You use Facebook regularly—you may even tweet—but are you on LinkedIn? LinkedIn.com is not just for professionals who have established careers, nor is it simply a tool for people looking for a job. Instead, LinkedIn.com can be considered your online resume (resume 2.0), online personal brand, a powerful networking tool, and a great career development tool.
Studies show that 89% of hiring managers research job candidates online when deciding whom to interview. ABC News recently reported that 80% of today’s jobs are landed through networking. These stats point to the importance of developing your LinkedIn profile and network so that you are prepared whenever you need to do job search activities.
LinkedIn reports that “members with complete profiles are 40x more likely to receive opportunities through LinkedIn.” You can use all of LinkedIn’s powerful strategies when your LinkedIn profile is complete.
Here are the steps to take for starting and developing your LinkedIn profile:
1. Sign up at Linkedin.com
2. Develop your professional headline.
LinkedIn provides you with 120 characters for your headline. Use this space wisely to brand and market yourself, especially when conducting a job search or freelancing.
Here are some examples of LinkedIn headlines to trigger your thinking:
- Certified Professional Facilitator | Helping Teams to get from Chaos to Clarity
- Value Focused, Commercially Astute CIO / IT Director with Extensive Global Experience
- Healthcare executive: operational and financial performance improvement. Revenue growth and expense reduction.
- Strategic/Product Marketing Analyst w/5 Years in Consumer Products (B2C): Market Assessment and Competitive Positioning
- Marketing: Global Product Development & Purchasing Specialist
- Technical Illustrator and Web Designer
- IT Specialist Devoted To Creating Stable, Scalable Solutions for Small Businesses
- Personal branding strategist providing business leaders with techniques to maximize their brand value for career success
- 13+ Yrs Accomplished Marketing & Business Development Executive | Technology, Social Media & SEO/ SEM Savvy | Team Leader
- Consumer Marketing Expert with a focus on Strategy, Promotions, and Campaign Management
- PMP-certified project manager – Known for successfully leading multi-million dollar projects in developing countries.
- Tireless, caring Registered Nurse who helps pediatric cancer patients and their families feel at ease throughout treatment and recovery.
If you are a student and don’t have experience, as the examples above demonstrate, you can still create a great headline that will appear in keyword searches. For example:
- Aspiring Consumer Marketer passionate about Strategy, Promotions, and Campaign Management.
- ABC University honors student & aspiring marketing manager.
- Digital Marketing Intern Seeking Entry-Level Agency Account Manager Position.
Finance major seeking loan officer internship.
If you want even more help generating your LinkedIn headline, here is a Headline Generator.
You can also brainstorm headlines by using ChatGPT. Use a prompt such as:
3. Personalize your URL.
Ninety percent or more of employers will Google your name before interviewing or hiring you. Personalizing your LinkedIn URL lets you brand yourself better online and control what employers will read about you. Typically, after personalizing your URL, when employers Google your name, your LinkedIn profile will be one of the first things they see in the search results. Here are steps from LinkedIn’s help site:
a. On the top navigational bar, click on “Me.” This will show you a drop-down list. Click on “View Profile”. This will take you to a page where you can edit various parts of your profile. On the top right-hand corner of the page, you will see “Public profile & URL.” Click on the pencil image.
b. This will take you to a new tab where you can customize your LinkedIn URL. Try saving your name without a space between your first and last name.
If your name is unavailable, you can use your middle name or initial. If you do this, use the same name in your marketing materials—resume, cover letter, etc. Also, change your name on your LinkedIn headline. This will allow the employer to find the correct LinkedIn profile.
4. Upload a professional-looking headshot (picture of your face or face and shoulders).
Make sure you are smiling! (Don’t use a full body shot; the image on your Profile should show your face clearly.)
5. Add a summary section to your LinkedIn profile.
Copy and paste the “Summary of Qualifications” part of your resume into your LinkedIn profile’s “Summary” section. If you don’t have a summary section, you must create one.
If you use a functional resume, copy and paste your “Relevant Experience” or “Professional Experience” section into the Summary on LinkedIn.
6. List work experience, including jobs, practicums, internships, and volunteer experience.
You can “cut and paste” your skills statements from your resume under your jobs, internships, etc.
7. List skills that you would like others to endorse.
8. List your education.
9. Search for and join two or more groups related to your career interests.
Type the career name or other keyword into the search box. For example, if you are targeting fundraising jobs, type in “fundraising” in the search box.
Click on groups of interest, read about the group, and ask to join those you feel would be beneficial.
Also, join alumni groups from the schools you attended. By joining groups, you can participate in discussion boards and have more access to the group members, which provides great networking opportunities.
10. Add connections daily.
Your goal should be to get to over 500 connections. Spending even five minutes a day will grow your network rapidly. You can request a connection from anyone you know, even if you have just met them once or talked to them on the phone or by email.
Generally, adding people you don’t know is not suggested, with two exceptions: if you find people on LinkedIn who are in the job field you are targeting and who you would like to network with, and if you want to network with people in your field who attended the same schools you did.
Look at the connections of people to whom you are Linked. You will often find people you also know and can request a link to them.
Use the alumni page of any college you have attended. You can look up people who attended when you were in school there.
As you get more and more connections, LinkedIn will suggest people you may know.
When requesting a link, personalize your invitation message; don’t just use the pre-formatted message.
11. Get at least two or three recommendations.
Having recommendations on your LinkedIn profile is powerful for potential employers to read. You can ask employers, internship supervisors, and faculty members, depending on your years of work experience. (Please note that you can only request recommendations from those linked to.)
Here are the directions for finding this feature:
a. Go to your Profile and click the down arrow to the right of the button (“View profile as”) near your profile picture.
b. Click Ask to be recommended from the dropdown.
c. Follow the prompts to request the recommendation.
d. Click Send.
12. Change your privacy settings.
When you make changes to your Profile, LinkedIn will update those you are linked with, informing them that you have made a change. This can include changes to your picture, headline, new jobs added, recommendations you have received, new groups you have joined, etc.
When you are initially setting up your Profile or making a lot of changes at once, it is recommended that you turn off this feature. After you are done making changes, you can turn this back on. Here are the steps:
a. Hover over your profile picture in the top right corner.
b. Select Privacy & Settings.
c. Select Privacy Tab.
d. Select Sharing Profile Edits.
e. Slide button to “No.”
f. After completing changes, return to this tab and click “Yes.”
Next Steps
Congratulations on completing your “big six” job search marketing tools. You are now prepared to find job openings that interest you.
Many of the best and highest-paying jobs (as many as 85%) are not advertised on the Internet but reside in the “unadvertised” or “hidden” job market. Learning how to find these jobs gives you an advantage in finding the right job.