Creating a great LinkedIn profile
When you’re looking for a new job, you need to effectively showcase your skills and experience to potential employers. In an age of social networking, this includes having an online presence in your job search. LinkedIn is the world’s biggest professional social network, and creating a strong LinkedIn profile could play a crucial part of your job search.
Many employers or recruiters will search for a candidate on LinkedIn, so you need a LinkedIn profile that’ll impress prospective employers. Here’s our guide to making the most out of your LinkedIn profile.
Start with a good summary
Your summary is the text field that sits beneath your name and profile picture. Use this as your own personal pitch to potential employers to show what you can offer to them, but keep it fairly brief. The best LinkedIn summaries establish career goals, highlight relevant skills and experiences, and address any career history gaps.
Your online CV
Show off your work experience in the work and education sections. Much like a CV, you have an opportunity to outline every previous role you’ve held and course you’ve completed, and explain the details of each of these. Use this to complement your real CV, rather than replacing it. Whereas it’s expected that a CV is a fairly detailed breakdown of your work and education experience, keep things short and sweet on your LinkedIn profile. Recruiters or Employers will often scan multiple profiles looking for relevant candidates, so your work experience needs to be the quick “hook” that makes them want to ask you for a CV or a chat.
Show your skills that employers crave
You want to show off your best qualities that employers will want to see from candidates, and you can do so in on your LinkedIn profile. You can add skills to your profile, but perhaps more importantly, your connections can endorse you for particular skills. It works as a quick reference guide of your skills and experience. Use it to show that you have qualities employers look for.
Get Recommended
Much like getting a reference, you can get other people who have dealt with you in the past to write a testimonial about you as a person, to share their experiences of you, your work and your skills. By having relevant recommendations on your profile, you show employers that there are professional people willing to vouch for you in a public forum. They get a reference before they meet you, which can make a huge difference to the success of your job search.
LinkedIn is a hugely popular and useful tool, not only for professional networking, but also for getting a new job. Whether you’re doing your own job search, or being headhunted by a potential employer, a good profile can really enhance your chances. Make connections to increase your network, and get those people to endorse your skills or make a recommendation on your profile. Also, create and engage with relevant content on LinkedIn, as your recent activity will be visible to those viewing your profile, so will give another snapshot into you as a person.
