Making the most of your LinkedIn profile

LinkedIn is a great business networking platform, but only when it’s used properly! If you’ve recently decided you’d like to create a LinkedIn profile, or maybe you’ve had an account for years but never seen the benefit or had time to properly use it – then here is a complete breakdown of everything that you need to do to ensure that it’s fully optimised and will effectively showcase your skills.

The most important question to ask yourself is; what do you want to gain from LinkedIn?

Maybe you’re looking to grow and market your business, grow your sales leads, recruit a new member of staff, or even find yourself a new job. LinkedIn is great for business networking, and your profile is a one-stop location for future staff and recruiters to look at your profile and see what you have to offer.

I created my LinkedIn account back in 2010 when I had my first job in recruitment. I remember thinking of it as “Facebook for business” and just used to read various news articles and nose over random profiles every now and then.

However, skip forward to today and I now used LinkedIn every day and find that it is has become an invaluable tool which has helped me massively in my job.

 Although not everyone’s a recruiter or selling a product, by not having an optimised LinkedIn profile you could be missing out on great business or career opportunities.

Step 1: Profile photo

Your profile picture is important on LinkedIn. But why? As this is usually peoples first perception of you. Let’s be honest, first impressions count.

This is how someone will most likely remember you if they haven’t met you. Keep it professional - forward facing, with a clear background and a smile!

Step 2: Headline

Your headline doesn’t have to be your job title. There are 120 characters available, so use them – you can give people a clear idea of what you do and how you can help them!

Step 3: Summary – What’s your story?

One of the most important parts to your LinkedIn profile is your summary. DO NOT leave this blank. This is an opportunity for you to sell yourself - don’t just list skills or job titles, invest some time in your summary - you can use it as your pitch! Try to make it a little personal, so the reader feels engaged with you. You can have a look at mine here.

Step 4: Current position

Should give a summary of the company, plus your roles and responsibilities.

Step 5: What are your skills?

Scroll through the list of skills and try to identify which ones are most relevant for you. Tick as many that are relevant, as recruiters will search on these skills when sourcing, but it will also show off your skills to other people who view your profile.

Step 6: Contact details

Make sure your contact details are correct and up to date, so people can get in touch with you if they want to!

Now, most of your LinkedIn profile should be filled out, the most important part now is how you utilise LinkedIn, which I'll explain in part 2 tomorrow.

If you would like to discuss further, email me at sam@refind.co.uk.

You can view more about Sam Perry our Shared Services Executive Search expert here.