10 things to do right in your LinkedIn Profile (Part 1)

LinkedIn, a professional networking platform that helps connect the right candidates to the right companies. Which makes it crucial to have a well-optimized profile because your prospective recruiters might land to your LinkedIn profile by the time you are reading this article and judging you based on how well structured your LinkedIn profile is!

In this article, I will be sharing 10 tips using which you can make your LinkedIn profile stand out more than others who are unaware of the tips.

 

1. Custom URL

Like websites, you get a web address URL too on LinkedIn. Let’s understand this with an example. How would it look if you search for Amazon.com and the URL comes like Amazon.com-478b98100, does not look nice, right? 

Similarly, when you create a Linkedin account, the URL comes with some numbers and letters beside your name. 

If you want your profile to be easy to find, then customise your URL that consists only of your name and no extra numbers.

Here are the steps:

> To do that you will need to open your LinkedIn on desktop mode. 

> Click on the ME dropdown and select View Profile.

> When you will land on your profile on the right top side, just beside the cover photo section, you will find Edit public profile & URL link in greyish color. Click on it and remove the numbers and keep your name and save it.

 

2. LinkedIn Display Picture

Next comes your display picture. The first impression is the last impression so make the impression count. Profiles without a display picture is a big no. People who choose to not set a profile picture may have two reasons to do it.

Answer to the first, if companies judge you based on how you appear instead of your ability and work acumen, don’t you think not being a part of such companies would be better?

Answer to the second, go click a good professional looking one, make sure it is a good resolution picture, avoid filters, remember it’s LinkedIn and not Snapchat and post it on your LinkedIn profile. But having a no-picture profile is not an option and that is not going to help you.

When putting a profile picture, keep in mind it is a professional networking platform, not Facebook or Instagram where you can put anything.

Make sure your picture looks professional but that also does not mean you put a passport-sized photograph of yours where you are appearing like a robot. Companies want to hire people with emotions. Not robots. So appear like a human, a friendly one, feel free to smile. 

Pro tip – It’s always better if you put your headshot instead of the full-body picture.

 

3. Headline

A headline is the first thing that your recruiters will see on your profile or if I say based on your headline they will land on your profile. Now, I have your attention!

A headline is text written just below your profile picture. It should be explaining what you do in an explicit manner. 

How will recruiters land to your profile by the headline? Suppose you have written an SEO expert in your headline with a little bit of text that explains what exactly you do. Recruiters search for candidates by the job title they want to hire for. So if Company PR searches for an SEO expert your profile will make it to the search list. And hence you would be found with the help of your headline. 

4. LinkedIn Summary/About section

Your profile summary is very important along with the headline as it is the next thing recruiters will pay attention to. So you must pay attention to make this section count which can help your profile stand out.

What can you do here?

Don’t make it too short but also don’t make it too long. You must maintain a balance between the two. 

Having a short one-two liner summary will not be sufficient to tell your professional side of the story. But on the other hand, you must not tell them a story literally. 

As recruiters have to visit hundreds of profiles in a day on Linkedin, they would not enjoy reading a thesis. Be specific, tell them who you are, what you do, how your work helps people, frame the sentences in an understandable manner, separate paragraphs, use bullet points, you can go a bit deep on the most highlighted event in your professional life. 

An example would help you better understand – 

“A hard-working, helpful and honest professional with a mission of making workplaces a happy place. Where professionals can get more done with a smile on their face. 

I help people with their personal, professional tasks. My expertise is in Digital Marketing more specifically, SEO, SEM, Email marketing, Affiliate marketing, graphic designing, article writing and anything that comes on the way which I don’t know about and is learnable, I adapt it easily.

As a project manager, I have taken care of the work delivery responsibility. From having work distributed to team members and getting delivery of the same, checking the quality of the work and delivering it to the final destination.”

5. Work Experience

If the recruiters got their interest by reading your headline and summary the next thing they are going to look into is your entire profile. And the first thing is your work experience. 

Tell them about your experiences. What have you done by far (maintain relevancy while writing about your experience), what I meant by that is say you have work experience of 8 years in 2 companies in the marketing domain. You state that by explaining your work responsibility. 

All fine but prior to this, you have worked as a Pizza delivery person for 2 months as your part-time job. You can skip mentioning this experience.

Conclusion

I would now conclude this article by saying while optimizing your LinkedIn profile be honest, be clear. State things as they’re. If by telling the reality you get a delay in obtaining your dream job, it’s absolutely okay as by misrepresenting things, you are not going to go very far.

That is all for part 1, stay tuned for part 2 for more information on ways you can optimize your LinkedIn Profile. I hope you have found this article helpful, if yes please do share it with your friends who are seeking jobs.

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