I’m sharing some excellent tips to keep your LinkedIn account attractive to searchers.

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Last month, I encouraged you to take stock of your career, advancement potential, and market value as you entered the new year in “Is Your Career Vision 20/20 as You Enter 2020?.”

Whether you are considering a career change or not, this is a terrific time to revisit your LinkedIn profile to ensure that it supports your “personal brand.” As LinkedIn and search technology continue to advance, those who use LinkedIn as part of their suite of recruitment options must be able to find you and, most importantly, your initial online impression must be a positive one. Regardless of whether you are “found” on LinkedIn, once you are a potential candidate your profile will be reviewed—and it either contributes to or detracts from your “brand.”

Here are a few quick tips to make your profile stand out:

• Be sure that your information is accurate and aligned with your resume; nothing sets off red flags faster than misalignment of companies, positions, and dates.
• Craft a summary that is concise but compelling; pay attention to using keywords in your summary statement that call out your target positions, industry, and professional expertise.
• Use a great picture; high resolution, professional, and “on brand.”
• Be sure your location works to your benefit; “New York Metropolitan Area” will get more hits than “New York, New York.”
• Support each position with a very brief description that quantifies your responsibilities and highlights one or two key accomplishments.
• Be sure that the title used for each position accurately describes the role, and if you have a “unique” title (as seems to be the trend with some companies), then work a more typical title for the role into the position description. If your business card reads “Head of Stuff,” then “Chief Operations Officer” or something similar should be in the position description.
• Look at your profile through the lens of someone that doesn’t know you. After reading it, does it explain who you are? Be objective here and solicit opinions from others.
• If you want to be contacted by recruiters, be sure to check “Open to new opportunities” in your profile.

 

 

As of today, LinkedIn is your most important and visible professional social media presence. It’s critical to ensure that this very public statement of your presence supports your brand. Then, take a look at other social media sites on which you are active and be sure that they are also supporting your brand. I would suggest limiting what you post publicly and be judicious about what you post to your friends, particularly if you are in the midst of a job search. In today’s online world, everything you post is public in some way!

If you have any questions or comments, please don’t hesitate to give me a call or shoot me an email. I’ll talk to you again soon!

 

Rob Bowerman is President and Founder of The Bowerman Group- a leading executive search firm for luxury brands in the U.S. and Canada. Rob is also President of The Pinnacle Society, the premier consortium of industry-leading recruiters in North America.