LinkedIn Profile: How To Improve Yours
LinkedIn Profile: What Does Yours Say About You?
Your LinkedIn profile can be a useful career-building tool – helping you to expand your professional network, showcase your experience and uncover new employment opportunities.
Whether you are new to the platform, or have been active on it for a while, our friends at Kinsa Group have this advice for a polished LinkedIn profile.
Are You Making These LinkedIn Profile Mistakes?
Your profile reads like a resume
Company name. Dates of employment. Job duties. Does your profile read like an online resume? If so, you’re missing out on huge opportunities to distinguish yourself!
Move beyond the stiff laundry list of responsibilities by treating your profile like a story. Create a mini narrative for each position that explains why you moved into the role and what you achieved. The additional context will make your profile more engaging, while giving recruiters a more complete picture of who you are an a job candidate.
It’s too sterile
Should you post a picture of you holding an adult beverage LinkedIn? Of course not. But, to keep your profile from making you sound completely devoid of personality:
- List volunteer work you’ve done (LinkedIn has a dedicated Volunteer section you can add to your profile).
- Use the Name Pronunciation tool to briefly describe your ideal job or the type of work your searching for (it offers 10 seconds of voice recording)
- Write your profile in first person. Example: I’m a Customer Service Representative. You don’t refer to yourself in the third person (Jane is a Customer Service Representative) in normal conversation. Don’t do it on your LinkedIn profile.
It doesn’t include contact information
Make it easy for recruiters to get in touch with you. Post additional contact methods, such as your email address and/or a link to a social media account.
You use the platform inappropriately
LinkedIn is a platform you can use to advance your career. While it’s great to be proactive and outgoing, however, take care not to overstep. Keep these tips in mind:
- Don’t send spammy InMails. Instead of sending mass, generic InMails to everyone in your network (which could lead to disconnects), stick to one-on-one communications.
- Skip the pointless messages. Yes, you want to stay top-of-mind, but sending a message like “Have a great week!” adds no value to a business relationship. A better option for getting on someone’s radar? Go to their profile and like a recent post they published or share their content.
Connect With ABR Employment Services On LinkedIn
Follow ABR Employment Services on LinkedIn for access to current open jobs, job search tools, resources, and connections to help you land your ideal position.