Here’s the thing: If you’re a working professional and you’re not yet utilizing the power of LinkedIn to expand your career opportunities and to network, then you are missing out!
Here, you’ll learn 6 steps to make a good LinkedIn profile and get ahead in your professional life!
If we’ve never met before, I’m Heather Austin from ProfessorAustin.com and The Career Club on Facebook, and here, I share simple solutions to help you build a business or launch a career you love.
LinkedIn is considered the world’s largest social network for working professionals, and with now almost 600 million users, this platform is the perfect place to develop new connections, network for new job opportunities, and even write articles.
So let’s jump into how to make good LinkedIn profile!
6 Steps to Building a Good LinkedIn Profile in 2019
Step 1 – Optimize the Top Half
The top half of your profile is by far the most important. This is where hiring officials and new connections will look first when they want to learn more about you.
To optimize the top half of your profile, start with a professional headshot that shows you from the elbows up. Then include a catchy, industry-specific headline that tells others why you do and what your speciality is.
Follow this with a well-written summary that explains who you are, who you help and how you help them.
Now here’s the cool thing: I put together a YouTube playlist just for you that goes into greater detail about each of these items.
Step 2 – Include Relevant Experience
The experience section on your LinkedIn profile will be formatted differently than on your resume. You don’t want to just copy and paste from your resume. However, you do want the two to mirror each other.
Rather than using bullet points under each position to describe what you do/did, add a personal touch with paragraphs written in first person.
Outline your main responsibilities and what your key accomplishments were in 2 – 4 sentences.
Keep in mind that relevant work experience can also include volunteer experience. This is the perfect place demonstrate how you like to give back, and research has shown that 41% of companies find volunteer work to be just as vital as paid work.
Step 3 – Add Your Education & Training
Your education is one of the sections that can really help you stand out, especially if it’s directly related to your ideal position. It gives hiring officials a better understanding of your background.
Here’s a good rule of thumb when it comes to your education section: if you are more than five years out of high school and have an undergraduate degree, you don’t need to list your high school.
To really make your education section shine, add activities and societies such as sororities or fraternities, extracurricular activities, or clubs you belonged to.
Use the description section to add awards and honors or committees that you served on.
As a special note, LinkedIn also allows you to add licenses and certificates. This is the perfect way to showcase your expertise with your credentials. If you have any type of license or certificate, add that as well.
Step 4 – Add Keyword Specific Skills
The skills section is a great way to showcase your talents, abilities, and strengths as a professional. LinkedIn allows you to add up to 50 skills to your profile.
Use a combination of hard and soft skills to let others know what you do best. Soft skills are things that represent your personality and behavior, like communication, leadership, and teamwork. Although these skills are important and necessary, employers do like to see tangible skills – hard skills.
Hard skills are based on your education and experience. This includes skills like graphic design, accounting, programming, and sales.
List your most important skills first. You can reorder your skills within a category or choose up to 3 skills to feature in your top skills.
Step 5 – Add Special Accomplishments
The accomplishments section on LinkedIn allows you to showcase other areas of your professional life, such as publications, patents, courses, projects, or languages.
This is a great way to turn up the heat on your profile and let others know that your experience and education aren’t the only reason why they should spend time learning more about you.
Step 6 – Request Recommendations
Recommendations are a perfect addition to your LinkedIn profile. They validate your special skills, expertise, and, most importantly, how well you work with others.
Reach out to colleagues, managers, teachers, and leaders in your network and request a recommendation from them. Now, here’s a special tip: if you’re not getting the feedback you’d hope for, compose a recommendation for the person you’d like to receive a recommendation from. Chances are, they’ll return the favor.
If you want to take your LinkedIn profile to next level, take a look at my free LinkedIn Liftoff mini course, where you’ll learn the ins and outs of the world fastest growing professional platform!