LinkedIn is a fundamental social media tool for job-seekers and recruiters alike. Despite this, those looking for work often don’t know how best to utilise their LinkedIn profile for their job hunt. Only by knowing what hiring managers are looking for can you ensure that your profile is attractive. Here, we share some of our insights into how you can optimise your LinkedIn profile to find and secure that perfect role.
Mark yourself as #OpenToWork
If you’re looking for work, let people know. Add the #OpenToWork marker to your profile and list any job titles about which you’d be interested. If you’re still in a role, don’t worry about your current employer seeing your #OpenToWork status – you can set the privacy settings so that it’s only visible to recruiters.
Perfect your headline
Your headline is an opportunity to market yourself as a talented jobseeker to people who haven’t even clicked on your profile. Instead of a generic job title, try including the skills or specialisations that make you stand out. Describe yourself as a “Chartered Accountant specialising in financial analysis and business modelling” rather than merely saying an “Accountant”. Don’t be afraid of adding a note stating that you’re seeking employment opportunities either; this lets any recruiter who comes across your profile know that you’re open to vacancies from the get-go.
Make the most of your summary
While it’s your headline that will make a hiring manager click onto your profile, it’s your summary that will make them stay on it. Your summary should be informative, including any and all skills or experience relevant to your job search. Avoiding generic buzzwords such as “creative” or “organised” in favour of more unique descriptors will ensure that it remains engaging. You can also add multimedia in order to present extra information in an easily digestible way.
Use the auto-suggested skills
Ensuring that the Skills section of your profile is both up-to-date and comprehensive is vital in maintaining the interest of potential recruiters. Although LinkedIn’s auto-suggested skills may seem non-specific, they’re auto-suggested with reason; they’re examples of the skills that recruiters commonly search for in candidates. So, adding any appropriate capabilities to your profile is an effective way of demonstrating that you possess the precise skills that they’re looking for.
Utilise your endorsements
Through your Endorsements, you can both highlight past achievements and successfully position yourself as a trusted expert in your field. Ask any professional contacts who have witnessed your aptitude to endorse you in that area. Don’t fill your profile with meaningless endorsements, though; each should be valuable in itself, underlining a different strength to the others. This way, the Endorsements section can function as a portfolio of your many and various skills.
Customise your URL
The individual URLs that LinkedIn creates for its members contain long and clunky combinations of numbers. They’re difficult to remember, both for you and for potential recruiters. Fortunately, it’s easy to customise your URL to something far more simple and sleek.
From your profile, click Edit public profile & URL
Once redirected to your Public Profile Settings, press on the pencil icon under the Edit your custom URL tab on the right of the page
Edit the URL in the text box that appears
Having done this, people will either be able to search for your profile with greater ease, or you’ll be able to link them to it without having to go to the page and copy-and-paste. Put simply, it streamlines the process of making yourself known.
Stay active
In order to get noticed by more people, you need to engage with them. So, try to grow your network. A simple but effective method of doing so is ensuring that you’re interacting with the connections that you already have. By liking and commenting on their posts, you amplify the probability that someone in their network relevant to your job search views your profile.
Follow industry leaders, groups and companies of interest
Following industry leaders, interacting with their posts and sharing any industry news allows you to situate yourself as a knowledgeable player in your area of expertise. Moreover, if you follow and interact with a firm that you might be interested in or a group relating to that sector, you will increase your chances of catching the eye of either an internal hiring manager or an external recruiter who has a relevant vacancy.
Don’t use private mode
Finally, it’s important that any potential recruiters can access your profile as easily as possible. So, take yourself off private mode. When you click on somebody’s page, you don’t want to appear as an anonymous LinkedIn user. You want that person to know your name and to notice your skill-set. If they can’t view your profile, you inhibit the possibility of forming a fruitful professional connection which could aid your job search and bring it to fruition.
These tips will help you to harness your LinkedIn profile as a helpful tool while job searching. For more advice on how to stand out in the job market or to hear of any potential employment opportunities, don’t hesitate to contact us on info@merje.com.
