LinkedIn is widely considered the social network of the moment, both for the organic reach of the profile views and for the interactions between users.
To put it like Riccardo Scandellari (aka Skande) is the best and most used among professional platforms. What do you do when you want to know more about a product or service? I bet the first thing you do is go to Google and look for the results on the first page.
The best way to hide a dead body is to hide it on the second page of Google results
When you Google, you can find information on anything in seconds. Before starting to fix your profile you need to understand where do you want to go and from who do you want to introduce yourself.
LinkedIn is used for recruiting by most companies and allows users to gain visibility through an internal search engine of professional figures.
Other than that, it allows you to build a following through the content you post on the platform. When you're not looking for a job, it can be easy ignore your LinkedIn profile. Sure, you add people you meet at networking events as contacts, and you accept requests as they come, but everything else?
Your resume isn't just a job listing (or, at least, it shouldn't be), it's a place to highlight your best results. The same goes for your LinkedIn profile: make sure the experiences section is enriched with points describing what you did, how well you did it and what you impacted.
There are some fields that are much more important than others, such as: current job position, company name, and previous work experience. Fill them in well. Read on for ways to make your profile truly brilliant and start getting noticed by recruiters.
Company name
It is important that when adding a company that you have previously or currently worked for, you select one of the auto-fill options that LinkedIn offers (assuming your company is present), otherwise when a recruiter is using a search with filters to see who worked in a certain company, your profile will not be displayed through the filter.
This element is often used by recruiters when they are looking at specific positions in certain companies, even competitors.
Previous and current Summary and Job Title
The summary should be about 3-5 short paragraphs long, here you enter what value / benefit it brings to the company or to your typical customer. You must guide the visitor to your profile, through your work passions, your key skills, and your career horizons. The summary is your first opportunity to showcase the good things about you, keeping your target audience in mind.
Your summary / job title doesn't necessarily have to be your job title and your company, in fact, especially if you're looking for a job or new clients, shouldn't be. Use this space to showcase your specialties, your value proposition. The more specific you can be about what sets you apart from the competition, the better.
The summary is the most important field, it has a maximum of 100 characters, use them to the fullest. Don't just say "Specialist" or "Manager" or "Mechanical Fitter". Specify your position using keywords, which best describe your job. For example, instead of specialist you could say “Operational Marketing and Social Media Specialist”.
Avoid fanciful, invented, or even spurious job titles: they will do nothing else than distance yourself from whoever wants to contact you on LinkedIn. On LinkedIn alone, there are 5.4 million people in Spain who have the word Founder in their profile.
The start-up fashion has done more than a few damage
a nice meme ...
Add Photo / Video to your summary
A picture is truly worth 1.000 words, especially when it comes to showcasing your work. LinkedIn allows you to add photos, videos, and presentation presentations to your profile summary. So instead of just talking about your work, you can show examples. Or you can share a presentation.
Click on 'Edit profile', scroll to your summary, then click on the box symbol, then 'add file.
Location
When looking for work but even if you aren't, your geographic location plays a giant role in determining the rank of your profile in both advanced and regular search. Make sure your location is set where you want to find work.
For example, if you want a job in Rome and are willing to move, change your location in Rome. You'll have a lot of chance, much higher than appearing. One who was born in Reggio Calabria and works in Milan tells you this. The recruiter's first step is almost always to find local candidates, and then expand the search.
Percentage of completion of the profile
Complete all the fields of the profile: the more the fields are filled in, the more searchable your profile will be. LinkedIn has a progress bar for creating a profile: it aims to have an “All Star” profile. Simply put, the more complete your profile, the better the chances of your recruiters find you in the first place.
Hence, the completeness of the profile is important. It is also important after a recruiter or client has found you and decided to click on your profile: they want to know what your skills are, where you worked and what people think of you. The good news? LinkedIn will actually measure the “completeness” of your profile as you work and offer you tips on how to make it stronger.
Description of the position
The position description should not be used to define what you do, but it should define the results you have achieved and which value brought to your organization. Describe your position satisfactorily and accurately. These are the most important fields both to be found in the search and to be clicked.
Add your company websites, projects you have worked on, articles you have written, or anything else that can provide a better image. multimedia of your work.
Get a custom URL
It's much easier to advertise your profile with a custom URL (ideally linkedin.com/in/name), rather than the clunky combination of numbers that LinkedIn automatically assigns when signing up. How to get one?
On the Edit Profile screen, a public profile URL is displayed at the bottom of the gray window showing basic information. Click on "Edit" next to the URL, and specify what you want your address to be. When done, click Set Custom URL.
Choose a perfect photo
Choose a clear, friendly and professional image. Take a look at what people from your business, industry or enterprise level are wearing, but give it your own personal touch. No photos of the sea with the spritz, no photos of driving the car, no photos of the wedding, or of your graduation, or of your cat, and no photos from 2003. Show yourself for who you are. A photo conveys passion, energy, charisma, and empathy.
Add projects, volunteer experiences or languages
Do you speak a language very well? Do you have a condominium management certification? Are you a volunteer? Adding these additional profile features (listed on the left when editing your profile) is a great way to showcase your unique skills and experiences and stand out from the crowd.
Ask for a recommendation
When someone tells you, "You did a great job on that project," ask him or her to take a snapshot of that success. by writing a recommendation on LinkedIn. Don't be afraid to specify what you'd like the recommendation to focus on.
Getting generic recommendations that say, "Domenico was great working with you" aren't very helpful, but something specific, like "Domenico's contributions to the project have allowed us to increase expected savings by 5% over our original plan" , it will really show your strengths.
Don't be afraid to choose which recommendations to show. Let's be honest, not all LinkedIn recommendations we receive are excellently written or even relevant to our career success.
Fortunately, LinkedIn sends us recommendations before they go public, and we can decide to add them to our profile, or just let them languish in their pending state. You can also manage recommendations already in your profile by clicking on the "Edit" icon in that section and switching to "Show" or "Hide" each of them.
If it's close but not quite correct, you can also ask for reviews from the person who wrote it.
Update your status
Just like on Facebook, you can update your LinkedIn status as often as you like. So, do it! Update professionally and strategically (share the article you just wrote, not what you ate for lunch today), ideally once a week. The entire network will see your updates, both in their news feed and in the weekly LinkedIn network update emails they receive.
The entire network will see your updates, both in their news feed and in the weekly LinkedIn network update emails they receive.
Read also "The 25 most requested technical skills on Linkedin"
Be found
Don't forget to add your email address (or blog, or your Twitter account, or anywhere else you'd like to be found) to the contact information section of your resume. I would be surprised how many people don't even enter it.
