BUILD UP YOUR LINKEDIN PROFILE

LinkedIn is an excellent networking tool that can help you achieve your professional goals. However, you are only one of 400+ million other users on LinkedIn. Your LinkedIn profile is similar to a work resume, where you display your past education information, work experience, skills, current work position and a profile picture. If you put some time into building up your profile, you can stand out in the crowd. Here are some ideas on how to get started.

Get a professional (or a nice professional looking) up-to-date headshot. People like visuals on your profile and your professional photo is the most important one. In the headline describe yourself in less than 120 characters. Usually people add their official job title. In the summary, you could copy and paste your resume, or you could be creative. Use descriptive and compelling keywords that will make you as marketable as possible. You could list three or four key skills you bring to the table and a few big results you have achieved on behalf of your past employers. Or you could get creative and add an interesting story with a section called “what’s not on my resume”.

Add industry specific keywords in your summary. Go to the Careers page of some potential employers you may be interested in, and pick some of the keywords or phrases. Make sure you proofread and check for any errors that you may have missed. Have someone read your profile and see if they understand what it is about.

If you are already on LinkedIn with multiple connections, updating your profile will fill their feed and your ‘Wall’ with update notices. By turning off your activity broadcast temporarily, you can silently update your LinkedIn profile without letting the world know. Go to “settings”, and under “privacy controls”, you will see “turn on/off your activity broadcasts”.

Keep things fresh by doing regular status updates, share interesting and useful content, will keep you connected in your industry. LinkedIn is a powerful networking tool, so join groups and follow companies. There are over 1.3 million groups!