5 High-Impact Updates for Your LinkedIn Profile

5 High-Impact Updates for Your LinkedIn Profile 5 High-Impact Updates for Your LinkedIn Profile 4You may not have a professional Facebook page, and you may think that tweeting is totally silly. But as a savvy job seeker, you do know that it’s uber important to have a LinkedIn profile. After all, many hiring managers and prospective bosses often peruse the popular career and networking site in search of the next rising star in their industry. But is your LinkedIn profile representing you in the best possible light? Maybe not. Make your LinkedIn profile shine with these five high-impact updates. Be accessible. Have you ever met someone at a party, asked them what they do, and they tell you a strange job title that makes absolutely no sense to you? Well, if you have a cryptic job title, it can make it hard for LinkedIn’s search algorithm to find you and make you accessible to other viewers. So ask yourself: if a hiring manager is looking for me based on job title alone, will he be able to find me? You might want to consider switching your title to something that is slightly more generic or common, but still accurately describes what you do. That way, you’ll come up in searches more easily. Cash in on keywords. To get more eyes on your profile, you can try adding keywords to your professional headline. This precious real estate underneath your name is one of the first things that a potential employer might see. That’s why you need to utilize that space well. So instead of listing the companies you’ve worked for, you might want to add specific duties that you’ve performed, such as “Content Manager,” “Business Analyst,” and so on. Write a snazzy summary. In the Summary section of your profile, you might be tempted to wax poetic about previous prizes, awards, and accolades you’ve earned over your career. Don’t do it. Instead, write a keyword-rich summary, full of terms that you know that will attract a hiring manager’s attention. Make sure to not write a super long paragraph, or else you’ll cause your viewers’ eyes to glaze over and skip reading the rest of your profile. One to two paragraphs is more than enough to give a good summary, and then you can add your awards to the Awards section of your profile. Spruce up your skills. Over the course of your career, you’ve acquired a noteworthy number of job skills. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t show them off in the Skills section! LinkedIn allows for up to 50 skills to be included, so feel free to add as many as you want. Just make sure that you don’t repeat certain skills, or simply rephrase the same ones in an attempt to have as many as possible. While you have the space to show off your skills, you should always think quality over quantity. Go public. Unlike on other social media sites where you can’t tell if someone has visited your profile, you can definitely do so on LinkedIn. But if your profile view setting is set to anonymous, you might be losing out on getting return views. For example, if you visit a potential boss’ LinkedIn profile- and your own profile view setting is set to “Anonymous”- he won’t know that it was you who visited his profile. However, if your profile is set to “Public,” then he will get an email alert letting him know that it was you who was looking at his info. This could spark an interest and he might view your profile in return, which could lead to a potential job interview. LinkedIn is just one of the tools in a job seeker’s arsenal. By implementing the changes above (which only take a few minutes each to do!), you can help expedite your job search by positioning your LinkedIn profile to be seen by industry leaders- and help land you a job of your choosing. Readers, how much have you invested in your LinkedIn profile? Have you done these modifications? Let us know in the comments below!