Did you know that LinkedIn settings allow you to add a frame to your profile photo with the caption "open for work" and make it invisible to current employers? Have you heard that a short description of the profession, located under the name, should contain keywords? And that you can track company profiles and be one of the first to learn about open vacancies?
The number of LinkedIn users is growing. In Europe, there are 310 million active users monthly. In Ukraine, its popularity has only begun to increase in recent years. If you want to build an interesting career, we recommend strengthening your profile and taking advantage of the opportunities of this network right now. We recommend watching the free webinar: Self-presentation when looking for a job: how to “package” yourself in a resume and communicate at an interview What to do to become more visible on LinkedIn Simple manipulations with your account – and you stand out more brightly in the list of specialists of the professional social network LinkedIn. The advantages of such changes: receive more offers from recruiters establish contacts with colleagues faster take your career on a more interesting route Let's start with the general settings. LinkedIn is a social network for business contacts and job or employee search.
Here, everyone is positive and ready to receive messages with offers and questions, as well as to establish professional connections. Therefore, make your profile public for users so that all further efforts are not in vain and attract the necessary attention to your professional profile. Below your name and profile description, you can add a link to your website, landing page, portfolio, or project – anything you want to show people who view your profile. This link can enhance your professional image and tell more about your achievements. There is also an active button "Contact details". It opens a card with your contact details - from a link to your LinkedIn profile, which can be personalized, to an email, phone number and home address. Personalize the link to your profile so that search engines accurately display your profile upon request and promote it.
We recommend you take: CIMA P2 test 6 Tips to Help You Become More Visible to Employers on LinkedIn
1. Make your profile title more than just your job title. No one limits you in describing your profile. So use the opportunities to the fullest. Add more information about your professional role in the field under the title. Create your own USP (unique selling proposition), as marketers would say. You can look at the profiles of consultants, sales managers, and startup CEOs for inspiration. Example of a LinkedIn profile headline describing a professional role Interestingly, LinkedIn Premium users can use artificial intelligence services. It gives hints on filling key profile fields and helps recruiters to create better job descriptions.
2. Optimize your profile. In Europe, people don’t take companies and people seriously if they aren’t on the social network. Make sure your LinkedIn profile is complete and contains up-to-date information about your experience, skills, and achievements. Turn it into a resume and a detailed history of your work and achievements at the same time. If you keep your profile up-to-date, you can download a PDF version of it at any time using a special button in your profile and submit it as a resume. Add a professional photo, an attractive headline, and fill in the blocks describing your experience and skills to attract employers’ attention. According to research, a complete profile with a photo is 40 times more likely to attract the attention of the audience. People want to see who they will work with in the future. So, don’t just put the first photo you see on your LinkedIn profile. Stick to these requirements: The photo should be recent. Give colleagues and employers the opportunity to recognize you by the photo, for example, if they schedule an interview for tomorrow. Use high-resolution photos. The ideal size for a LinkedIn profile is 400x400 pixels. Use a portrait photo. Be in the frame yourself, without other people. Ideally, your face should take up 60% of the frame. Fun fact: if you smile in a photo, people will consider you more influential, attractive, and competent. The attractiveness level doubles if your smile has teeth. Avoid selfies. It is better to order a portrait from a photographer, or at least ask someone to take a photo of you on a phone. The person will help you choose the best pose, facial expression and angle for shooting. Choose a neutral background for the photo. It is better to take photos outside, and to ensure the lighting is good, plan the photo session for the “golden hour” - the time when the sun sets and the light diffuses well. Or take photos on a cloudy day. In the profile itself, you can put the logo of the company you work for on the background, or other interesting details if you want to talk about your specialization.
3. Be an active member of the community. Be active on LinkedIn, publish meaningful posts, comment and like other users' posts. Show your expertise, share useful tips and information to attract the attention of employers. LinkedIn is the only social network whose posts are indexed by Google. That is, your messages will be returned by Google search engine upon request in the browser. If you make interesting and meaningful posts at least once a week, you will enter the top active users. And this means that the network itself will invite a wide audience to follow your profile, which will help to increase your network of contacts. Don't limit yourself to professional topics either. From time to time, publish personal posts. They can have a greater reach and evoke emotions, because people will see you not only as a professional, but also as a real person. For example, posts related to the professional sphere, written by Senior Vice President of Bank of America Kitty Elshot-Smith, received several hundred likes. While a post about her daughter and husband received more than 13,000 likes in a few weeks.
4. Grow your network. Try to increase the number of connections you have on LinkedIn, especially with professionals in your industry. Set a goal to add new connections regularly and actively engage with them. A large network of contacts can help you gain more visibility. LinkedIn allows you to add 100-150 connections per week. If your profile is well-designed and complete, your number of connections will increase faster due to the network algorithms and the activity of your audience, who themselves will want to establish connections with you.
5. Get recommendations and endorsements. Ask your colleagues, former managers, or clients to write you recommendations on LinkedIn. Recommendations from other people can convince employers of your professionalism. Consider it a marketing gimmick. People read product reviews when choosing the best option for themselves. LinkedIn recommendations are the same reviews, but about you and your professional qualities. This is social proof and a description of how good a specialist, subordinate, colleague or manager you are. Recruiters will be able to form a preliminary opinion about you based on them and offer to consider vacancies if their impression is positive. So do not hesitate to ask for recommendations on LinkedIn and do not ignore these requests yourself. One paragraph of a good text can change the vector of your career.
6. Make a list of skills for people in your contacts to confirm. This important section should reflect your qualifications. It can also help you stand out. This block should tell about you. So, follow these steps: remove meaningless skills like "confident PC user". Remove the skills that every first user puts in. Microsoft Word, Google Docs - these are not the skills that a client will offer a project for or a recruiter will want to set up a meeting with you. Add key skills for your industry and role. These are words related to your industry and skills that you can add to your profile and posts. This will help you appear in search results when employers search for specialists in the relevant field. Keyword phrases and phrases can be taken from job descriptions, using keyword research tools such as Google Keyword Planner, SEMrush, Ubersuggest, or by analyzing competitor profiles and articles in specialized resources. Remember that keywords should be naturally woven into your profile and posts. Use them in context and only if they reflect your real expertise and experience. Arrange the skills in the list in descending order - from most important to least important. LinkedIn Skill Assessments Section According to LinkedIn, verified skills on a candidate's profile increase their chances of getting hired by 30%. You can take a skills assessment test to earn a "Verified Skills" badge on your profile. You can take the test as many times as you like, and display your results as you wish. Being active and consistent in your LinkedIn use will help you attract more attention from employers. Be persistent and strive to develop professionally. Another way to attract employers is diplomas and certificates from international professional organizations and in-demand knowledge and skills. The World Economic Forum's Future of Work report predicts that in the next 5 years, specialists who have a habit of constantly learning, and also have skills in working with big data and digital tools will be popular. Fortunately, some of these skills can be obtained online, along with international diplomas in comprehensive online courses from our academy.
The number of LinkedIn users is growing. In Europe, there are 310 million active users monthly. In Ukraine, its popularity has only begun to increase in recent years. If you want to build an interesting career, we recommend strengthening your profile and taking advantage of the opportunities of this network right now. We recommend watching the free webinar: Self-presentation when looking for a job: how to “package” yourself in a resume and communicate at an interview What to do to become more visible on LinkedIn Simple manipulations with your account – and you stand out more brightly in the list of specialists of the professional social network LinkedIn. The advantages of such changes: receive more offers from recruiters establish contacts with colleagues faster take your career on a more interesting route Let's start with the general settings. LinkedIn is a social network for business contacts and job or employee search.
Here, everyone is positive and ready to receive messages with offers and questions, as well as to establish professional connections. Therefore, make your profile public for users so that all further efforts are not in vain and attract the necessary attention to your professional profile. Below your name and profile description, you can add a link to your website, landing page, portfolio, or project – anything you want to show people who view your profile. This link can enhance your professional image and tell more about your achievements. There is also an active button "Contact details". It opens a card with your contact details - from a link to your LinkedIn profile, which can be personalized, to an email, phone number and home address. Personalize the link to your profile so that search engines accurately display your profile upon request and promote it.
We recommend you take: CIMA P2 test 6 Tips to Help You Become More Visible to Employers on LinkedIn
1. Make your profile title more than just your job title. No one limits you in describing your profile. So use the opportunities to the fullest. Add more information about your professional role in the field under the title. Create your own USP (unique selling proposition), as marketers would say. You can look at the profiles of consultants, sales managers, and startup CEOs for inspiration. Example of a LinkedIn profile headline describing a professional role Interestingly, LinkedIn Premium users can use artificial intelligence services. It gives hints on filling key profile fields and helps recruiters to create better job descriptions.
2. Optimize your profile. In Europe, people don’t take companies and people seriously if they aren’t on the social network. Make sure your LinkedIn profile is complete and contains up-to-date information about your experience, skills, and achievements. Turn it into a resume and a detailed history of your work and achievements at the same time. If you keep your profile up-to-date, you can download a PDF version of it at any time using a special button in your profile and submit it as a resume. Add a professional photo, an attractive headline, and fill in the blocks describing your experience and skills to attract employers’ attention. According to research, a complete profile with a photo is 40 times more likely to attract the attention of the audience. People want to see who they will work with in the future. So, don’t just put the first photo you see on your LinkedIn profile. Stick to these requirements: The photo should be recent. Give colleagues and employers the opportunity to recognize you by the photo, for example, if they schedule an interview for tomorrow. Use high-resolution photos. The ideal size for a LinkedIn profile is 400x400 pixels. Use a portrait photo. Be in the frame yourself, without other people. Ideally, your face should take up 60% of the frame. Fun fact: if you smile in a photo, people will consider you more influential, attractive, and competent. The attractiveness level doubles if your smile has teeth. Avoid selfies. It is better to order a portrait from a photographer, or at least ask someone to take a photo of you on a phone. The person will help you choose the best pose, facial expression and angle for shooting. Choose a neutral background for the photo. It is better to take photos outside, and to ensure the lighting is good, plan the photo session for the “golden hour” - the time when the sun sets and the light diffuses well. Or take photos on a cloudy day. In the profile itself, you can put the logo of the company you work for on the background, or other interesting details if you want to talk about your specialization.
3. Be an active member of the community. Be active on LinkedIn, publish meaningful posts, comment and like other users' posts. Show your expertise, share useful tips and information to attract the attention of employers. LinkedIn is the only social network whose posts are indexed by Google. That is, your messages will be returned by Google search engine upon request in the browser. If you make interesting and meaningful posts at least once a week, you will enter the top active users. And this means that the network itself will invite a wide audience to follow your profile, which will help to increase your network of contacts. Don't limit yourself to professional topics either. From time to time, publish personal posts. They can have a greater reach and evoke emotions, because people will see you not only as a professional, but also as a real person. For example, posts related to the professional sphere, written by Senior Vice President of Bank of America Kitty Elshot-Smith, received several hundred likes. While a post about her daughter and husband received more than 13,000 likes in a few weeks.
4. Grow your network. Try to increase the number of connections you have on LinkedIn, especially with professionals in your industry. Set a goal to add new connections regularly and actively engage with them. A large network of contacts can help you gain more visibility. LinkedIn allows you to add 100-150 connections per week. If your profile is well-designed and complete, your number of connections will increase faster due to the network algorithms and the activity of your audience, who themselves will want to establish connections with you.
5. Get recommendations and endorsements. Ask your colleagues, former managers, or clients to write you recommendations on LinkedIn. Recommendations from other people can convince employers of your professionalism. Consider it a marketing gimmick. People read product reviews when choosing the best option for themselves. LinkedIn recommendations are the same reviews, but about you and your professional qualities. This is social proof and a description of how good a specialist, subordinate, colleague or manager you are. Recruiters will be able to form a preliminary opinion about you based on them and offer to consider vacancies if their impression is positive. So do not hesitate to ask for recommendations on LinkedIn and do not ignore these requests yourself. One paragraph of a good text can change the vector of your career.
6. Make a list of skills for people in your contacts to confirm. This important section should reflect your qualifications. It can also help you stand out. This block should tell about you. So, follow these steps: remove meaningless skills like "confident PC user". Remove the skills that every first user puts in. Microsoft Word, Google Docs - these are not the skills that a client will offer a project for or a recruiter will want to set up a meeting with you. Add key skills for your industry and role. These are words related to your industry and skills that you can add to your profile and posts. This will help you appear in search results when employers search for specialists in the relevant field. Keyword phrases and phrases can be taken from job descriptions, using keyword research tools such as Google Keyword Planner, SEMrush, Ubersuggest, or by analyzing competitor profiles and articles in specialized resources. Remember that keywords should be naturally woven into your profile and posts. Use them in context and only if they reflect your real expertise and experience. Arrange the skills in the list in descending order - from most important to least important. LinkedIn Skill Assessments Section According to LinkedIn, verified skills on a candidate's profile increase their chances of getting hired by 30%. You can take a skills assessment test to earn a "Verified Skills" badge on your profile. You can take the test as many times as you like, and display your results as you wish. Being active and consistent in your LinkedIn use will help you attract more attention from employers. Be persistent and strive to develop professionally. Another way to attract employers is diplomas and certificates from international professional organizations and in-demand knowledge and skills. The World Economic Forum's Future of Work report predicts that in the next 5 years, specialists who have a habit of constantly learning, and also have skills in working with big data and digital tools will be popular. Fortunately, some of these skills can be obtained online, along with international diplomas in comprehensive online courses from our academy.