Building an effective linkedin profile
Helpful tips to help you start up your LinkedIn profile.
LinkedIn is a great platform that allows you to network and connect with the world’s professionals
A complete LinkedIn profile will summarise your professional experience to your connections, current and future employers, and recruiters. Through your profile, you can showcase your professional life, milestones, skills, interests and much more.
Your profile doesn't have to be bland, you can definitely introduce a human touch and creative flair, what people really value is a human approach! Don’t be shy to inject some of YOUR personality. (Somewhere between all of your strengths and great experience).
Helpful tips to help you start up your LinkedIn profile
Profile Picture
Use a photo that represents you professionally and try and keep it to a head shot. Avoid using a selfie, or having an image of you out or a wedding photo of you and your better half. You want to also keep it relaxed and personable. It is a dance between overly corporate, and too relaxed, find the middle ground!
Add a Cover Image
Add a cover image relevant to current role/industry.
Members with a photo get up to:
- 9x more connection requests
- 21x more profile views
- 36x more messages
Write an attention grabbing headline
This will automatically populate to be your current job title, however add something that is more customised to who you are as a person. Think about who you are, and how this relates to what you do!
- 25x more views with an effective headline
Write a compelling summary
Your summary is a quick way for people to view your profile and learn about you – it is all about your personal branding! Use the summary to describe who you are, who you work for and why you love what you do. A creative summary will get you far! In the featured section, you can also add social media links or videos that shows off the brand or your work.
Your LinkedIn summary is your elevator pitch
Customise your URL
You can change this to your name so that it is more relevant and people can find you with ease.
Work experience
- Make sure your profile is engaging and tell your connections about you and your working history – it shouldn’t read like a resume!
- Use the Experience section to tell your story. Write 2-3 sentences about your major wins or projects for each role, and how you brought value to your team. This is another opportunity to show people how you bring who you are to what you do.
- What your company does
- What you do
- What you have achieved
- Tell a good story in first person
Skills and interests
- Ask peers/suppliers/your line manager to write a recommendation for you and endorse you for specific skills & endorsements. This is a great way to strengthen your profile.
- List your education history – where you went to school, university etc including years you started and finished.
- List any professional organisations that you belong to.
- Achievements - don’t forget to brag about all of them!
- Interests - Follow company pages companies that you think you would one day like to work with or just keep up to date on what they are up to.
- Be Social on Social Media - Join groups that are relevant to your field. Engage in discussions within these groups to develop yourself as a thought leader in your industry and to create conversations.
Members who add 5 or more skills receive up to 17x more profile views