Updated: Apr 28
You’ve finally decided that you need to move into a new role or a new company or both. You have updated and tailored your CV. You have contacted recruitment agencies, and online job sites, created job alerts, started reading interview preparation tips, etc.
Now, what do you need to do with a LinkedIn profile? - Create one, if you have not already, or begin editing and updating it.
This is what you need to do
Align Your LinkedIn Summary with your Target Audience
A solid LinkedIn summary is absolutely necessary. Recruiters need an opportunity to pass your profile. Do not give it to them. Your summary must stop them and force them to read your profile. It must introduce you as a "talented [insert your desired job title/industry specialization etc.]", just like your CV Headline.
Your summary must showcase your strengths and experiences that align with the jobs you’re pursuing. To do this, do not think and write down only one, instead draft out 5 such summaries differently texted and then chose the best one. (Be honest based on your expertise). Capitalize on keywords that will engage the audience. Do not "keyword stuff" your LinkedIn summary.
Update Your LinkedIn Headline
You must alter the headline that appears below your name on your LinkedIn profile. You have 120 characters available to craft an attractive headline, or else LinkedIn will use your “Current Title at Name of Current Employer” as a default headline.
A compelling headline makes a strong SEO case and encourages the reader to review your profile.
Say you are a finance professional with a specific desire to work as an analyst in your next role. You will want your headline to read like this:
"Finance Specialist | Financial Analysis and Strategy | Helping companies analyze, measure and control" instead of
"Finance Executive at XYZ Company"
Rearrange Your Skills
LinkedIn will always create a default order for skills as “most endorsements to least endorsements”. However, you can drag and drop them into any order you want while you are in edit mode. You will be allowed a total of 50 skills.
Put the most common and important skills near the top and skills that may not be relevant to the role you are now pursuing, lower. You may even want to delete irrelevant skills. Use this section to your full advantage so that your profile is rich in key terms for your next role or future industry.
Proofread your LinkedIn Profile
Doing a thorough spell check is very important. Grammarly is a great tool that helps you or you can simply use spell check in Word by copying and pasting the LinkedIn text into a word document. Spelling errors make you look bad. Sourcing out these errors will make your profile seem well-crafted, thought-over, and structured.
Set the Privacy Controls
Most of us have connections who are colleagues, managers, or clients. If these people see alerts in their LinkedIn feeds that you are making changes to your LinkedIn profile, they may wonder what you are up to. Before editing your Linkedin profile, make sure you turn your activity broadcasts off. This will prevent most alerts from going out to your network.
Your activity broadcast is located in Privacy & Settings, then Privacy Controls, and then Turn On/Off your activity broadcasts.
Take some time to make your profile more visually appealing by adding relevant media, uploading a background photo, and making sure that you are using the best possible professional photo.