How to Write a Better LinkedIn Profile
Steven B. Zwickel, 2016
LinkedIn has become an extremely
important tool for job seekers. (See Why LinkedIn Is Not Optional for New Grads
by Ed Han <http://www.job-hunt.org/social-networking/LinkedIn-job-search/LinkedIn-new-grads.shtml>.
Employers use it to find and research prospective employees, so, having a
LinkedIn profile is essential.
✒ LinkedIn is for professional, not for personal information [it is not Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc] or private communications, so don't use it in lieu of email or a phone call.
1. Before editing: Turn Off Activity Broadcast
Turn off activity broadcast temporarily, so you can update
your LinkedIn profile without letting the world know.
a. Move cursor over
your small photo in the top right of your homepage to see Account & Settings.
b. Click Review
at Privacy
& Settings to open Activity broadcasts (or type https://www.linkedin.com/settings).
c. Click the box to
uncheck the option and turn off Activity broadcasts while you edit.
d. Click Save
Changes. You can turn it back on after you’re done editing.
2. Turn Editing On
If you are completely lost at editing LinkedIn, clicking on Complete your profile
will take you through a step-by-step process for editing. Clicking Edit Profile will
enable you to edit your own way. Now you can work on editing the different
parts of your profile:
Parts of LinkedIn Profile
Photo, Name, Title, Location/Industry, Connections, Contact Info, Background
• Summary
• Experience
• Volunteer Experience & Causes
• Publications
• Courses
• Projects
• Skills
• Education
• Additional Info
- Recommendations - Connections - Groups - Following
3. Profile Picture
Your profile picture is your first impression, so make it a
good one and use a professional headshot and keep it classy. The LinkedIn photo
format is square, so keep that in mind when you choose a photo.
4. Name
Use the full name that people know you by and that appears
on your transcript. If you have a common name, use your middle initial or name
to help people find you. If you are concerned about search engines finding you, consider adding an "
5. Title or Headline
Right below your name, LinkedIn fills in your title and your
company name.
Write something descriptive of what you do in 120 words or less.
Change your LinkedIn headline by clicking on the blue pencil icon next to your
headline. Be specific—tell people enough about what you do so they want to read
more.
6. Location & Industry
This appears below the Title. Change these by clicking the blue
pencil icon next to your location and industry.
7. Customize your profile URL
Below the photo is a LinkedIn URL. The default is LinkedIn.com/in followed by a row of
random numbers and letters. Click the blue Edit next to it, and you can
create a custom URL for your profile. Best and simplest would be your first and
last name.
8. Connections
Some people are impressed by big numbers, but it’s not clear
how most people feel about this. This section shows people how you are
connected to them.
9. Contact Information
To the right of your URL, there is a button that drops down
all your contact information. This allows people to know how to contact you!
Fill out Contact
Info using your work information. If you use Twitter, you can
link to it here as well and you can list up to three websites. When you put in
your website, choose the Other
option and write a custom title for the website. So instead of it simply “Company
Website”, call it by the name of your business.
10. Summary
The first category under Background is Summary.
You have 2000 characters (counting spaces as characters) to explain who you are
as a professional and provide a narrative of your work experience. This is a writing sample and you will be judged on your ability to communicate clearly.
• Highlight
your strengths and your accomplishments. A well written summary will make your
profile more than an online résumé and demonstrate that you have good
communication skills.
• Summarize who you are as a professional, not
just what you are doing in your current job. A good summary includes information
about all of your relevant experience, not just from your current job.
• Write in the third person If you write about
your accomplishments in first person, it can end up sounding like you are
bragging and egotistical. Writing in third person gives the reader the
perception that someone else is saying these nice things about you, even if you
wrote them.
• Use the keywords and phrases you would find in
a job description that would interest you.
• The summary helps readers understand who you
are, what you do, and what you might need to be successful. If readers can’t
tell why you love what you do and how you do it better than anyone else, it
might be time to bring in a coach or an editor to help you craft something more
compelling. Write a crisp, detailed summary of your career.
• Try to tell a compelling story that includes
specifics and quantifiable achievements. Share your accomplishments. Everyone
likes a good story. If you can grab some attention with something about
yourself that we wouldn’t know from your resume bullets, you’re heading in the
right direction. Jason Alba <jasonalba.com>
suggests writing PAR (Problem – Action – Result) stories in your summary
statement. First, state the business problem you addressed (the reason for the
project you were assigned). Second, describe the actions you took to solve the
problem for the organization. Third, state the result of the actions you took;
quantify if possible.
• Try to “wow” recruiters with your experience or achievements. Don't just hope that they’ll read far
enough into your Experience section to see how good you are. The Summary
is your best chance to grab their attention and hold it, so use it wisely!
• LinkedIn
lets you upload media to represent your work—a video, presentation, or portfolio—at the end of the Summary section (and in other sections). Katie
Wagner <katiewagnersocialmedia.com> says
provide links to your other professionally active social media, to another,
more visual digital, or to a life streaming profile. You can also embed or link
directly to your best original content (such as: a popular blog post, YouTube
video, Vine, or slideshow on SlideShare). You can even embed a short video of
your "elevator pitch." To find out which file types and content
providers are compatible for media samples on a LinkedIn profile, go to <http://embed.ly/providers>. Only link to
professional, high-quality media; anything less will hurt your image. Here’s
how to link or embed content:
When you click Edit Profile, three icons appear on the
right in each section.
✒The blue pencil is Click to edit so you can edit the text
in this section.
✒ The blue box with the plus sign is Click to add a video, image,
document, presentation.
✒ The blue triangle gives you a
choice: [add Link or
upload File].
✒ The black up-down arrow is Drag to rearrange profile sections
• Consider
saving some of your 2,000 characters for two additional sections to make it
easier for employers to find you. William Arruda suggests you add these:
Specialties: add those all-important keywords you want to be associated with.
AKA/Common Misspellings: so people can find you with a Google search even if they don’t know how to spell your name/nickname or weren’t aware that you were married or divorced and changed your name.
• Brenda Bernstein <www.careercast.com>
suggests you use graphic elements, like stars and bullets from Wingdings or
Zapf Dingbats fonts, to break up the blocks of text. Here are some that work: suv n HQ
. These will engage your readers and make your Summary a lot more eye-catching
and interesting to read!
• Include your contact information at the end of
your summary to enable people to get in touch with you easily without having to
look any further.
11. Experience
This is your chance to write a spectacular online résumé.
12. Volunteer Experience
Use this section to show you did more while at the
university than study, party, and play video games. Demonstrate that there are
things that matter to you—that you care about more than just making money. You
can list non-profit organizations for which you volunteered in this section or
under Organizations.
• Consider very carefully before you list jobs or organizations that are
political, religious, or controversial; employers get nervous whenever
employees are associated with anything that could even remotely harm their
businesses.
13. Other Options
These appear in a box at the upper right hand when you are
in the “edit profile” view.
Organizations
is for highlighting any non-profit work that you do or support.
Honors
& awards is a place to list anything that you have been
recognized for.
14. Skills & Expertise
There are two parts to the Skills & Expertise section—listing
your skills and getting endorsed for those skills.
• This section offers a way to tell potential employers what you can
do. LinkedIn lets you list up to 50 skills, which work like keywords. Because
of this, you want to list skills relevant to your business or job and you want
to order them with your most important skill at the top of the list.
• Once you have listed a skill, LinkedIn will ask your Connections if they
think you have that particular skill. If they say yes, they will endorse you.
• The orange help buttons in the Skills & Expertise section give more
information about managing endorsements, re-ordering skills, and hiding/showing
endorsements
15. Education
For early-career
professionals, Education
is one of the most important credentials they have. In addition to listing the
college you attended, list any credentials, certificates, or professional
training you have earned.
• You don’t need to post your GPA here, but do indicate any honors
you earned for your work.
• Like Experience,
LinkedIn organizes Education in reverse chronological order—most recent degree on top. The nextt line is the
name of the school, the second is your degree and major. The bottom line is gray
and contains the dates you attended that school.
16. Recommendations
It is not clear how sincere and credible Recommendations
on a LinkedIn profile really are. It’s possible that people write
recommendations spontaneously, but it seems more likely that they are
responding to specific requests.
Treat LinkedIn Recommendations
the way you would treat anyone you ask for a job reference. When you ask
someone to act as a reference, you should:
• Tell
them how (and how long) they know you
• Remind
them of what you have accomplised
• Emphasize
the skills and characteristics you would like them to include in their
recommendation.
17. Additional Information
Both Interests
and Personal Details
are out of place in a professional profile. Save this for your FaceBook page or other social media. You may want to use these as talking points when you get the job interview.
Use Advice
for Contacting to give your business email addresses,
phone numbers, and other contact information. There’s no reason to give out
anything personal on LinkedIn.
18.
Proofread your Profile
Your LinkedIn profile is a professional writing sample. Mistakes
will reflect badly on you. You must edit and revise to make it as perfect as
you can. There is no excuse for having any errors of spelling, grammar, or
usage in your Summary. No one will hire an engineer who is careless. Lying or
distorting your background is a particularly stupid thing to do in the age of
Google. No one will hire anyone who is a liar.
19. Request Connections
Some think you should connect with as many people as
possible because of the compound effect of multiple connections. I think it is much more impressive to have connections with people who are influential in your field than to have connections to large numbers of people who have nothing to do with your career. It may be that a large number of connections impresses readers, but there is no way of knowing how many you "should" have, so don't worry about the numbers.
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