Now that you have taken my advice and have begun work on your personal branding, it’s time to make your eMBA LinkedIn Profile stand out. Your profile is often the first thing hiring influencers see, so it needs to make the same great impression your resume does! A poorly written, poorly organized, or unfinished profile can hurt your career, just as a great profile can catch the attention of hiring influencers and advance your career.
LinkedIn Profile Visuals
Photo: Use a professional photographer (or at least a photo of you looking your most professional) for your headshot all of your branding. As much as you love that photo of yourself on the sands of Maui, hiring influencers are more likely to contact the candidate who looks like a consummate professional over the candidate sipping an umbrella drink on the beach.
Links: Offer a link whenever you can show the work you’re describing. Links break up the visual landscape and offer some interaction for the hiring influencer reading your profile, which helps keep them engaged and interested.
LinkedIn Profile Information
Proof it: You might be amazed at the number of profiles I see with spelling, grammar, and formatting errors. It can be difficult to catch your own mistakes, so ask someone else to proof your profile. Errors like this show a lack of attention to detail, and do not speak well of your communication skills.
Jobs: When listing jobs, make sure the dates and job titles match those on your resume. It’s a common error, and can make you look careless at best, dishonest at worst. Use the latest and best version of your resume, so your profile has the most up-to-date information.
Value: Make sure you emphasize your value as an employee in your job descriptions.
Skills: There may be finite room in your resume, but LinkedIn is a great place to list all the skills you want to promote. Don’t list things you’re no longer interested in doing, so that the interest you attract is for jobs that fit you well.
Once you’ve completed these steps, go back and read over my blog article about ensuring your profile is easily read by search engines. Ensure that every part of your profile is easily searchable. This will increase the number of hiring influencers who find you while searching for a candidate with your skills and experience.
These tips will result in a LinkedIn Profile that is searchable, helps establish you as an industry expert, gives great information about you as a candidate, and helps attract the attention and interest of the gatekeepers to your next job!
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