Developing your professional brand on LinkedIn

by Jessi Cohen

LinkedIn is an essential tool for professionals to boost their careers, but its multiple features and settings can be daunting at first glance. This article shows how you can use LinkedIn to its maximum potential. Read about the biggest tips, tricks and secrets to creating a profile that will wow recruiters and impress your network:

(1) THE BASICS

As a beginner, the main focus should be your profile. You can open doors to many opportunities just by building a good landing page. Start with choosing a professional profile photo and background image, a branded professional headline, and an engaging summary.

  1. Profile photo: Your image must be a professional shot taken from the chest up with a neutral background. If you don’t have one, put on a suit and find some natural light to snap the photo with your friend. Don’t use your high school graduation photo; we’re better than that.
  2. Background image: You can be creative and design your own (Canva has great templates), but a good default is a pretty skyline from the city you’re currently located in. For students, this can be your campus or your hometown, whichever you prefer.
  3. Headline: Use this field to give a brief explanation of what you do/want to do. If you don’t fill this out, LinkedIn will automatically use your current job title and employer. Use all 120 characters to showcase your best!
  4. About section: Write this short bio in first person with a casual yet professional tone. It allows people to see what your goals are professionally and what your hobbies include. Take advantage of SEO and add your technical skills with a killer CTA (call to action) to get those viewing your profile to connect and send a message.

 

(2) DIVING INTO YOUR PROFILE

Once you’ve completed the basics, it’s time to round out your profile and showcase all that you do.

  1. Custom URL: LinkedIn auto-generates a link to your profile, but instead of using the default http://www.linkedin.com/in/jessica-cohen/4a/z89/145/, you can create a much cleaner link to put on your resume http://www.linkedin.com/in/jessicohen15.
  2. Add resume to “featured media”: This is highly recommended for college students and those just starting out in their professional careers. Update this section regularly with the date to inform recruiters and remind yourself when you haven’t updated your resume in a while. Well-defined businesspeople omit this section, but having it on your profile for any recruiter to see gives you a better chance of catching their attention.
  3. Add school, work and volunteer experience: This will take the longest to complete, but it’s essential to your profile. Use the bullet points from your resume to create a human-sounding paragraph description for each section; fluff words are okay here!
  • What counts as work experience? Glad you asked! Internships, both paid and unpaid, part-time jobs and entrepreneurial or freelance work all fall into the “work category.” If you work for your school, count it as work, not school – and if it’s a leadership position within an organization, also count that as work.

 

(3) THE NIT AND GRITTY

Now that you have a thoroughly completed profile, here are some final tips for taking advantage of all LinkedIn offers.

  1. Showcase accomplishments: This section allows you to add publications, patents, courses, projects, honors, awards, languages and organizations.
  • You’ll most likely not have any publications, patents or test scores (no need to add SAT/ACT scores) applicable for your profile. Languages, Honors & Awards are self-explanatory; add them if you have them.
  • Courses: Put the names and numbers of courses you’ve taken post high school graduation. Update each semester to improve your SEO and get more people viewing your profile.
  • Organizations: If you’re part of a national organization such as the American Marketing Association (AMA), or any Greek-letter organization, add them here.
  • Projects: The HOLY GRAIL of all different sections. We’ve all worked on group projects and extensive individual assignments in our professional, college and even high school careers. Here’s where you dig back into your archives, Google Drive, etc., to find media. Add collaborators if it was a group project, and make sure to summarize the project before hitting publish on any media you attach.
  1. Request recommendations: Getting a couple genuine ones can help boost your credibility. Some might ask you to draft a recommendation for them that they’ll post on your behalf; be honest in your writing, and they’ll edit as they see fit.
  2. LinkedIn learning: Expand your knowledge. This platform is paid for by most colleges and universities and allows you to expand upon your skills and learn new things. Earn certificates and new skills by taking one to two courses weekly in your areas of interest.
  3. Finding jobs: Embedded into the platform is an excellent resource of jobs you can apply to on the spot. With your updated resume, you can search by title, location, part-time or full-time positions, etc. Read best practices on the job hunt straight from LinkedIn, here: https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/110912.

 

And finally, here are some tips on how to post on LinkedIn in an engaging way:

(4) WRITING CONTENT

  • Post content that your network finds valuable. Stay active — aim to post twice a week and no more than once per day.
  • Use the white space. Aesthetic appearance is a powerful tool in your arsenal toward developing a solid professional reputation.
  • Paragraphs shouldn’t be more than a few sentences long to make it user friendly for mobile readers.
  • Place the most important content at the top.
  • Use bullet points, add relevant hashtags and tag everyone.

 

Sources

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