Featured section smartly to showcase a New York Times article in which he is quoted. Because the New York Times is a well-respected publication, being quoted there is often prestigious.
  • He clearly spells out his experiences in a succinct manner in his summary, including numbers so that we can better understand the scale of his many accomplishments. In other words, as someone who’s always looking for additional opportunities (Ted wears many hats), he makes it easy to see what value he can bring.

5. Beth Kanter

Beth Kanter
Beth Kanter

Beth specializes in helping non-profits navigate the digital age, including through a digital transformation. She also helps them reach out to donors and other stakeholders. Her goal is to keep non-profits focused on their human mission even with technology.

Why is this profile great?

  • Beth uses a mix of powerful keywords in her headline to convey that not only is she an innovator in the non-profit world for which she is best known. Beth is also known for both digital transformation and workplace wellbeing, creating a truly unique and compelling brand.
  • Beth speaks to us directly in her summary where she talks about the questions that have guided her career, leaving a lasting impression on the reader of her passion for serving others.
  • At the end of her summary, she not only talks about her past books but also about her present research, supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, about Artificial Intelligence and Scaling Generosity. Talking about her sponsored research ties her branding together in a very concise and powerful way.

6. Neil Patel

Neil Patel
Neil Patel

Neil is a world-famous marketer and technology person that lectures all over the world and owns an agency.

Why is this profile great?

  • If you searched Google for anything related to marketing, chances are that you have come across Neil Patel. His profile reflects the wide circulation of his work.
  • Neil’s got a professional profile photo and his cover photo lists his expertise in different aspects of digital marketing that reinforce his personal brand.
  • The summary section outlines his achievements, including being recognized by President Obama. He says all of this without bragging or coming across as arrogant.

7. Pam Moore

Pam Moore
Pam Moore

Pam is another veteran marketer, and she’s had a recent job change.

Why is this profile perfect?

  • Pam has a nice picture that looks like it came straight out of a magazine and was probably taken by a professional. Besides this great picture, Pam has a cover photo of a foot race. That picture piques the viewer’s interest because there isn’t anything else about running on her profile.
  • Her headline has a list of keywords that describe exactly who she is. As a result, you not only know why you should contact Pam, but the keywords help her profile show up on a lot of searches.
  • Pam’s summary is quite elaborate, but without being overbearing. In other words, you can quickly see her many accomplishments.
  • She has a very complete profile, with information that includes courses, projects, honors, and awards.

8. Anthony Gioeli

Anthony Gioeli
Anthony Gioeli

Anthony is another marketer, and he specializes in the AI space. Overall, his profile is very down-to-earth and businesslike, without any humor.

Why is this profile great?

  • Anthony has a well-rounded profile with a clear focus on his key accomplishments. This way, you can see at a glance what he can do for your company.
  • He uses bullet points to highlight his most important points, so busy readers can extract the important information quickly.
  • There is an ample amount of endorsed skills and recommendations, which adds to social proof.
  • Anthony includes a link to his publication. This way, you can buy the book but also connect the man and the author.

9. Elise Micheals

Elise Michaels
Elise Micheals

Elise has a sales background, but she’s turned her skills into a new career: coaching.

What’s awesome about this profile?

  • Elise’s profile picture has a video behind it if you click. The video message makes her likable and approachable instantly, which is especially important for someone in her field.
  • Her banner image precisely says what she does – Coaching, specifically for men. She also helps men push past their failures and work through what’s holding them back.
  • The headline clearly states what problem she solves, how she does it, and for whom.
  • Elise’s summary uses bulleted lists to outline the problems and solutions she offers, being more specific than her headline.
  • As a professional coach, she has listed all her licenses and certifications to establish credibility.

10. Jay Baer

Jay Baer
Jay Baer

Jay is a superstar marketer for Convince and Convert, as well as a conference speaker and writer. However, that doesn’t mean that his profile has to be boring. Far from it.

Why is this profile incredible?

  • Jay has a great headshot that makes one want to know more about him. In particular, his smile is friendly and engaging.
  • A branded cover photo shows off his skill set and his tagline while remaining minimalist.
  • Jay’s headline is precise and punchy so you’ll remember it easily.
  • The opening lines of his summary are to the point and give an immediate impression of his expertise in marketing.

11. Juhli Selby

Juhli Selby
Juhli Selby

Juhli is a trainer who specializes in teaching small businesses to do marketing. Her practice focuses on social media techniques.

What is good about this profile?

  • Juhli uses a very inviting profile photo combined with her background photo to almost personally welcome us into her backyard in British Columbia. For someone who works with small business owners, this is highly effective because SMBs thrive on personal relationships.
  • Her headline is equally inviting, not just in making it clear as to what her specialties are, but also that she is about building relationships online and connecting with opportunity. In other words, Juhli pitches herself as approachable.
  • She continues this welcoming environment by featuring her women’s business networking LinkedIn Live replays. Of course, it’s also a great example of simple content marketing.
  • Finally, her profile summary begins by focusing on her passion ”to help get more positive voices online” and ends with her real-life passions, humanizing her profile and truly completing a welcoming presence on LinkedIn.

12. Anthony English

Anthony English
Anthony English

Anthony is a business coach, but he also has a heavy IT background. This makes him a multifaceted professional with a diverse point of view. In this profile, Anthony emphasizes coaching because he runs a business doing it.

Why does this profile rock?

  • In the headline, he talks about someone named Rachel who charges what she’s worth. This is bound to immediately pique your interest. It also tells what problem he solves for people: not knowing what they are worth professionally, and how to ask for it.
  • You will never see another about section like this one. It tells a fictional story about Rachel who is struggling with imposter syndrome. The story is relatable because it talks about the struggles and aspirations of his target audience: small business owners.
  •  The summary also has a clever CTA that subtly nudges the reader to connect with him – “Do you know a Rachel? She probably wants to connect with me.” Best of all, the CTA drives home his point that someone who is stuck in a rut business-wise needs a coach like him.

LinkedIn Profile Examples Conclusion

Writing a killer LinkedIn profile is important for professionals. After all, LinkedIn these days is more than a resume site. Instead, it’s a place where professionals build their personal brands and look for new opportunities. I hope that these LinkedIn profile examples have helped you to see where your own profile is great, and where it might be lacking.

By Neal Schaffer

Neal Schaffer is an authority on helping innovative businesses digitally transform their sales and marketing. Founder of the digital marketing consultancy PDCA Social, Neal currently serves as a Fractional CMO to several companies. He also teaches at Rutgers Business School and the Irish Management Institute. Fluent in Japanese and Mandarin Chinese, Neal is a popular keynote speaker and has spoken on four continents in more than a dozen countries. He is also the author of 4 sales and marketing books, including Maximize Your Social (Wiley) and the recently published The Age of Influence (HarperCollins Leadership), a ground-breaking book redefining digital influence. Check out Neal’s Maximize Your Social Influence podcast for marketing inspiration.

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How LinkedIn Uses Machine Learning To Rank Your Feed

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In this post, you will learn to clarify business problems & constraints, understand problem statements, select evaluation metrics, overcome technical challenges, and design high-level systems.

LinkedIn feed is the starting point for millions of users on this website and it builds the first impression for the users, which, as you know, will last. Having an interesting personalized feed for each user will deliver LinkedIn’s most important core value which is to keep the users connected to their network and their activities and build professional identity and network.

LinkedIn’s Personalized Feed offers users the convenience of being able to see the updates from their connections quickly, efficiently, and accurately. In addition to that, it filters out your spammy, unprofessional, and irrelevant content to keep you engaged. To do this, LinkedIn filters your newsfeed in real-time by applying a set of rules to determine what type of content belongs based on a series of actionable indicators & predictive signals. This solution is powered by Machine Learning and Deep Learning algorithms.

In this article, we will cover how LinkedIn uses machine learning to feed the user’s rank. We will follow the workflow of a conventional machine learning project as covered in these two articles before:

The machine learning project workflow starts with the business problem statement and defining the constraints. Then it is followed by data collection and data preparation. Then modeling part, and finally, the deployment and putting the model into production. These steps will be discussed in the context of ranking the LinkedIn feed.

How LinkedIn Uses Machine Learning To Rank Your Feed 

LinkedIn / Photo by Alexander Shatov on Unsplash

1. Clarify Business Problems & Constraints

1.1. Problem Statement

Designing a personalized LinkedIn feed to maximize the long-term engagement of the user. Since the LinkedIn feed should provide beneficial professional content for each user to increase his long-term engagement. Therefore it is important to develop models that eliminate low-quality content and leave only high-quality professional content. However, it is important, not overzealous about filtering content from the feed, or else it will end up with a lot of false positives. Therefore we should aim for high precision and recall for the classification models.

We can measure user engagement by measuring the click probability or known as the ClickThroughRate (CTR). On the LinkedIn feed, there are different activities, and each activity has a different CTR; this should be taken into consideration when collecting data and training the models. There are five main activity types:

  • Building connections: Member connects or follows another member or company, or page.
  • Informational: Sharing posts, articles, or pictures
  • Profile-based activity: Activities related to the profile, such as changing the profile picture, adding a new experience, changing the profile header, etc.
  • Opinion-specific activity: Activities that are related to member opinions such as likes or comments or reposting a certain post, article, or picture.
  • Site-specific activity: Activities that are specific to LinkedIn such as endorsement and applying for jobs.

1.2. Evaluation Metrics Design

There are two main types of metrics: offline and online evaluation metrics. We use offline metrics to evaluate our model during the training and modeling phase. The next step is to move to a staging/sandbox environment to test for a small percentage of the real traffic. In this step, the online metrics are used to evaluate the impact of the model on the business metrics. If the revenue-related business metrics show a consistent improvement, it will be safe to expose the model to a larger percentage of the real traffic.

Offline Metrics

Maximizing CTR can be formalized as training a supervised binary classifier model. Therefore for the offline metrics, the normalized cross entropy can be used since it helps the model to be less sensitive to background CTR:

 

How LinkedIn Uses Machine Learning To Rank Your Feed 

 

Online Metrics

Since the online metrics should reflect the level of engagement of users when the model is deployed, we can use the conversion rate, which is the ratio of clicks per feed.

1.3. Technical Requirements

The technical requirements will be divided into two main categories: during training and during inference. The technical requirements during training are:

  • Large training set: One of the main requirements during training is to be able to handle the large training dataset. This requires distributed training settings.
  • Data shift: In social networks, it is very common to have a data distribution shift from offline training data to online data. A possible solution to this problem is to retrain the models incrementally multiple times per day.

The technical requirements during inference are:

  • Scalability: To be able to serve customized user feeds for more than 300 million users.
  • Latency: It is important to have short latency to be able to provide the users with the ranked feed in less than 250 ms. Since multiple pipelines need to pull data from numerous sources before feeding activities into the ranking models, all these steps need to be done within 200 ms. Therefore the
  • Data freshness: It is important that the models be aware of what the user had already seen, else the feeds will show repetitive content, which will decrease user engagement. Therefore the data needs to run really fast.

1.4. Technical challenges

There are four main technical challenges:

  • Scalability: One of the main technical challenges is the scalability of the system. Since the number of LinkedIn users that need to be served is extremely large, around 300 million users. Every user, on average, sees 40 activities per visit, and each user visits 10 times per month on average. Therefore we have around 120 billion observations or samples.
  • Storage: Another technical challenge is the huge data size. Assume that the click-through rate is 1% each month. Therefore the collected positive data will be about 1 billion data points, and the negative labels will be 110 billion negatives. We can assume that for every data point, there are 500 features, and for simplicity of calculation, we can assume every row of features will need 500 bytes to be stored. Therefore for one month, there will be 120 billion rows, each of 500 bytes therefore, the total size will be 60 Terabytes. Therefore we will have to only keep the data of the last six months or the last year in the data lake and archive the rest in cold storage.
  • Personalization: Another technical challenge will be personalization since you will have different users to serve with different interests so you need to make sure that the models are personalized for each user.
  • Content Quality Assessment: Since there is no perfect classifier. Therefore some of the content will fall into a gray zone where even two humans can have difficulty agreeing on whether or not it’s appropriate content to show to the users. Therefore it became important to combine man+machine solutions for content quality assessment.

2. Data Collection

Before training the machine learning classifier, we first need to collect labeled data so that the model can be trained and evaluated. Data collection is a critical step in data science projects as we need to collect representative data of the problem we are trying to solve and to be similar to what is expected to be seen when the model is put into production. In this case study, the goal is to collect a lot of data across different types of posts and content, as mentioned in subsection 1.1.

The labeled data we would like to collect, in our case, will click or not click labeled data from the user’s feeds. There are three main approaches to do collect click and no-click data:

  • Rank user’s feed chronically: The data will be collected from the user feed, which will be ranked chronically. This approach can be used to collect the data. However, it will be based on the user’s attention will be attracted to the first few feeds. Also, this approach will induce a data sparsity problem as some activities, such as job changes, rarely happen compared to other activities, so they will be underrepresented in your data.
  • Random serving: The second approach will be randomly serving the feed and collecting click and no click data. This approach is not preferred as it will lead to a bad user experience and non-representative data, and also it does not help with the data sparsity problem.
  • Use an algorithm to rank the feed: The last approach we can use is to use an algorithm to rank the user’s feed and then use permutation to randomly shuffle the top feeds. This will provides some randomness to the feed and will help to collect data from different activities.

3. Data Preprocessing & Feature Engineering

The third step will be preparing the data for the modeling step. This step includes data cleaning, data preprocessing, and feature engineering. Data cleaning will deal with missing data, outliers, and noisy text data. Data preprocessing will include standardization or normalization, handling text data, dealing with imbalanced data, and other preprocessing techniques depending on the data. Feature Engineering will include feature selection and dimensionality reduction. This step mainly depends on the data exploration step as you will gain more understanding and will have better intuition about the data and how to proceed in this step.

The features that can be extracted from the data are:

  • User profile features: These features include job title, user industry, demographic, education, previous experience, etc. These features are categorical features, so they will have to be converted into numerical as most of the models cannot handle categorical features. For higher cardinality, we can use feature embeddings, and for lower cardinality, we can use one hot encoding.
  • Connection strength features: These features represent the similarities between users. We can use embeddings for users and measure the distance between them to calculate the similarity.
  • Age of activity features: These features represent the age of each activity. This can be handled as a continuous feature or can be binned depending on the sensitivity of the click target.
  • Activity features: These features represent the type of activity. Such as hashtags, media, posts, and so on. These features will also be categorical, and also as before, they have to be converted into numerical using feature embeddings or one hot encoding depending on the level of cardinality.
  • Affinity features: These features represent the similarity between users and activities.
  • Opinion features: These features represent the user’s likes/comments on posts, articles, pictures, job changes,s and other activities.

Since the CTR is usually very small (less than 1%) it will result in an imbalanced dataset. Therefore a critical step in the data preprocessing phase is to make sure that the data is balanced. Therefore we will have to resample the data to increase the under-represented class.

However, this should be done only to the training set and not to the validation and testing set, as they should represent the data expected to be seen in production.

4. Modeling

Now the data is ready for the modeling part, it is time to select and train the model. As mentioned, this is a classification problem, with the target value in this classification problem being the click. We can use the Logistic Regression model for this classification task. Since the data is very large, then we can use distributed training using logistic regression in Spark or using the Method of Multipliers.

We can also use deep learning models in distributed settings. In which the fully connected layers will be used with the sigmoid activation function applied to the final layers.

For evaluation, we can follow two approaches the first is the conventional splitting of the data into training and validation sets. Another approach to avoid biased offline evaluation is to use replayed evaluation as the following:

  • Assume we have training data up to time point T. The validation data will start from T+1, and we will order their ranking using the trained model.
  • Then the output of the model is compared with the actual click, and the number of matched predicted clicks is calculated.

There are a lot of hyperparameters to be optimized one of them is the size of training data and the frequency of retaining the model. To keep the model updated, we can fine-tune the existing deep learning model with training data of the recent six months, for example.

5. High-Level Design

We can summarize the whole process of the feed ranking with this high-level design shown in figure 1.

Let’s see how the flow of the feed ranking process occurs, as shown in the figure below:

  • When the user visits the LinkedIn homepage, requests are sent to the Application server for feeds.
  • The Application server sends feed requests to the Feed Service.
  • Feed Service then gets the latest model from the model store and the right features from the Feature Store.
  • Feature Store: Feature store, stores the feature values. During inference, there should be low latency to access features before scoring.
  • Feed Service receives all the feeds from the ItemStore.
  • Item Store: Item store stores all activities generated by users. In addition to that, it also stores the models for different users. Since it is important to maintain a consistent user experience by providing the same feed rank method for each user. ItemStore provides the right model for the right users.
  • Feed Service will then provide the model with the features to get predictions. The feed service here represents both the retrieval and ranking service for better visualization.
  • The model will return the feeds ranked by CTR likelihood which is then returned to the application server.

 

How LinkedIn Uses Machine Learning To Rank Your Feed 

Figure 1. LinkedIn feed ranking high-level design.

To scale the feed ranking system, we can put a Load Balancer in front of the Application Servers. This will balance and distribute the load among the several application servers in the system.

 

How LinkedIn Uses Machine Learning To Rank Your Feed 

Figure 2. The scaled LinkedIn feed ranking high-level design.

6. References

  1. Strategies for Keeping the LinkedIn Feed Relevant
  2. Machine Learning Design Interview

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Youssef Hosni is Co-Founder at Elfehres, Ph.D. Researcher – Computer vision, and Data Scientist

Sourced from KDnuggets

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3 Ways to Supercharge Your LinkedIn Marketing Today for Tomorrow’s Growth

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What are the best tips to make LinkedIn your champion marketing channel? Here’s your answer.

LinkedIn is “the place to be” for online professional networking. But why is that? Why do more than 830 million business professionals from over 200 countries use the platform?

There’s no simple answer, but there are a few foundational reasons to employ a LinkedIn marketing campaign: to grow your professional network, to identify high-quality leads, to drive targeted traffic to your website and to share thought-leadership content.

Knowing why you should use LinkedIn is a good start, but it’s only that. A generic approach isn’t likely to generate the results you’re seeking. You need to supercharge your LinkedIn marketing efforts, and here are three of the best ways to do so.

Ask your team for help

You can make a lot of noise on LinkedIn as a single person, but there’s no reason to stop there. Ask your team to get involved. As the most reputable and reliable advocates of your brand, they can expand your reach in just a few short minutes each day.

Ensure that all employees have updated their profiles to reflect their position at your company. Request that they follow your company page. Encourage them to share personal and brand-related updates. And of course, support them on their quest to provide value to their audience.

Another idea is to create a LinkedIn Group related to your industry. This is a win-win. It’s a place for your team to share news, guidance, and advice with interested parties, while also building an audience that you can use to your advantage in the future.

If resources allow for it, hire a dedicated employee or contractor to manage your LinkedIn marketing strategy. With a singular focus, this person can make a bigger impact in a shorter period of time. It’s not required, but keep it on your radar.

Consistently publish relevant, insightful content

A social network with so many users is sure to generate quite a bit of low-quality content, but you don’t want to be part of this group. Be part of the group that consistently publishes relevant, insightful and actionable content. That’s how you stand out from the crowd.

Creating engaging content is a trial-and-error process. It takes time to pinpoint your audience’s needs and find a cadence that works for you, so don’t jump ship too soon. It could take days, weeks or even months to hit your content-related goals for the first time.

Increase your odds of success by:

  • Consistently sharing content (1x/day, 2x/day, 5x/week, etc.).
  • Publishing unique (not rehashed) insights
  • Tracking what does and doesn’t work and adjusting accordingly

Also, keep in mind that publishing original content is only one piece of the puzzle. It’s good practice to engage with your audience in the comment section of their posts. Share your take, answer questions and — when appropriate — send direct messages to continue the conversation in private.

Don’t bite off more than you can chew early on. Start slowly to gain your footing and to better understand the wants and needs of your audience. As you settle in, ramp up content production without sacrificing quality. A slow and steady ascent is the best approach.

Get serious about analytics for your content

This one word — analytics — can be the difference between success and failure on LinkedIn. Creating content is only the start. Knowing what’s resonating with your audience is what really matters. This allows you to continually adjust your strategy with the goal of reaching a larger audience and boosting engagement.

You can view analytics for all types of LinkedIn content including short-form posts, articles, videos, images, polls and events. This includes data such as:

  • Engagements
  • Discovery
  • Impressions by demographics
  • Article performance
  • Video performance

These insights are needed to understand the impact your content has on your audience. Soon enough, you’ll have the data you need to determine what type of content generates the best response. You can then create more content that matches what’s worked to date.

While it’s important to get serious about analytics for your LinkedIn content, don’t let it cloud your vision. Know what matters most to you — such as making industry connections or generating leads — and create content that points you in that direction. Vanity metrics will make you feel good, but they don’t always have the intended impact on your bottom line.

Repurpose your LinkedIn content

The guidance above will help you supercharge your LinkedIn marketing, but it can do more than that. It’s a good jumping-off point for growth on other platforms and channels marketing professionals will use to their advantage.

Examples include repurposing the content for publication on Twitter and Facebook, using it as a foundation for blog content or sharing it with your email list via a weekly newsletter. When you repurpose content, you give it new life. And with that, you’re taking the steps necessary to establish your authority and grow your brand on other platforms.

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Sourced from Entrepreneur

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Social media is creating a new era of resumes—what hiring teams can learn

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By Bailey Showalter

TikTok and LinkedIn created room for video resumes and more personalization for applicants

When social media first came into our lives, the common practice was don’t post anything you wouldn’t want your future employer to see. However, as social media has become more ubiquitous, our personal and professional lives have blurred. Social sites like Facebook, WhatsApp, and LinkedIn have offered ways for individuals to find new jobs using their platform of choice.

Even TikTok announced its own feature to help job seekers find opportunities. More individuals are using social media with the goal of getting employed, showcasing their interests, and creating a digital, resume-like portfolio.

For over a decade, social media platforms like YouTube and Instagram have enabled individuals to promote themselves and their personal brands while enjoying creative freedom to showcase their talents. Employers are still struggling to fill open positions and individuals searching for jobs that provide autonomy and higher levels of fulfillment. Luckily, many aspects of social media can help hiring teams reframe their talent attraction strategies to make the best talent match for their needs.

A resume is still the primary currency of hiring

No matter the job, company, or industry, resumes still largely drive the hiring process, but resume formatting and delivery have evolved. Video resumes help employers shift hiring requirements (pdf) from education and experience to skills. Although the need for a resume has remained constant, this new era of hiring calls for a more modern perspective.

The traditional resume emphasizes education and experience, typically with previous jobs and degrees at the top, taking up a significant portion of the document. Job-relevant skills are developed through many avenues, both in and outside of formal training or workplace projects. Yet hard and soft skills, certifications and credentials, general interests, outside activities and ways to express intent for continual upskilling get buried at the bottom of a resume—or left off entirely. While this has been the norm, resumes should now be revamped with candidate skills at the forefront, showcasing what they can do versus what they have done.

Recruiters and hiring teams need to adjust their approach to what a resume should entail—with an emphasis on skills as the forefront of qualifications—to better recruit and hire the right fit for the job.

Quick, easily digestible information is critical

Social media doesn’t show every waking minute of individuals’ lives (depending on who you follow), but instead can highlight meaningful moments, enticing viewers to learn more. In the same way, resumes don’t represent the totality of a candidate’s capabilities and potential for success. Resumes exist to garner the attention needed to advance a candidate through the hiring process. Unfortunately, traditionally formatted resumes struggle to effectively articulate skills, limiting a recruiter’s ability to evaluate whether a potential candidate has the skills to be successful.

Digital credentials can bring greater reliability and trust to the hiring process. By providing a unified language of understanding to individuals’ hard and soft skills, digital credentials signify verified, data-backed qualifications and provide greater insight into the whole picture of an applicant’s abilities rather than saddling hiring teams with the task of filling in the blanks.

Studies show us that a hiring manager spends on average 6-7 seconds reviewing a resume. In that time, hiring managers need quick, easily digestible insights to help determine if the candidate is qualified to move forward in the process. So, while watching 3-minute video resumes might not be easily scalable for most recruiters, the notion of putting one’s skills at the forefront of their resume is here to stay.

Skills-based hiring and digital credentials

There is a nearly unprecedented mismatch between the number of open jobs and the number of people applying for those positions, with over 6 million potential candidates (pdf) and more than 11 million job vacancies in today’s hiring landscape. This large gap has amplified the need for capable workers, with hiring teams shifting expectations from those who “have done” a job to those who “can do” the job because of their skills, qualifications, and interest more than their past experience alone.

Many workers who left roles as part of the great resignation have shifted their career trajectory entirely. While they may be entering new industries without a traditional background, these job candidates likely have transferable skills that match well with their ambitions for a new role. But to match talent with suitable roles and close the hiring gap, talent management teams must be willing to prioritize skills in their review practices.

Additionally, previously identified skills that were a nice-to-have for job requirements are now must-haves for hiring. For example, in this digital world, hard skills such as working with tools like Microsoft Suite are crucial for remote or hybrid work and ensuring collaboration capabilities. Similarly, in a remote-first, digital world, a soft skill companies should prioritize is a candidate’s propensity for learning and upskilling. Both of these skills can be shown through verified digital credentials, whether it is a certificate of completion for mastery of a specific tool or an individual’s many certifications and badges, demonstrating their willingness to learn and expand their skill sets.

For hiring teams, reorienting their talent management strategy is crucial to understanding this new era of skills-based hiring. Social media has provided an excellent opportunity to understand better what does and doesn’t work in this digital environment. Each individual has a chance to show their unique skills,while hiring teams will have a competitive advantage in finding and retaining the best talent.

Feature Image Credit: Photo: fizkes (Shutterstock)

By Bailey Showalter

Bailey Showalter, VP of talent solutions at Credly, a business of Pearson, where she is focused on growth initiatives that help people connect to the right opportunity at the right time on the basis of their verified skills.

Sourced from QUARTZ

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Everybody wants to be a LinkedInfluencer

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By Rebecca Jennings

And the biggest power users are turning to ghostwriters.

In August, the CEO of Ohio-based marketing company HyperSocial decided that the best way to publicly deal with the layoffs he authorized at his company would be to post a photo of himself crying. “This will be the most vulnerable thing I’ll ever share,” wrote Braden Wallake in a LinkedIn post, then proceeded to detail the emotional toll that letting go of two of his employees had on … him, the CEO, who still had a job.

Within days, Wallake had become a meme, shorthand for the type of oversharing, virtue-signalling hustle bro who racks up thousands of followers on platforms like Twitter, Instagram, and, most especially, LinkedIn. LinkedIn has always had its own curious posting conventions; while ostensibly geared toward average white-collar professionals seeking job opportunities or a talent pool to hire from, this year the company has gone all-in on “creators.” That is, users hoping to build a personal brand by spouting entrepreneurial advice or nuggets of wisdom (LinkedInfluencers, if you will). When such tools are wielded with skill, those who succeed can nab book deals and speaking gigs.

When done sloppily, they may end up on, say, the very popular Twitter account called @StateOfLinkedIn, which is devoted to mocking the worst offenders. A scroll through its timeline reveals long-winded, self-congratulatory threads detailing anecdotes that probably/definitely didn’t happen, bizarrely poetic descriptions of a day in the life of an entrepreneur, and “subtle” flexes of luxury logos. Together they make up a new sort of business-speak — less jargony a la Office Space and more inspiration-porn a la Gary Vaynerchuk — that runs rampant on places like LinkedIn.

For aspiring LinkedInfluencers, the field has never been more competitive. LinkedIn told Vox that there are currently 13 million users with “creator mode” turned on (a setting that expands the kinds of features users can deploy in order to grow their audience). Perhaps unsurprisingly, its focus on making its users famous has made it look and feel quite a lot like Facebook, as many have pointed out. There have never been more people trying to become LinkedInfluencers, and there have never been so many resources they can pay for to do it.

That’s why many of them are turning to professional ghostwriters to spearhead their content strategies. “There’s this perception that ghostwriting is like having someone else do your homework for you, but it’s a collaborative process, and it frees up so much of [the client’s] time,” says Amelia Forczak, founder of the ghostwriting firm Pithy Wordsmithery. In the past few years, her business has doubled.

Forczak specializes in ghostwriting how-to books for her clients, but social media is often a crucial first step. A typical client might be an executive in the corporate world who’s well-respected within their company or industry but not widely known outside of it, and often, those who’ve been in business and tech for decades have no idea how to self-promote. “They’ve had PR training where they’ve learned not to talk about anything personal,” she explains, “or anything that can be used against you.”

Now, the standard advice for LinkedInfluencers is to do the exact opposite: avoid business jargon and sound like a person. Nothing has made this clearer than the pandemic, which forced white-collar workers to move their lives, and more importantly, their reputations, online. “It’s cliché, but it’s true that people want to work with people, people buy from people, people want to see the human side of who you are before they decide to work with you,” says Tara Horstmeyer, an Atlanta-based ghostwriter who offers packages for 12 LinkedIn posts for anywhere between $2,000 and $3,000.

In the same time span, ghostwriting for entrepreneurs has turned into a desirable and potentially lucrative career. Earlier this month, Business Insider published an anonymous account of a tech startup founder who makes $200,000 on his side hustle writing tweets for venture capitalists. “Funders have to build parasocial relationships with founders,” he explains. “A founder might read a tweet from a VC and say: ‘Wow, he’s a cool guy. He’s in on the joke. I want him on my board.’”

LinkedIn ghostwriters I spoke to say that they receive daily inquiries on how to break into the field. Horstmeyer says she’s constantly referring incoming work to other writers she knows, and is considering offering an online course to help aspiring writers build up a client base. Mishka Rana, a 22-year-old college student in India, says that she’s turned down several job offers because her ghostwriting business generates enough income to support her. “I know a lot of people who have left their corporate jobs to start their own agencies,” she says, attributing this in part to the favourable exchange rates (several of her clients are US- or UK-based). Her content packages, which start at $800 for one month and go up to $9,000 for multi-month commitments, have afforded her the ability to buy a car and travel domestically and internationally.

Ghostwriters, though, do more than just write; most of the writers I spoke to also describe their work as content strategy and marketing. Emily Crookston of the Pocket PhD was a philosophy professor before pivoting to ghostwriting; she says her LinkedIn services, for which she charges $2,500 per month, including blogging, strategy, and posts, had become particularly popular during the pandemic. Just like any other social media platform, there’s a little bit of gaming the algorithm, too. Many LinkedIn super users join “pods,” or groups of people who agree to like, comment on, and share each other’s posts in an attempt to increase their engagement. “LinkedIn is really savvy about pods — it knows, and it will hurt your engagement,” she warns. But the biggest mistake people make is “posting and ghosting,” failing to engage with other people’s posts and “using it like a billboard,” she explains.

It’s ironic, considering that one of the major benefits of having a career in tech and finance is the freedom not to have to do this kind of laborious self-promotion. That’s more typically reserved for artists and other people in creative industries, where the field is saturated and competitive and relies heavily on relationships and clout. Like probably any writer, I’ve briefly fantasized about what my life might look like if I worked in, say, finance, or some other high-paying but entirely anonymous job where I felt zero attachment to the numbers I entered into the screen every day and forgot about them on my way out the door. The idea that such a job may also require you to preen and maintain your digital profiles for maximum consumption makes the whole career seem far less enviable — but I suppose that’s why people hire ghostwriters.

Wallake, it seems, has not arrived at this same conclusion. A week ago, the crying CEO ended up on @StateOfLinkedIn again. “My grandma passed away today,” he began his post. The moral of his story was that perhaps hustle culture was making all of us miss out on the important things. A nice sentiment, of course — but not without ending with a plug for his own company.

This column was first published in The Goods newsletter.

By Rebecca Jennings

Sourced from VOX

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How Do People Find Your Blog? With Tips to Keep Them Coming Back

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By Steve Allen

Can you imagine starting a blog and having no one read your articles?

Maybe you’ve already written some, but you’re unsure how people will find them.

In this post, I’ll show you all the places people can find your blog and what you can do to improve your blog’s exposure.

You’ll learn:

  • How to get seen on social media including YouTube and LinkedIn
  • Increase your visibility on search engines like Google
  • Get more traffic from other blogs
  • Get visitors from forums and Q&A sites like Reddit and Quora

The best part?

You’ll know exactly how people can find your blog AND how to keep them coming back, convince them to join your email list, and transform them into loyal followers.

Let’s dive right in.

How Do People Find Your Blog on Google?

People will find your blog on Google in two ways:

  1. Organic results
  2. Paid results

Paid results are shown at the top of the page, like this:

And organic results show below:

To get your blog to show up under a paid search result, you’ll need to join the Google Ads platform.

It works by listing keywords you want your blog to show up for and paying Google each time someone clicks on your ad.

The cost of clicks will depend on your niche and the competition of the keywords you choose.

On average, ads get clicked 19% of the time compared to the rest of the page.

Organic Results

If you want Google to display your blog posts in the organic search results, then you need to optimise your blog for Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

Organic results are free, but will take longer to show up.

To get the most organic blog traffic, you’ll want to show up in position one.

Here’s a breakdown of how many people click through the organic search results:

And here’s how you do it.

  • Then make sure you include your keyword in article titles and throughout the post.
  • For best results, publish as much content as you can around the same topic.

This will build up topical relevance for your entire blog and help you rank more of your articles higher in Google.

Another way to optimize your blog to increase your rankings is to get backlinks from other bloggers (more on this later).

How Do People Find Your Blog on Facebook?

There are four places people will see links to your blog on Facebook. They are:

  • Pages
  • Groups
  • Ads
  • Search

Facebook Ads

Like Google, Facebook ads are a great way to get your blog seen and result in more traffic.

You’ll need a page and an Ads Manager account to post ads:

An ad with the goal of sending people to your blog will cost money each time someone clicks on the URL.

Again, the costs will vary depending on a multitude of factors, but you are in complete control by setting a daily budget.

Facebook Search

Another way people can find your blog on Facebook is through the search feature.

If someone is searching for a topic relevant to a blog post you have shared on your Facebook page, they can be shown in the results.

Like this one here about growing tomatoes:

The more Facebook posts you share on your page and the more you optimize the post with the relevant keywords, eye-catching images, and engaging copy, the more traffic you’ll get from Facebook search.

Facebook Pages

Facebook pages are another excellent way to help people find your blog, build a social media following on Facebook, and drive more traffic.

Once you have a Facebook page, follow these tips to grow your engagement and drive tons of traffic to your site.

  • Post high-quality posts that grab your followers’ attention. The more engagement, the better.
  • Video has been on the rise in recent years, so why not turn your blog posts into videos and share those on your feed?
  • Recycle your best-performing posts.
  • You can also boost posts with an ad to kick-start your engagement.

Facebook Groups

Facebook groups are great for building a loyal community on Facebook and getting your blog seen by more people.

The best way to grow your reach in a Facebook group is to share a ton of value without always posting links to your blog. This will get the conversation going with other members and they will soon start promoting your stuff for you.

Then every so often, let them know about new articles to get more eyes on your blog.

Learn more about how to start a thriving Facebook group here.

How Do People Find Your Blog on YouTube?

There are quite a few ways people can discover your blog on YouTube.Here are the most effective places to link to your blog content:

  • In the video description:
  • Links in video cards:
  • In a pinned comment:
  • The end screen (you can place YouTube videos and other links here):
  • Your channel profile banner:
  • Your channel about page:

It’s a good idea to add a link to your blog and specific articles in these areas whenever you have the opportunity.

Then, you can focus on posting videos on your channel and using the YouTube algorithm in your favor to grow your engagement and reach.

Here are some ways to get the algorithm on your side to grow your channel:

Check Other Content to See What’s Already Performing Well

This helps your videos show up in the suggested sidebar when people watch videos similar to yours.

To find out what’s already performed well, go to a similar channel to yours and look at their videos with the most views.

Then open up a few of them and see which videos show up in the suggested section.

Creating videos like the ones suggested will help your own videos show up there.

Optimize Every Video

To increase the chance of your videos showing in search results, optimize your videos.

You can do that by talking about topics that people are searching for, including the keyword in the title, and saying the keyword and related terms in the video itself.

Also, make sure you add relevant keywords to the tags box under the advanced option of every video.

Niche Website Management

Keep People Engaged Throughout the Video

This is possibly the most effective way to grow your channel quickly because YouTube wants people to stay on the platform for as long as possible.

You can do this by starting your video with a pattern interrupt, a Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) technique that shifts a person out of their current state and helps them focus on what you’re saying.

Tell the viewer exactly what they’ll learn in the video early on and give them an incentive to stick around to the end.

That could be a gift you want to offer them or something insightful they will find interesting.

How Do People Find Your Blog on TikTok?

Did you know people can find your blog through your TikTok account?

It’s true.

Unfortunately, the only place you can put a link to your blog is in your bio. Not only that, but you need a business account and 1,000 followers.

There is another way to create a clickable link though, which is covered in another article called How to Add a Website To Your TikTok.

To get your first 1,000 followers so you can add a link in your bio and help people find your blog, you’ll need to post high-quality posts frequently.

Check out How to Make a Viral Video on TikTok to learn how to grow your following.

How Do People Find Your Blog on Pinterest?

There are just two places to link to your blog on Pinterest.

Standard Pins:

And your profile page:

But how do people find your blog when using Pinterest?

Like all social networks, the Pinterest algorithm determines the best content to show its users.

If you want to increase blog traffic with Pinterest, then you can improve your reach by optimizing your Pins and posting regularly.

To add your blog URL to your profile, edit your profile and enter it under the website option.

Then, linking to a blog post happens automatically when you or someone else shares your content on Pinterest.

Alternatively, you can include your blog post link when creating Pinterest Pins manually.

How Do People Find Your Blog on Twitter?

On Twitter, people can find your blog through the Tweets you post and from the link on your profile page.

Your profile:

In a Tweet:

It’s important to remember that people who use Twitter or any social network will need to grow their following to help people find their blog more frequently.

To grow your following on Twitter, follow other bloggers or influencers who are in your niche and comment on their posts with valuable insights.

The people who follow these accounts will soon start following you and find your blog that way.

People can also find your blog posts when searching for topics on Twitter.

The more you post relevant content that is well optimized, the more you’ll show up in the results.

How Do People Find Your Blog on LinkedIn?

LinkedIn is the social media site for B2B professionals and business owners.

You can send traffic to your blog by placing a link on your profile page and in posts you share.

Also, make sure you create a company page for your blog because you can add a link here as well.

Then, you’ll need to grow your reach and engagement by posting content on the platform.

You can do this from your personal and company profiles. Provide original content that your connections will find useful and you’ll generate a steady flow of blog traffic.

How Do People Find Your Blog on Forums and Q&A Sites?

Want to get more traffic with Reddit or Quora?

These are also great sites where people can find your blog.

Reddit is like a modern day forum where people can discuss almost every topic under the sun.

You can create an account, add your blog URL in your bio, and join subreddits in your niche. Then share things that the users will appreciate. Some people can get thousands of visitors using Reddit.

Quora is a question-and-answer site that has become extremely popular in recent years. Instead of people having discussions on Quora, users ask questions, and bloggers, experts, and thought leaders answer them.

You can be one of those people who answer questions, sharing your perspective on topics related to your blog.

Then add a link to blog posts you’ve published that expand on the topics.

How Do People Find Your Blog Through Other Blogs?

So far, we’ve looked at all the ways people can find your blog through social media and Google search results.

But how do you get a steady flow of traffic from other blogs?

There are several ways to increase your visibility and traffic through blog marketing.

Blog marketing involves getting other bloggers to link to your content. When their readers see a link to your article, they will click through to your blog.

Here’s how you can do it.

Other Bloggers Linking to Your Content Organically

This is the most organic way to get consistent traffic from other bloggers.

The best way to accomplish this is to focus on creating quality content on your own blog.

Then, link to other bloggers’ blog posts and reach out to them, letting them know you linked to them. Some will soon return the favor and link back to your blog.

Guest Post

Another way to get links from other blogs to your blog is through guest posting.

This is where you create an article for another blogger in your niche for a link back to your blog.

Podcasts and Interviews

A little known strategy for getting links back to your blog is by being a guest on another blogger’s podcast.

They will usually link to your website, which can help grow your blog readership.

How to Get People to Read Your Blog Posts?

You can ask people to read your blog in direct ways without being pushy. The key is to write influential words that develop trust and motivate people to take action.

Here are three tips for getting people to notice your blog and read your content.

1. Focus on Great Content with Tons of Value

Learn how to create blog content and develop a consistent publishing strategy.

Make your articles as valuable as possible so your audience will read for longer and want to join your email list.

2. Hook Them with Your Titles

No matter where people see a link to your blog, you’ll need to grab their attention. To do that, use catchy headlines on social media and in email subject lines. Also, optimize your SEO titles to get more traffic from Google search results.

3. Ask Them with a Call to Action

Most people are busy and easily distracted, that’s why it’s important to prompt them to take action at every opportunity including in your social media posts, in your bios, in your blog post introductions, and in your emails.

People have doubts and need motivation to take action, so tell them what you want them to do. They will appreciate the confidence in you and see you as a leader they can trust.

Conclusion

How do people find your blog? Well, this post provided you with tons of ways – through social media, Google search results, and even places like Reddit.

Ideally, because you want people to find your blog, the most effective way to get seen in the long run is by publishing quality articles and increasing organic traffic.

Then you can focus on other means of traffic when search traffic is steady.

 

 

By Steve Allen

Sourced from Niche Pursuits

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Why You Should Hire “Unqualified” Candidates

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By Suzanne Lucas

This is not LinkedIn influencer drivel. Holding out for the perfect candidate is a terrible idea.

You are not a perfect boss, and you don’t run a perfect company.

It may be your baby, and you would like to think it’s perfect (just as all parents believe their babies are the most beautiful baby ever), but the reality is, your company is just average. There are good things and bad things. Maybe it’s slightly above average, maybe slightly below. But the chances of your company being in the top 10 percent of companies to work for are pretty slim.

And yet, when you hire, do you look for the perfect person? The person who checks all the boxes? After all, you want only the most qualified people working for you. And, as such, are you struggling to fill your positions? (If you’re not, then feel free to disregard the rest.)

What if you chilled out a little and started looking at people who don’t check all the boxes?

A viral post on LinkedIn from Salina Dayton highlighted one company, Tegus, that encourages imperfect people to apply. Its job postings include this paragraph:

Don’t meet every single requirement? Studies have shown that women and people of colour are less likely to apply to jobs unless they meet every single qualification. At Tegus we are dedicated to building a diverse, inclusive and authentic workplace, so if you’re excited about this role but your past experience doesn’t align perfectly with every qualification in the job description, we encourage you to apply anyways. You may be just the right candidate for this or other roles.

What would happen if you followed Tegus’s example? Think about these things:

  • Just about anybody can learn to do just about anything with enough desire and hard work. You didn’t roll out of bed one morning and know everything you do now. You had to learn and work and struggle.
  • Lots of skills are similar. If you can program in one language, it’s easier to learn a second programming language. Look for similarities, not a perfect match.
  • You still have to train. Managers want to hire people who can “hit the ground running,” but those people don’t generally exist. You have to train everyone. So, don’t worry about the stress of having to train someone on a task. You’d have to train them in your systems, policies, and practices anyway.
  • There are more critical things than hard skills. You can teach hard skills. There are training classes for just about everything. But does the person have the drive? Are they interested in your industry? Do they have the soft skills that they need for this job? (Not every job requires the same soft skills.)
  • You get more candidates. Considering people without 100 percent of the skills broadens your talent pool. If you’re really set on finding the right person, getting more applicants can only help with that.

When you reject people who aren’t perfect, you have such a small talent pool of perfect people that they wouldn’t want to work for your imperfect company anyway. Go ahead and branch out, and it will benefit your business.

Feature Image Credit: Getty Images

By Suzanne Lucas

Sourced from Inc.

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