Do you wish to elevate your career to the next level? LinkedIn is arguably the best tool at your disposal to help you realize your career objectives. However, with the site having traffic of more than 400 million users, you have to set yourself apart from the masses by giving your profile a unique touch.
Before making your LinkedIn profile stand out, you might want to adjust your settings – hide your activity updates. Then, depending on the extent of your intended changes, your network or employer does not receive alerts about all your activities on the site. Nevertheless, in case of a big change you wish to share with the world, you can change the settings for that very purpose.
Stay Updated
In a dynamic society, it pays to always be up-to-date. Therefore, your LinkedIn profile should be updated in all instances and not only when you are job hunting. You can never be too sure who holds the key to your dreams. For all you know, a new company could be browsing profiles looking for you right now. And to help keep you updated, we share the following key ways to improve your profile.
How To Boost Your LinkedIn Profile
Fulfilling these steps puts your LinkedIn profile in a better place than most of your competitors on the site.
Let Your Name be in Lights
There are no restrictions on what you can call yourself. Additionally, you have the option of using the previous name function. This is handy when changing your name in your career, but you still wish to be found under the last name. You also get to choose who sees your last name.
Change the Public Profile Settings
LinkedIn will automatically set your profile to be visible to the public. However, you can customize the sections you wish to be seen by the public and sections to hide once your profile pops up in search engines.
The desire is usually for all the sections to be visible, though you might choose a different tactic when choosing the content to show.
Let Your Headshot Look Professional
You could use personal photos or hire an expert photographer, but have the correct image linked to your LinkedIn profile. This is a critical aspect of your profile and you should use a professional-looking photo that is industry-appropriate for your particular job of interest. In addition, a hiring manager or recruiter will want a feeling of personal connection with the candidate.
Including your photo on your LinkedIn profile boosts the chances of your profile getting views by about 40%. In contrast, a lack of a picture or a poor picture choice can negatively affect your profile.
Therefore, you should strive to have a professional or personal photo where you are professionally groomed. Pick a headshot that is not blurry and crops out the background and other distractions.
Use of Background Images
You can choose to complement the profile photo with a background image to heighten your branding. However, you should use images you are authorized to or have the right to use. Alternatively, you could use a meme creator to create an image quote depicting what you represent. This is an excellent avenue to demonstrate your brand. The photo size should be 1400 x 425 pixels and in .gif, .png, or .jpg format.
Get a Vanity URL
It becomes more convenient and practical to direct people to your LinkedIn profile once you possess a direct link bearing your name. In addition, LinkedIn lets you easily customize the profile URL, which you need to do if you have not already done it.
The lack of such a link makes you more likely to get stuck with the extensive generic links that are inconvenient to add to your resume.
Include Contact Information in the Appropriate Folder
Below your vanity URL and third from the top of the profile, you will find the option of including your Twitter handle, organization web address, three websites, email address, and phone number. These are arranged neatly in the address file at the bottom right corner of the intro box, beside the LinkedIn URL. Utilizing this section gives hiring managers an easier time when trying to get in touch with you.
Change The Public Profile Settings
LinkedIn will automatically set your profile to be visible to the public. However, you can customize the sections you wish to be seen by the public and sections to hide once your profile pops up in search engines.
The desire is usually for all the sections to be visible, though you might choose a different tactic when choosing the content to show.
Take Maximum Advantage Of The Tagline
Optimization of your tagline is essential to any LinkedIn profile. In the tagline, otherwise referred to as the headline, you should use descriptors, deliverables, and keywords with which you wish recruiters and hiring managers to associate you.
Ensure you avoid this line defaulting to your job title. Instead, you should exploit the 120-character field to offer your profile readers your professional brand sneak peek. This should make them eager to learn more about you and thus click on your profile link. Hiring managers typically use such keywords to identify you.
If you are confused about the type of phrases and keywords to employ, check job descriptions matching your search and choose the ones that best describe you.
Create an Experience Section and an Achievement-driven Summary Section
The summary field is a 2,000-character area you can use to exhibit your key accomplishments and achievements. Furthermore, you may reference other profile parts here to motivate the reader to continue scrolling to subsequent sections where they can find more detailed information on your work.
You can begin building your brand in this section. Do away with the clichés and fluff and replace them with solid action-fueled information. Allow your personality to shine and get to your prospective employer. Go beyond saying you are results-oriented and demonstrate it by citing particular results in the profile.
It would be best if you aimed at ensuring you give an excellent first impression in the opening 363 profile section characters. Why this odd number? It is because these many characters show on your page at first glance.
Utilize Keywords in Experience and Summary Sections
The essence of keywords does not end at the tagline but extends throughout the profile. In your experience and summary sections, you should use terms that make it easy for hiring managers to locate you through keyword search.
Pro tip: Cut and paste a job description into Word Cloud applications such as Wordle.net to identify acronyms and keywords in your profile. You can then include the keywords in your experience and summary content sections. In addition, you should use the exact keywords when creating your skills section of the page.
Consider words that exhibit your abilities, skill sets, and subject expertise in the experience and summary sections, if applicable.
Exhibit Your Work
Various profile sections allow you to showcase your professional credentials and work while demonstrating your personality. In addition, all these sections demonstrate the dimension of your general brand.
For instance, you can use your project section to highlight work concerning your profession. However, ensure you have permission from the proper authority to publicly use the material on your profile. This is an excellent option for graphic artists, copywriters, corporate trainers, and conference speakers. The choice you make here could help make you stand out from the competition.
Include useful information in all the sections like projects, publications, volunteer experience, and courses. Upload all applicable videos, presentations, and media and ensure all the included content adds weight to your brand.
Conclusion
A LinkedIn profile can be likened to a personal landing page. If you wish to do any lead generation, outreach, or general marketing using LinkedIn, one thing you have to do is enhance your profile. When prospects scroll through the profile, it should give them a clear image of what you do, how to get in touch with you, and what you bring to the table. The points above should help your profile communicate all these.
