Top 10 Ways to Make Your LinkedIn More Noticeable
Is your LinkedIn getting the attention it deserves? Whether you’re currently job hunting or happily employed, an up-to-date professional profile to list your work accomplishments and maintain your ever-expanding network is an immeasurably valuable asset for every member of the workforce.
As hundreds of millions of users can attest, the global network is an important tool for maximizing professional opportunities and pursuing advancement in the workplace.
With these tips to guide you, your LinkedIn profile can make the impression needed to score you the professional progress you’re after.
1. A Clear, Professional Photo
If your profile on LinkedIn lacks a photo or the current one doesn’t give a clear and accurate representation of your professional appearance, it’s doing you a big disservice.
Grabbing attention on LinkedIn can be done in many ways, but one of the most instant means of catching the attention of potential employers is a professional and presentable headshot.
Don’t waste an opportunity to capitalize on a good first impression by neglecting your LinkedIn photo. Update it with a professional headshot today, and you’ll soon see the payoff.
2. A Headline to Turn Heads
The tagline that appears just beneath your name is a perfect chance to draw recruiters in with a captivating snippet about you. These are likely the first words browsing passersby will read on your page, so be sure to make them count.
Unless you replace it, the headline will display your current position. This is better than nothing, but it hardly takes advantage of this opportunity to set yourself apart. Use these 120 characters to market yourself in a more memorable way than a mere job title.
By listing a specialty, special qualities you bring to the table, or certain achievements and values that support your mission, you can quickly grab the attention of customers and companies.
Consider who you’d like to see on your LinkedIn profile, and speak to that audience with your headline!
3. A Summary Worth Reading
We’ve all had the experience of losing interest in regurgitated words and scanning our eyes briefly over their predictable contents. Your summary must engage readers with interesting information that resonates with them.
Your professional summary allows you a generous 2,000 characters to capture and convey what makes you a valuable asset to colleagues and employers. About 1,000 words should suffice to tell your story and sell your strengths, so be intentional with this space and avoid being overly lengthy or redundant.
An engaging summary is a perfect place to illustrate who you are and what you have to offer for readers to get a good sense of your worth by understanding your current daily duties and professional achievements.
A strong summary should highlight how you have measurably made a positive impact in your current role and how you stand out as an employee.
4. Use the Right Keywords
Keywords are one of the most important factors in getting noticed online today. Refined platform searches enable recruiters to apply keywords in efficiently identifying and connecting with ideal candidates.
There are tons of tools and free online resources to isolate the best keywords to employ for various fields and occupations. These can also inform you on which hashtags will be most helpful to include in your LinkedIn posts.
Every position’s requirements and skills are different, so when browsing for your desired job opportunities, consider the most commonly used phrases and keywords associated with the specific positions you’re seeking and their associated responsibilities. Then, incorporate those that apply to you into your LinkedIn profile.
Crafting the contents of your LinkedIn profile is a personal, professional, and technical chance to put your best foot forward, so ignoring the effectiveness of keywords in improving your visibility can be a costly oversight.
5. Include Experience That Matters
Depending on the industry, experience is often a more sought-after quality than education. While traditional resumes are typically limited to two pages, a LinkedIn profile allows professionals to expand further to provide more detail in their relevant work history.
Ideally, your profile will be reviewed in addition to your resume, so a simple cut-and-paste job is an opportunity lost. Give readers an average of three powerful points per position to better picture your impact within each job.
Another useful tip is incorporating action words and accomplishments you initiated or contributed to. Show how you’ve established a proven pattern of delivering real results.
By engaging readers and piquing their interest with the highlights of your most impressive professional achievements, you’ll set the stage to follow up in even greater detail during the interview process.
6. Spell Out Your Skills
Skills are perhaps one of the most relevant and non-negotiable aspects of matching employers with the best candidates for each role. It may seem basic, but if you don’t prominently list your abilities and skills upfront, you may never have a chance to demonstrate them.
Recruiters know better than to pursue individuals who aren’t qualified for a position. They won’t waste valuable time on profiles that don’t exhibit a firm grasp on the job skills needed to perform well in each role being filled.
Revisit this section periodically to ensure it is current and correct, especially if you constantly expand your skill set. This is a practice that never hurts in a competitive job market.
Showing your skills on LinkedIn is one of the best ways to get your profile, and professional merit noticed.
7. An Intelligent Presentation”
You can do a lot to creatively enhance your LinkedIn profile and help it stand out among a massive sea of recruits. From personalized themes and backgrounds to memorable customized URLs, allowing your personality to shine through adds a little something extra to your captivating content.
Do you host other professional channels or sites? Could you connect a relevant YouTube channel or personal website to add value to how you’re presented? Media content is one of the most memorable methods to make a splash in the current digital market.
By bringing a boost of personalized life to your page through media and customization, employers can better understand why you’d make a worthwhile addition to their team.
8. Don’t Overlook the Basics
Remember vital resume and profile features, like including accurate contact information. Failure to do so could be devastating for developing the most productive and profitable professional connections.
Double-check your privacy settings to ensure the right-sized net is being cast for your digital presence and visibility. For instance, if your profile isn’t public, it can’t be returned in recruiters’ web search results.
Scan your LinkedIn profile regularly for any useful touch-ups and additions. Include completion dates for continued education, highlight new certifications, and follow up with relevant updates to existing information. Putting this off may result in forgotten details, preventing you from living up to your and your profile’s full potential.
9. Put the “Work” in Network
Connections happen organically all the time, but that’s not the only way! Expanding your professional connection base is essentially the foundation upon which LinkedIn is built.
With various degrees of connections, LinkedIn makes it easy to branch out to colleagues you and other professionals have in common. There’s no harm in sending a note to introduce yourself and establish what could develop into an extremely fruitful link.
By focusing on making new connections on LinkedIn to expand your network, you can actively drive more business and credibility to your career and more easily steer it in the direction of your goals. Plus, allow existing connections to work in your favor by requesting recommendations, which make a huge difference in optimizing your profile.
We’ve all witnessed firsthand how LinkedIn bridges past teams and brings professionals together on upcoming projects and positions where they’ll thrive, so lean into this by working consistently and diligently on your network.
10. Stay Active
Utilizing LinkedIn for all it’s worth means staying active on the platform to get the most out of everything it offers. By staying informed about recent posts, responding with engaging feedback, sharing content you find useful, joining relevant groups, and promoting ideas that speak to you, you can greatly improve your odds of getting noticed on LinkedIn.
When considering what to post, just imagine what you and other experts in your field would be intrigued by. Don’t limit yourself to written content; use posts to demonstrate your current awareness of your market.
Captivating other users is a game changer when establishing yourself with a noticeable presence on LinkedIn.
Final Thoughts
Does your profile’s gauge read “All Star” yet, or is there room for improvement? Use this guide and watch your LinkedIn gain significant visibility to garner real results.
When your profile is optimized with these proven tips, your LinkedIn can effectively shine a light on your achievements and strengths, putting your best foot forward for advancing your career.