You have Instagram for your best photos, Twitter for your best jokes, Facebook for your best friends and Tumblr for your best quotes — and I won’t even expose you for your secret VSCO world — but what about your professional connections? The number one way people get hired is from previous interactions with a business, and the number two way is by being found on LinkedIn. This is precisely why you need to make sure you are putting your best face forward — literally.
1. Have a Profile Picture.
This is the easiest, yet most overlooked part of your profile. When your future employer is scrolling down through thousands of eligible candidates, if you don’t have a picture, they’re going to assume your account isn’t even active and won’t waste their time clicking on it. Additionally, make sure your picture is a professional-looking headshot from the chest up, preferably not taken by yourself.
2. Cater your Headline toward your needs.
Your headline is perhaps the most-read part of your LinkedIn, so make it worthwhile! If you’re looking for an internship, write something along the lines of “Actively Seeking Summer Merchandising Internship.” If you’re not looking for anything now, you could stick with something such as “Partnerships Manager & Creative Strategies.” This will show employers who you are, whether you’re currently searching for a new opportunity or just looking for contacts within your industry.
3. Write a strong Summary to introduce yourself.
Your summary is essentially a general cover letter and should showcase your past, present and where you hope to go, connecting the dots along the way. This is a great place to add a little more personality to your profile through your writing voice, which may portray humor or passion. It also is a great place to introduce employers to “your brand.” Use a thesis statement of who you are, what you are doing and hope to do.
4. Add your Experience.
After crafting your introduction, keep employers interested by showing them all that you’ve done so far. This includes education, job experience, student organizations and volunteering. After putting the title of the experience in, make sure you list what you did in that position as you would on your resume. You can make these short and sweet with bullet points, starting each description with an action word such as created, designed, led or promoted. Try to sprinkle in different words like these throughout your profile in order to prove that you are a well-rounded individual.
5. Connect with friends and family.
After completing the shell of your LinkedIn profile, start working on the networking aspect. Begin by adding all of the people you already know. Think of friends you go to class with, friends you grew up with, friends you did extra curriculars with, professors and, of course, your family. The bigger the network you have, the more people will be able to find you.
6. Get Endorsements and Recommendations.
After adding in your experience and skills, work on getting people to endorse you or write recommendations for you. This adds credibility to everything you’ve posted. A great way to get endorsements or recommendations is to go endorse other people! If they see that you endorsed them for “Social Media,” they will likely return the favor by going to your profile and endorsing you for “Leadership.” Additionally, you can always reach out to people and ask for these things, but make sure they know that you are grateful for their time and that you return the favor in some way!
7. Personalize your URL.
Your URL is important, especially if you are putting it on your resume. For instance, instead of my URL being https://www.linkedin.com/in/ravenpatzke/1327614759145, it is now https://www.linkedin.com/in/ravenpatzke/. By personalizing my URL, I’ve made it much easier for people to find my page, with the added bonus of it looking pretty on my resume. You can change your URL this by clicking the “Edit Public Profile & URL” button on the top right of your profile page.
8. Connect with Alumni from your school.
If you are looking to go above and beyond, consider using the alumni tool on LinkedIn to get connected with professionals in your desired industry. This feature may just help you land your dream job. After adding your university to your profile, click on its page. This will lead you to another page, where you will click “See Alumni.”. This will show you all of the alumni from your school, along with features to sort the people and find who you’re searching for. After finding someone you’d like to connect with, make sure you send them a personal note, rather than just clicking connect.
9. Add a Personal Note
When connecting with someone that you’ve just met (especially in a professional setting) make sure you add a personal note. By mentioning where you met them or mentioning something they said in a presentation it lets them know you were paying attention and shows why you would like to connect. For instance, if you were trying to connect with me, you may say something like this:
“Hi Raven, I just read your Her Campus article about upping your LinkedIn game and I enjoyed the part about adding a personal touch when trying to connect with others! I’d love to add you to my network so I can stay updated on more of your articles.”
And that’s it; consider your LinkedIn game officially up’d. With a world that is constantly becoming more and more digital, it is important that your digital persona is just as prevalent as your real-life persona. This means making that profile transparent and sharing it with others! These are just some simple tips, but if you have any questions, you know where to find me.