LinkedIn: How to set up a good profile?

Mila Haase

Talented International

LinkedIn is the Top-Players and one of the most used Social-Media-Platforms when it comes to first steps in somebody´s career or even executive positions. LinkedIn is supporting job seekers in their career planning and companies that are searching for potential applicants.

 

The LinkedIn-profile plays an important role to the first milestone of someone´s career. It is one of the first touchpoints between applicants and companies. The profile reveals a lot about the persons background, CV, and interests. It has a great expressiveness. Therefore, it is important to design ad update your LinkedIn-profile to ensure that you do not get lost and missed from employers.

 

 

We show you how to:

 

 

You need a professional and good-looking profile photo.

 

Images of you in your holidays or personal photos of you or your friends etc. are not relevant for LinkedIn. Use a professional photo of you where you are smiling – seems friendly and sympathetic. If you are not having a portrait like this of yourself, go to a professional photographer. The colour of the photo – black/white or colourful – does not matter.

 

You can also add a background image to personalize your profile and make it seem more professional and individual.

 

LinkedIn members with a profile photo can get up to 21 times more profile views than without. People are more likely to click on profiles where they can see a face of the person´s profile and feel more comfortable with that.

 

 

You need an eye-catching headline that stands out.

 

Add your current position and the company´s name to your profile slogan. Therefore, not only your contacts but also recruiters and companies can see who you are and what you are doing right now. Use this field to present yourself and stand out. It is your slogan where you can market yourself.

 

 

You need to write a summary.

 

With the About section, you can express your mission. Write something about your personality, your interests, and your passions. Be clear and transparent. Choose three keywords and try to write your summary about these three words to describe you in the best way. LinkedIn uses SEO to connect professionally relevant members with each other. Describe your career goals and how you want to achieve them. Be sure to not write a roman. Limit the text to one or two paragraphs. You can also use bullet points if you feel more comfortable with it.

 

 

You need to make your skills stand out.

 

What are skills that you have that are important for jobs? What did you learn extra to perform? What can you do that nobody else can? Obvious skills like Microsoft Skills etc should be named but the more interesting skills are the ones that not everyone have and are more unique. Use them!

 

By adding relevant skills to your profile, you showcase your abilities to other members from LinkedIn to help them understand your strengths.

 

You can also file ratings for the skills you have indicated in your profile to showcase your proficiency.

 

 

You need to request recommendations.

 

It is not only about recommendations you get from colleagues or former employers. Also, the recommendations you wrote for companies or colleagues are like gold. By commend a person or company, recruiters and employers see your relationships and connections what is becoming more important and can be read in this section.

 

Once you accept a recommendation written by a connection, it becomes visible to your own network. If you receive recommendations that you think do not suit your professional goals, you can also hide them.

 

 

You need to join LinkedIn-Groups.

 

By joining different LinkedIn-Groups and be active in them you can show your expertise and passion about your activities and profession. On the one hand, it can be very interesting for companies to see that you are in active networking. On the other hand, you can make contacts that can give you access to a job interview.

 

 

Keep networking and always stay connected!

Sources:

LinkedIn, How to Create a Good LinkedIn Profile?

MichaelPage, Zum perfekten LinkedIn-Profil in 6 Schritten

Thomas DUPORT

thomas.duport@talentedint.com

Talent Sales Account Manager

Talented International – Artificial Intelligence Recruiting

Barcelona – Berlin – Dublin – Paris

Phone : +33 1 84 88 97 97

 

Need more HR advice and recruitment tips? Get in touch with us!

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