Social Media has become our world’s way of staying connected to current topics, trending events and even staying connected personally. Not only is it something to do in your spare time, it’s become a large part of any Professional’s career. LinkedIn is a professional network that allows individuals to connect with each other and has become a large sourcing tool for employers and employees alike.
The year 2020 has provided many virtual opportunities in order to keep social distancing guidelines! This means that if you haven’t heard of LinkedIn, it’s a great time to dive in! LinkedIn is a professional network where you can connect with many other professionals in your community and beyond. With an unstable economy and low job-security, it’s important to build and keep a large professional network because this could help you land a new career, especially since the days of walking in with a resume aren’t as common. Professionals through your network will allow you to see inside information on which companies are hiring, what positions are open and show potential contacts.
If you have decided to enhance your profile and/or create one, we have attached a few tips to help you build a robust professional profile that will help you connect with other professionals in your area. These tips will enhance professional networks and make them more discoverable per the logarithms of social media.
- Use a good headshot and have a headline.
- Headlines should describe a target job title and capture the most important skills that qualify Professional’s for the job they’re seeking.
- LinkedIn considers a profile without a picture incomplete and this hurts your discoverability ranking. Most of the time a profile with a picture gets more clicks also.
- Headline
- In the headline, utilize keywords. Keywords allow more of an opportunity to be found through searches and connections. This will also give employers/recruiters an opportunity to see what Professional’s are targeting.
- Work Experience
- In each work experience, list more than just an Employer name and job title. If there are listed responsibilities, accomplishments, and skills, you utilize more keywords that allow your profile to be found by those using keyword, Boolean searches to find qualified candidates.
- Skills
- LinkedIn allows a list of up to 50 skills on a profile and then colleagues can endorse you in these to show expertise.
- Connections
- The more connections in your network, the more noticed and discoverable your profile can become. This also allows Professionals to see more job postings and connections with potential employers. Also, LinkedIn gives more visibility to profiles with more than 50 connections. You will want to target those who will post job posting you are looking for or who are Senior Level in your industry.
LinkedIn has continued to grow and is a large talent pool for employers seeking new employees and recruiters working for them. This is an incredible way for candidates to get connected with other professionals in their network and start to build a valuable database. By utilizing the steps above, this should help any Professional looking to enhance their connections a better chance at getting found by others in their industry and field.