5 Easy Ways to Maximize Your LinkedIn Profile
If you are one of the fifteen million Canadians who have a LinkedIn account, you understand that the online social network is a powerful tool to connect with potential business partners, clients and employers.
In fact, according to a recent post on the Hootsuite blog, forty-five percent of LinkedIn users are in upper management with four million IT decision-makers. LinkedIn is the place to be, especially for IT professionals seeking a new job.
LinkedIn, however, is way crowded, so we’ve compiled five easy actions that maximize your profile and get it noticed.
1) Excel in the Basics
To take full advantage of your LinkedIn profile, you need not just cover the basics, but excel in them: Use a professional (or professional-looking headshot), personalize your headline, complete the career summary with keywords, upload your resume. While expectations about what information and how to post it on LinkedIn changes over time (remember video resumes?), the essentials remain.
2) Make Mobile
Most people visit LinkedIn by scrolling on their mobile devices, and reading a LinkedIn profile on an iPhone is a different experience than reading a résumé on a desktop. After creating and updating your profile on your laptop or desktop, always test how your profile reads on a small screen.
One easy way to optimize your profile is writing the way that people read online and on the phone: simple sentences, short paragraphs, headers and sub-headers.
3) Make Public
You want recruiters and employers to find you, right? After investing time creating the perfect profile, don’t sabotage your chances for a career boost by inadvertently keeping your profile private or off-limits.
Check your account’s privacy and settings to make sure the profile is public so that anyone can view it. Do this regularly, about every three months, since LinkedIn often tweaks its privacy options.
4) Stay Active
Even if you excel in the basics, then make your profile mobile and public, you are not fully maximizing the potential for your profile to reach the right people. Like all online social networks, LinkedIn uses an algorithm that determines search results and feeds, and being active on LinkedIn elevates your ranking. Like the WIRED article about AI. Regularly update your profile with current projects and professional development activities.
Liking, sharing and commenting on SIGnature Recruiting’s LinkedIn posts is one way for your profile to remain active and to gain visibility among the best IT companies in Vancouver. Ninety-one percent of executives say LinkedIn is their first choice for content, so there is an audience.
5) Add A LinkedIn Badge
Think about how people connect with you online and then ask how they can access your LinkedIn profile. As an alternative to the typical link, LinkedIn offers a handy tool that expands the reach of your profile: its public profile badge builder creates a personalized badge for your professional website, blog and other online accounts. The LinkedIn badge gets noticed, is professional-looking and brings potential employers to your profile with one click.
What are your suggestions for maximizing your LinkedIn profile? Send us an email with additions for this post.
Since 2010, SIGnature Recruiting has operated with respect towards all of our candidates and clients, making us the preferred IT recruitment agency in the Greater Vancouver area. If you are seeking talent or an employer, let’s talk.
