Job applications are on the increase. At the moment there has been a rise of 32% in job applications and 106% more applicants applying for these jobs than there was this time last year. Competition is tough, but the jobs are out there. Making yourself stand out from the crowd right now is going to count and where better to start than with your LinkedIn profile.
LinkedIn is the go-to place for hiring managers and recruiters when they either want to find candidates, or they want to do their research on candidates who are applying for their vacancies. At the moment, there are in excess of 25million people actively networking on LinkedIn in the UK, and 90% of recruiters actively use LinkedIn as a source for recruiting and information gathering. A recent study showed that worldwide, 122 million people received an interview through LinkedIn, with 35.5 million having been hired by a person they connected with on the site.
What is Your Profile Saying About You?
It takes 7 seconds for someone to form an opinion about you. In real terms, this means a 3-second look at your profile picture and a 4-second glance at your profile headline. So, this is where we will start…
What does your profile picture tell someone about you?
Is your photo a professional-looking head and shoulders shot? Your LinkedIn profile photo should be a representation of the professional image you want to portray. It doesn’t mean you have to go out and pay a professional to take a photo of you, but similarly, it shouldn’t be a pouting selfie or a holiday snap of you propping up a bar. Save that for Instagram and Facebook.
What does your headline tell a hiring manager?
This can be a bit confusing as to what you should be putting here. If you are job hunting, your headline should be the job title you are looking for as this is what will come up in search terms. For example, if you are looking for a Digital Marketing Managers position, change your headline to read ‘Digital Marketing Manager/Web Marketing Manager/Internet Marketing Specialist’. These are search terms that recruiters will put into LinkedIn to find potential candidates. If you don’t add a few options, you might be overlooked in a search.
Your ‘About’ section.
This sometimes confuses recruiters when they look at someone’s Headline and then read their ‘about’ section and the two items could be about completely separate people. Your ‘about’ section is about you. It shouldn’t be a 3-page essay, but should sum up your career highlights, and what has made you successful. Recruiters can look at your career progression on your profile so no need to list every company you have worked for. But summarise how you have got to where you are, why you have been successful, and think about what it is you want a potential hiring manager to know about you which will make them think you are the right fit for their brand.
Post, post, and post again.
So, you’ve set your profile up and it looks slick and smart and tells a hiring manager everything they need to know about you. But your activity section is blank! Think about your industry sector, google news for this sector, read some articles, and find something that you think is very relevant, informative, and interesting. Write a small post explaining what the article is about and why you find it fascinating and then add a link to the article. Normally posts with links will pull through an image into your post. When this happens, you can remove that ugly long link from your post which will make it look neater. Don’t forget these chaps – #. LinkedIn uses these for search terms so if your post is about digital marketing use some relevant hashtags such as DigitalMarketing Marketing InternetMarketing. Three hashtags are more than enough, don’t be greedy. Just use ones that are relevant so that someone searching DigitalMarketing, will have your post drop into their lap. Continuity with posting is king. Do this regularly and you will stay on people’s newsfeeds. Do it once in a blue moon and you won’t get the engagement you need.
Get people to endorse you or better still – write a recommendation.
The more your peers are endorsing you and writing a recommendation or reference, the more this tells a hiring manager about you and your abilities. Don’t forget that LinkedIn is a networking site and there is no harm in asking connections that you have or have had a working relationship with, to endorse you, and in return, you can endorse them.
And finally, a little gem to really make you stand out!
We guess that you know what a URL is. It is the text that appears in your browser bar when you click on it that is unique to your LinkedIn page. Every profile is given a URL by LinkedIn, but it is a long ugly looking thing with numbers and all sorts. Create a custom URL:
Click on your profile. In the top right-hand corner, there is a pencil indicating that you can edit your profile. Click on this.
At the bottom of this section is an option that includes a Profile URL and looks like the image below. Click on the pencil on the right-hand side.
On this page in the top left-hand corner, it says profile URL and underneath it will display your long ugly URL. Yuck! Click on this and it will navigate you to a separate page that looks like your profile.
In the top right-hand corner, you will see your URL displayed and an option to personalise this (see below). To the right of this is a pencil. Click on this and now you can customise your URL.
We suggest a first name and last name, but if your name is quite popular, you may have to be a bit more creative. Nothing silly mind! Professional only. So, if your name is Dan Smith and Dan Smith number 1 snagged the URL before you, try Dan Smith Digital Marketer or something along these lines.
We hope that you have found these tips helpful and that your LinkedIn profile is now a shining testimony to your talents. If you would like help or advice with your job search, you should talk to the Amdas team. They are friendly, helpful professionals with a wealth of recruiting experience that will help you find your next career move.
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