LinkedIn-logo-mono-icon-official-professional-networking-site-lnkd.in by Shekhar_Sahu is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
- LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network with over 330 million members in over 200 countries. (LinkedIn, 2014)
- New professionals are signing up at a rate of 2 new members per second. (LinkedIn, 2014)
- ‘There are over 39 million students and recent college graduates on LinkedIn. They are LinkedIn’s fastest-growing demographic’. (LinkedIn, 2014)
And you’re going to join them!
As part of Leeds Trinity University’s jobs and work experience advertisement and employment system, I’ve been asked to design a WordPress blog to help you set up your very own LinkedIn profile. I’m going to take you through the basics of setting up a LinkedIn profile, and then the rest is up to you!
LinkedIn is the social site for professionals and with 2 new members signing up every second, what are you waiting for?
The first step is to go to the LinkedIn website and create an account:
You can do this online, as seen above, or via the app, as seen below:
Once you’re set up, it’s time to start filling in your details.
But what should your profile contain?
Your LinkedIn profile should contain:
- Basic information about yourself e.g.
- Name
- Your professional headline
- Your job if applicable
- Basic contact information
- An updated URL
This is what your profile will look like to the public (not your connections – which we’ll cover later)
The quickest way to get all this data uploaded, is to upload your CV direct to the LinkedIn website. It will automatically fill in all the details it can, then you can just go back through and fill in the details it didn’t quite get.
Within your name field you’re allowed to include maiden names and even your certifications. Including things like this will get you ranked higher within LinkedIn’s search engine and also your SEO will increase. (Guiseppi, 2014)
SEO – ‘Search Engine Optimisation or SEO is the simple activity of ensuring a website can be found in search engines for words and phrases relevant to what the site is offering. In many respects it’s simply quality control for websites.’ (Red Evolution, Date Unknown)
Use your professional headline to put in things you’re skilled in e.g. social media, program manager. Make sure it’s keyword rich. This means use keywords that people are likely to search for such as, customer service, social media, e-learner, to name a few. (Guiseppi, 2014)
Make sure your job title (if you have one) is the same as that on your CV. You don’t want people thinking you’re making things up or can’t keep track of jobs you’ve had. (Guiseppi, 2014)
Contact Information
What’s the point of having a LinkedIn profile if nobody can contact you? It’s about as much use as a chocolate fireguard and they’re pretty pointless. You don’t need to add loads of contact information, but the more you add the more ways people can contact you. It’s really easy to do.
From the homepage click on Profile
Then click on contact info
It will then bring up this page
This is where you can fill in the ways people can contact you. Your email, phone, IM and address are only visible to your connections. You don’t need to add your phone and address if you don’t want to.
Notice that you can include your twitter and blog (if you have one) and these are available to everyone on LinkedIn. If you’re connecting your twitter you’ll need to authorise it in the pop up window that appears. (Grovo, 2014)
If you do link your twitter to it, it might be a good idea to either start a new one, or go through and delete any tweets that you don’t want people to see. Remember that LinkedIn is a professional site and anybody can look at your profile (depending on your settings of course!) so what you put out, people will see. Always think before tweeting. The same goes for your blog. Start a new one and link to this from your LinkedIn page, or go through your blog and delete the posts you don’t want people to see.
Update your URL
A URL is the web address that appears every time you go on a website, and LinkedIn is no different. Except you can personalise your URL on your LinkedIn profile to make it memorable and unique to you.
As with everything else on LinkedIn it’s really easy to do, but I’ll take you through it step by step.
First go to your profile:
Then click the link just underneath your profile photo:
This will then bring up another page where, at the right hand side, you can can click to change your URL.
As with any username for any website, someone else may have already taken your name. It’s annoying but it happens! LinkedIn will give you choice of alternative names available. This might be something as simple as adding a number to the one you’ve chosen. Remember to choose something that’s memorable but relevant. Don’t go giving yourself ‘littleprincess123’ for example, nobody will take you seriously. Make it professional.
A good profile picture is key
If your LinkedIn profile doesn’t have a picture you’re not going to capture anyone’s attention. Would you look at a profile that didn’t have a picture? I don’t think you would. So why would a potential employer (which is ultimately what most people join LinkedIn for, to get or find a job) be any different?
‘If you don’t give visitors to your profile that “hook” then you will be more easily forgotten.’ (White, Date Unknown)
Having no profile picture only makes people think you have something to hide, make sure its a genuine photo of you and not a cartoon character, a quote picture, or a company photo. It needs to be you and only you.
To edit your profile picture you need to go to your settings, these can be found under your profile picture (which will be blank at this stage) in the top right corner of the website. Scroll down to Privacy & Settings, then click Manage.
It will then bring up this page:
On here if you click on the profile photo, you’ll then be brought to this page below, where you can upload your photo. It also shows you how your photo will look across the whole of LinkedIn.
It’s said, you never get a second chance to make a first impression, so some tips for a good LinkedIn profile photo include:
- Showing those pearly whites – show your teeth, it makes you look friendly and genuine. (Waldman, Date Unknown)
- Appropriate dress attire – don’t upload a photo of you in a bikini or swimming trunks on your 5* all inclusive holiday to Cuba, but likewise don’t upload a photo of you in your tracksuit bottoms and hoodie. Look professional. (Waldman, Date Unknown)
- A good background – don’t stand against a black background, but also don’t stand against a fluorescent coloured one. A neutral colour such as cream would be good. (Waldman, Date Unknown)
- A good angle – you’re not on a police line up or having your mugshot taken so don’t have a photo that’s square on. Try turning to the side or looking over your shoulder slightly. (Waldman, Date Unknown)
- Let your personality shine through – some people choose to add props to their photo’s to show what they’re interested in. You don’t have to do this, but if you wanted to work in a creative industry (such as the media) try being creative with your photo. (Waldman, Date Unknown)
- Lights, camera, action – Good lighting and a good camera are the ultimate tools for a good LinkedIn profile photo. Don’t rush your photo and make sure it’s big enough to see on all devices. (Waldman, Date Unknown)
‘LinkedIn’s search algorithm puts priority on displaying profiles with images on search results pages. Without a picture, your profile probably won’t get the full consideration or visibility it deserves.’ (Waldman, Date Unknown)
Add rich content such as Slideshare
slideshare-logo1 by Antonio Gonzalez Garcia is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
LinkedIn now allows you to make presentations on SlideShare and embed them onto your profile. This is a great way to shake up your profile and give your readers and potential employers more to look at. It also gives you a chance to be creative and show off your skills.
Here’s an example of one that I created:
Once you’ve created your SlideShare, I’d recommend copy and pasting the link into the ‘summary’ section of your profile.
Other key points for your LinkedIn profile:
- Experience – include in here any jobs you might have had, if you’ve automatically uploaded your CV it should have picked these out for you
- Education – again, like the jobs, these should have been automatically picked out, but if not you can add them manually. It’s also a good way to reconnect with other people from your school!
- Skills and endorsements – list here anything you think is appropriate to your past jobs or school work. For example, you could add: customer satisfaction, teamwork, time management to name a few. This is also where other people like past employers can endorse you for skills. A general rule of thumb is to not add too many endorsements to your profile to begin with, you want to make sure other people can endorse you for some, and you don’t want to scare potential employers off thinking you might be too over qualified! However when you do get endorsements make sure you show them off – be proud that someone else wants to give you this credit.
There’s lots more information you can add to your profile, and the more you add the better you look. Remember to make sure that it’s all above board though and that you’re not telling fibs! Below are some more of the categories available to fill in and enhance your profile.
As you can see, there’s a good selection to choose from – so blow your own trumpet and tell people what you’re proud of!
Connections – what are they?
Close connection – Verbundenheit by Daniela Hartmann is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
Connections are quite simply, the people you connect with on LinkedIn. They’re ranked as 1st, 2nd and 3rd connections and their rank is based on whether you’ve connected with them through a search, so these become your ‘1st’ connections or whether you’ve connected with them via someone else, these are your ‘2nd’ and ‘3rd’ connections and are based on how many people you’ve gone through to connect with them.
‘LinkedIn’s search algorithm means the more connections you have, the more often and higher you will appear in search results.’ (Cable, L. 2014)
Be active
Just because LinkedIn is a professional social networking site, it doesn’t mean you can’t be active and involved on it. In fact it should be the opposite. You should be updating your status at least once a day. You can also join groups which interest you as well. Sometimes down the right hand side of the home page, LinkedIn will give you recommendations of groups to join based on your past experience. It’s good to join the groups and be involved with them, even just saying ‘hello’ every day or ‘liking’ a post someone puts up, keeps you involved in the group.
To join a group go to the drop down box next to the search bar and click on groups
Next you can start typing the specific field that interests you. For this example I’ll use ‘customer service.’
By hitting the ‘enter’ key it will bring up more results, or you can click on one of the groups that interests you in the list.
You’ll notice that for some groups you need to join them and others you can view and then join them later. For the ones you have to ask permission to join it’s then up to the administrator in that group as to whether you’re allowed in or not.
You can also filter your search results down the left hand side, by: relationships, categories and languages.
When you request to join a group you’ll get a notification as seen below.
Finally, if you want to join a group that you can view from the search results simply click the yellow ‘join’ button on the right hand side.
That’s all there is to it!
So what now?
I believe that these are the basics you need to know to set up a LinkedIn profile, how successful you are with it is up to you. Like anything in life, on social media, in general day-to-day activities, the more effort you put into it, the more you’ll get out of it.
I know this looks like a lot of information to take in, but trust me, it’s not hard at all.
LinkedIn is the professional social network for business minded people and with new members signing up every 2 seconds, you need to be part of it. (LinkedIn, 2014) Not only is LinkedIn a potential way to find a job, it’s also a good way to connect and socialise with like minded people in your area of work.
If you only take away five things from this blog, here are some tips I’d recommend for your LinkedIn profile:
- Be concise
- Be truthful
- Be consistent
- Be professional
- Be you
Good luck!
Becca
2022 words (Not including references and bibliography)
Bibliography
Cable, L. (2014) LinkedIn Perfect your Profile. Liz Cable.
Guiseppi, M. (2014) Best LinkedIn Profile SEO Places for Relevant Keywords. [Online] Available from: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/article/20140619165002-14212868-best-linkedin-profile-seo-places-for-relevant-keywords [Accessed 8 December 2014]
Grovo (2014)How do I edit my LinkedIn contact information?. [Online Video] Available from http://www.grovo.com/track/255386/create-your-profile/edit-contact-information [Accessed 10 December 2014].
LinkedIn, (2014) LinkedIn Press Center. About LinkedIn. [Online] Available from: http://press.linkedin.com/about [Accessed 8 December 2014]
Red Evolution, (2014) What is SEO? It’s Simpler Than You Think! [Online] Available from: https://www.redevolution.com/what-is-seo/ [Accessed 10 December 2014]
Waldman, J. (Date Unknown) For Dummies A Wiley Brand. A Good Profile Photo Makes A Winning LinkedIn Profile. [Online] Available from: http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/a-good-profile-photo-makes-a-winning-linkedin-prof.html [Accessed 8 December 2014]
White, M. (Date Unknown) Linked Training. [Online] Available from: http://www.linkedintraining.net/linkedin-profile-photo-important/ [Accessed 8 December 2014]
Becca Keenan LTU 