LinkedIn is the ultimate social media tool for professionals. It hosts thousands of jobs and there are numerous opportunities to network and communicate with other professionals in your industry.
If you don’t already have a profile, you need to create one. Once you’ve done that, here are three things to add to it so it’s as professional as possible. This’ll help you unlock more career opportunities in the future!
A professional profile picture
Don’t treat LinkedIn as you would any other social media site. By that I mean, your profile picture shouldn’t be a selfie of you on a beach or out with your friends.
It needs to be professional.
You should have a plain background and be wearing relatively smart clothing. It’s actually possible to get some professional AI headshots generated that look really accurate. They’re ideal for profile pictures, so give them a go if you don’t have the time or resources to compose a proper profile photo. Now, when people look at your profile, they see a smart individual that means business.
A detailed employment/education history
Next up, you need to go through and add a complete history of yourself. This will include all of your previous jobs, detailing when you worked there, what your roles were and so on.
Furthermore, you will need to display your education history too. Show all of the educational qualifications you gained over the years – and where you got them from.
Both of these things are crucial for fleshing out your profile and making you more employable. Potential employers or clients will now see your capabilities and be able to tell if you’re worth hiring. The more fleshed-out your history is, the more info you give to others.
An inviting summary section
All LinkedIn profiles have a summary or “about me” section. This usually sits above your employment history, so people may read it before.
Here, you need to write something compelling that tells people about you and gets a clear message across. Give an overview of your main skills and what makes you special. Inform people of your ambitions and highlight all of your biggest accomplishments for all to see. The idea is to draw people in and get them to stick around to learn more.
Make sure the summary aligns with your career experience too. Don’t talk about something here that you haven’t listed there! Also, this is a good chance to fill in the gaps in your employment history. If there’s a year break between jobs, you can explain why that was the case.
Work on these three things and you’ll have a killer LinkedIn profile that works. If you apply for jobs via LinkedIn – or make connections with other professionals – your profile is the first thing they look at. You need to make a good impression, and a solid profile picture, rich history and an exciting summary will do just that.
Of course, keep your profile updated. As you gain new skills or achieve new things, put them on your profile so everyone sees your personal development.