7 Ways to Make Your LinkedIn Profile Stand Out

Gone are the days where employers only look at your resume, which means that having an online profile that represents you well is imperative! Did you know that 77% of users said that LinkedIn helped them research people and companies? I know what you are thinking … ‘this is going to take so much time’. Am here to tell you that setting aside an hour each day over several days will go a long way in getting you on the right path. Think about it, the amount of time you spend on Facebook and Instagram could be used to help you get jump started on your next career journey and as they say, if you want to eat an elephant, do it one bite at a time. So what should you do to make sure your LinkedIn profile stands out?

1. First impressions matter! If you’re like me, you know at least one LinkedIn profile that has no photo, or if has one, it’s of bad quality and not professional. The impression I get is that that individual doesn’t care, and what’s worse is that this is usually the first thing anyone sees on a user profile. I cannot stress enough how important a professional looking photo is on your profile. Did you know that your LinkedIn profile has 11 times more chances to get viewed if you add your picture? So yes, get it done!
2. Update your profile description (headline) and make it current. Briefly highlight your skills and accomplishments in a few sentences. If you are in the job market, signal it. It doesn’t hurt to let people know that you are looking.
3. Make sure your experience, education and even volunteering sections are up to date with the correct dates and information. Update your contact information. Make sure you have an email and phone number at a minimum.
4. Make sure your LinkedIn profile matches your resume. You will be surprised how many times this is not the case. How does an employer know which piece of information to trust? I tell people that, if you find updating your LinkedIn profile a lot of work, then simply update your resume first, and literally copy and paste the different sections into your LinkedIn profile. If anything, you can always come back and spruce up your LinkedIn profile with a lot more detail.
5. Use appropriate LinkedIn and Google keywords so that your profile can be found. Check out this article that has some suggestions on what you can do. Use relevant keywords so that your profile shows up in the first list of search results.
6. Avoid blatant spelling mistakes and errors. LinkedIn signals your professionalism and not taking the time to make sure your profile if error free could cost you.
7. Ask for recommendations from former and current peers, managers and supervisors. Having someone else telling your story is powerful and much more believable.

There you have it – 7 fast and easy ways to make your LinkedIn profile stand out. I know that this article doesn’t cover every piece of information, but doing these steps at the very minimum, will set you up on the right path. I loved this article because for me it was easy to digest and really called out all the aspects of creating your LinkedIn profile.

When you are done updating your profile, use your friends to look through your work. I think part of learning something is by trying it yourself and not simply having someone else do it for you. This is where AdviceMavens comes in. Once you have that skeleton done and now are looking for ways to optimize, review and simply make sure you are presenting yourself in good light, then seek a Maven to help you with this. Again, my advice is that you first take a stab at it and then use our Mavens to even get your profile stand out even more!

Happy profile editing! Let me know your thoughts below. What are some things you’ve done to get your profile noticed?