You landed on LinkedIn and they told you that you would attract Human Resources recruiters like a bee to honey, but that wasn’t the case. You should know that LinkedIn is not a digital resume waiting for the occasional visit. Your profile must be nourished, refined, continuously updated and certainly optimized . If you don’t know where to start, you’re in the right place. Today we want to talk to you about exactly this: how to optimize your LinkedIn profile to have greater visibility . As you may already know, LinkedIn, in addition to meeting job supply and demand, is a place to create professional skills, help you obtain them and share them. Reducing it to a simple platform for looking for work is certainly inappropriate. But let’s go in order and see together how to improve your presence.
1. COMPLETE YOUR PROFILE
It may seem trivial, but it’s the first thing to do. To make yourself attractive and convincing, you need to start from the base and complete your profile with all those elements that characterize us and that entice people to accept our connection request , for example. But where to start?
2. CHOOSE THE RIGHT PROFILE PHOTO
Still inexplicable is the phenomenon where Beyoncè’s photographer is hired for the Facebook and Instagram profile picture and the foreground cut from a group photo on a high school school trip is recycled for the LinkedIn profile picture. We’re still wondering, but in the meantime we feel like giving you some little advice. In the profile photo it must be you , not your boyfriend, not your dog, not you on a beach holiday including sunset, mojito and Samsara all night long. No logos, no avatars, no objects. Better is a solid color background that focuses attention on the person. However, avoid white walls which are very mug shot and backgrounds inserted with Photoshop brushstrokes. The photo should preferably be in the foreground or half-length . Then choose clothing that is in line with your profession. Remember that inserting the right photo in your profile is very important. According to LinkedIn, in fact, profiles in which the photo has been inserted are 14 times more likely to be viewed than those without.
3. CUSTOMIZE THE TITLE
Personalizing the title, or rather the headline, which appears directly under your name, is very important because it is highly visible, as well as searchable. The headline is in fact, perhaps, the most important thing because it identifies you and should immediately make it clear who you are and why you are the right person they are looking for.
4. UPDATE AND SPECIFY YOUR CONTACTS
This is also a fundamental part. If a company doesn’t find a way to contact you within a few seconds, your presence on LinkedIn is next to nothing . Often coming across profiles without precise instructions on how to be contacted is like coming across an influencer’s profile on Instagram in private mode.
5. EXPLOIT THE SUMMARY TO YOUR ADVANTAGE
This is also a very important part, it is no coincidence that we classify it as basic information, i.e. the information that simply cannot be missing. The summary will help users who visit your profile to quickly and easily understand who you are and what you do. Keep it short, concise but catchy .
6. UPDATE SKILLS AND CONFIRMATIONS
On LinkedIn you can enter your skills which, in turn, can be confirmed by your network of contacts through an endorsement. In this area you can indicate a series of skills ( no less than ten and no more than fifteen ) that characterize your work and your activity.
The first rule? Tell the truth . Don’t take over skills you don’t have and specify the main strengths honestly, without exaggerating and ordering them by importance. Not receiving skills confirmations? Be the first to try to confirm some skills of your contacts and you will see that the favor will be returned to you.
7. UPDATE YOUR WORK, TRAINING AND VOLUNTEER EXPERIENCE
This section is the heart of your LinkedIn profile and is dedicated to your work experiences. Always remember to update the positions : start and end dates, role, company name, main tasks and above all green light to everything that can highlight your work in that context.
Attach files, images, videos, reports, links, articles, publications and so on and so forth. Remember that you can use LinkedIn as an in-depth look at your CV and insert things that you couldn’t insert in a single file. Enter your qualifications, Master’s degrees and courses and remember to always specify the skills you have acquired.
8. GROW YOUR NETWORK People
are usually wary of those with fewer than 500 contacts. Be careful, this does not mean adding random users who have little or nothing to do with your profession or your area of interest. Request a connection to your former teachers , your colleagues or university classmates , the professionals you meet at industry events . Creating your own network is not trivial and above all the selection must be made with care. Follow groups that are interesting to you, participate in discussions and offer your contribution.
