Katie Roberts Career Consulting

Many job seekers come to us unsure about whether or not they need a LinkedIn profile. The fact is, many recruiters and employers now use LinkedIn extensively to source candidates. This includes advertising positions on LinkedIn as well as conducting proactive searches to find passive candidates. As well, many roles don’t even make it to recruiters with LinkedIn networks fulfilling them before they’re even advertised.

LinkedIn is not just useful when searching for a new job – when you join LinkedIn, you’re also gaining access to people, news, updates, and insights that will help you advance your career. You can exchange ideas with others in your industry and easily stay in touch with past colleagues and clients.

Since LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network with over 200 million members around the world and more than 3 million members in Australia, we think it’s vital for candidates to have a strong profile written with relevant keywords in mind. Your LinkedIn profile needs to be easy to find by recruiters and interesting enough to get noticed by people within your immediate and extended network.

If you don’t have a profile yet, I suggest you join up. Try to complete as much information as you can – at a minimum ensure you have the following:

• a photo – professional head and shoulders shot;
• headline – use all the available characters to create your own personal brand;
• summary – focus on who you are, what you do, key strengths, and what you offer employers;
• education – include everything to provide more opportunities for connections;
• roles – include as many as you can – again this provides opportunities for connections (as well as recommendations) – include specific detail for roles covering at least the past 10 years; and
• skills & expertise – think broad here and include everything you want to be known for.

A few tips to get you started:

1. If you’re looking for a new job, use a personal email address to sign up.
2. Aim to achieve and maintain an ‘All Star strength’ profile – see the ‘profile strength meter’ on the right side of your profile for more information.
3. Invite contacts to join your network – don’t be afraid to contact all your current and previous colleagues, managers, clients, classmates, friends etc. across all your business networks.
4. Ask for recommendation(s) for every role held.
5. Follow companies that interest you.
6. Always keep your profile up to date.

There’s a whole raft of additional information that can be included in your LinkedIn Profile which is where you can start to add significant value. Join groups and interact with them, add interests, projects you’ve worked on, courses/certifications you’ve achieved, awards you’ve received, language skills, publications you’ve contributed to, articles you’ve written, and information on volunteering and causes where appropriate.

Remember, LinkedIn profiles are different to resumes. The content should be more general, concise and web-friendly. LinkedIn is your opportunity to create your own personal brand, so don’t be afraid to inject some personality.

If you need assistance from a professional LinkedIn Profile Writer to help you create a keyword optimised profile that highlights your strengths and achievements and sets you apart from your competitors, please see our LinkedIn Profile Writing Services.