How To Create An Amazing LinkedIn Profile That 10x Your Profile Views
Today, I am going to show how to create LinkedIn profile that get interviews and land jobs.
Did you know that 3 people are hired through LinkedIn every minute? This is true according to LinkedIn.
If you are not using Linkedin for your job search, you may be missing out on some amazing opportunities.
LinkedIn now has close to 800 million people on it, and 70% of them are “decision-makers”. That means there are a lot of people on LinkedIn that make hiring decisions.
Through LinkedIn you have great opportunities to engage and interact with millions of people and develop meaningful connections.
Through your LinkedIn profile you can showcase your skills, expertise and credibility much more easily and effectively than ever before.
If you want to command your own income and success, you need to improve how you use LinkedIn to your advantage. I consider LinkedIn to be a goldmine for professionals.
Here is a summary of all the benefits of LinkedIn:
Easy way to gain exposure to hiring managers and recruiters
Demonstrate your skills, knowledge, credibility and leadership expertise (i.e. creative posts, commenting, recommendations)
Use LinkedIn as a research tool (companies, job opportunities, important contacts, interviews)
LinkedIn has an amazing job board with lots of jobs
Social proof of skills through skills endorsements
Follow and keep track of companies you are interested
Helps you build your own brand
Helps you build an audience
Can help rank higher on google if people searching for your services
Manage your contacts in once
Help you keep on top of relevant-industry news
Here is quick list of the strategies we will be discussing today:
Let's discuss the specific ways to improve your LinkedIn profile and strategies to help you get hired.
Write an amazing Headline
Besides your name, your LinkedIn Headline is the most viewed piece of content on your LinkedIn Profile.
It is usually the first piece of content people see when they visit your profile. It is also one of the first things people see when you make comments and publish posts on LinkedIn.
It is what people use to determine what you do and how you can help them. Therefore, take the time to create a great headline.
Here are three steps you can use to create one:
Add the current job title or the ideal job title that matches your skills
Add the keywords or skills you have that matches with your ideal role
Use this format: [Your job title] | [keyword] | [keyword] | [keyword] | [keyword] | [keyword]
Example:
Hands-on Customer Success Manager | Saas Expertise | Customer Onboarding | Account Management | Customer Relationship Management | Hubspot
Business Analyst | Requirement Gathering & Analysis | Agile Methodologies | Process Improvement | Visio | SQL | Project Management | User Testing | Jira
Product Manager | Product Marketing | Product Strategy | Product Planning & Development | Product Strategies and Roadmaps | Product Development | Agile Methodologies | User Experience | Saas Expertise
Project Manager | Project Planning | Agile Methodologies | Process Improvement | Change Management | Business Analysis | MS Project | Project Coordination | Contract Management
Alternatively, you can update your headline to show types of companies you help and how you help them.
For example: Human Resources and Talent Acquisition Specialist | Helping companies find and manage great talent
Ultimately, the goal of the headline is to indicate the ideal job you want to land and showcase the skills you possess to help companies that want to hire you.
Put a great profile Image
When updating LinkedIn profile, put a clear, easy to recognize photo on your LinkedIn Profile.
Faces help people build trust quickly with others. People are fundamentally social They feel comforted and secured when they see the faces of others.
4 pieces of advice:
Invest in a professional picture or headshot - let the photographers know it's for LinkedIn
Smile 🙂 - increases positive perception and likeability
Choose a clean and neutral background (clean up backgrounds using remove.bg)
Use a recent photo of yourself
Show your creativity through a banner
When updating your LinkedIn Profile, spend time to create a banner for your profile. Its a great way to show your creativity, skills and interest towards your work.
Use Canva to build a banner image for your profile.
Keep it simple and add these items to your banner:
Your name
Your ideal job title
Phone number
Email Address
Website (optional)
Or keep it simple with something like this:
Update your About section
Updating your About section in Linkedin is a great way to rank higher and help recruiters find you easier. This section provides a way to tell who you are to your potential employers.
Think of the About section as a Professional Summary seen in your resume, however, written in first person.
Here are 7 tips to consider when updating your About section:
Write the About section in first person.
Use bullet points to make it easier for recruiters to identify your skills and past experience.
Indicate major responsibilities and projects you worked on and the number of years.
Indicate key softwares and tools you use and for how long you've used them.
State key job related certifications and training that you have received
Provide your email address so the recruiters can contact you.
Here is an example:
Hello! 👋🏼 I am a 10-year hands-on Customer Success Manager from Toronto, Canda.
Here is a little bit about me:
⭐ I have over 10 years of experience in Customer Success and Technical Support Management.
⭐ I have over 8 years experience guiding and advocating for clients and guiding them to success.
⭐ I have over 8 experience customer success tools such as Salesforce.
⭐ I have over 5 years experience building relationships with customers and partners.
⭐ I am a Certified Salesforce Administrator and knowledgeable in Cloud and Cybersecurity principles.
👉🏼 Please feel free to contact me through myemail@gmail.com
Use the Featured section to showcase your past work
Did you know that displaying your publications and past projects on the LinkedIn’s Featured section can help you land jobs faster?
Showing your past work and publications help enhance your authority and develop trust with recruiters and hiring managers. This means more interviews and offers for you.
Imagine yourself in this situation: you are the hiring manager for a position in your company. You are given two LinkedIn profiles to pre-screen two candidates, however, you can only push one candidate through to the next stage.
One candidate has a Featured section populated with past work. The other candidate doesn't have any items populated in this section yet.
Who do you feel more comfortable pushing through to the next stage if all other qualifications are the same?
I would pick the candidate with the featured section populated.
Here are few items you can use to improve your Featured section:
Content you created
Slides and presentations
Blogs and articles
Videos
eBooks
Reports
Research papers
Websites
Any products or services you help create
Here are 4 steps to update the featured section with your best work:
Brainstorm a list of past and current projects, sample work, published work or portfolio pieces.
Choose 3-4 of your best items (take screenshots or get links).
Go to LinkedIn and add the Featured Section.
Update the Featured Section with the best items and write a small description.
Don't worry about populating the featured section with 3-4 items right away. Take small steps to do one at a time.
Impress with Your Experience
This is one of the most important sections in your LinkedIn profile. This is where recruiters and hiring managers go to review to see what duties and responsibilities you had while you were working on past roles. Therefore, its a good practice to dedicate time to develop a great one.
The experience section on LinkedIn is pretty much the same thing as the Experience section in your resume. If you have completed the Experience section for your resume, you can use the same content to update the experience section on LinkedIn.
Similar to the resume, I recommend listing out 5-7 professional responsibilities and accomplishments in to showcase your work history.
Here are key items that should be included in the Experience section:
Current and past Job titles
Company names (make sure you pick one with a logo)
List 4-7 key responsibilities and accomplishments
Use stats and numbers whenever possible
Use action words describe your experience
How to write your past responsibilities?
Here are few steps to help you write the responsibilities:
Research 5-10 job descriptions that match your ideal job on various job sites. For example, if you are updating your resume for a Project Management role, find 5-10 job descriptions related to your ideal job on sites like LinkedIn or Indeed.
Make a list of recurring/common responsibilities and duties that fall under those roles.
If you had similar responsibilities and duties in your past projects and roles, add them to the experience section.
Use past tense when describing your duties and responsibilities.
Get recommendations
When optimizing your LinkedIn profile, dedicate time to get recommendations from others.
Having recommendations is one the best ways to show your credibility and abilities to your potential employers.
Request recommendation from your past colleagues, clients and managers. Ask them if they want you to create a draft of the recommendation.
If they say yes, use this 4 for components to to create a recommendation to send them:
There are 4 components to write a great recommendation:
Relationship with you - example: “I had the pleasure of working with Susie for two years at the Amazing Company, collaborating on several projects.”
Your standout trait or ability - “Susie’s ability to juggle multiple projects was unlike any I’ve seen before and made a dramatic difference in the productivity level of our team. Also, she was great at mentoring and coaching people in the team”
A bit about your personality - “No matter how tense a meeting is, Susie made sure everyone left with a smile.”
Final recommendation - “ I highly recommend Susie and she would be a great asset to any team!”!
Full example:
“I had the pleasure of working with Susie for two years at the Amazing Company, collaborating on several projects. Susie’s ability to juggle multiple projects was unlike any I’ve seen before and made a dramatic difference in the productivity level of our team. Also, she was great at mentoring and coaching people in the team. No matter how tense a meeting is, Susie made sure everyone left with a smile.I highly recommend Susie and she would be a great asset to any team!”
If they say no you are drafting the recommendation, send above 4 components and the example as a reference.
Pro-tip: Focus on getting at 3 good recommendations to add to your LinkedIn Profile.
Update your skills and get endorsed
Did you know that you get 17x more profile views if you list 5 skills or more in your LinkedIn Profile?
By listing your skills, you help LinkedIn bring your profile in front of more people. One reason this happens is because LinkedIn uses keywords to categorize individuals for search results. More skills means more keywords in your profile. Which means more views and opportunities for you.
Pretty much anything can be listed as a skill. However, learn what companies are actually looking for in terms of skills for your ideal job. Avoid listing unrelated and random skills.
Here is how to identify the most important skills you should be listing:
1. Identify 5-10 job descriptions that are related to your ideal job.
2. Go through the job descriptions and identify 10-15 recurring keywords that are related to your skills and experience.
3. Pay attention to things like skills, software tools, industry-specific keywords.
4. Add the matching keywords to your LinkedIn profile
Once you have completed the above steps, ask your family, friends and colleagues to endorse your skills on LinkedIn. Make a list of people who would be willing to endorse your skills, then, request them to visit your profile and endorse the listed skills.
Showcase your Certifications, Courses, Licenses and Degrees you attained
Getting certifications, licenses and education is not only a great way to get more skills, its a great way to impress companies with your knowledge and expertise. It shows companies that you are motivated to improve and develop expertise when necessary.
Studies show that 90% of hiring managers report certifications as an important criteria for hiring.
Take the time to update certifications, courses, licenses or degrees you completed or in the process of completing. Remember to update both the name of the course, license or degree, and the organization you received it from.
Bonus: How to add invisible sections to your LinkedIn Profile
In some cases, you may not see the Education, Featured, Recommendations or other sections when editing your profile.
Here is how you add them, if you are missing any:
1. To add new sections, log in to your LinkedIn profile.
Click on “Add profile section”
3. Select any section that is missing from Core, Recommended and Additional areas.
Here quick summary
Write an amazing Headline
Put a great profile Image
Show your creativity through a banner
Update your About section
Use the Featured section to showcase your past work
Impress with Your Experience
Get recommendations
Update your skills and get endorsed
Showcase your Certifications, Courses, Licenses and Degrees you attained
Bonus: How to add invisible sections to your LinkedIn Profile
That’s it for today!
Much love!
