LinkedIn Basics
There isn’t a more well-known professional website than Linkedin. With almost 700 million users, the site is full of recruiters and other professionals that can help you find opportunities and expand your network. It is by far the most popular platform for young professionals to meet alum, find jobs, and begin building a brand for yourself.
Why Join?
LinkedIn is the go-to site for high quality jobs and learning. When it first began, it was a site business development, for staying connected to people you would meet in person. Slowly, it has emerged into a site for learning, virtual networking, and most importantly, for recruiters to match with job candidates.
Begin a Profile
Most of your LinkedIn profile can be built from your phone, without even downloading the LinkedIn app (although we highly recommend the app). The goal of your profile, is to bring your resume to life. If you don’t have a resume, building your LinkedIn profile will help you start putting together the basic building blocks.
Picture & Headline
Profiles with pictures get significantly more views from recruiters. While it's not required to have a picture, remember, you want to bring your profile and background to life. You want to also create a headline that is straight to the point. Some people use catchy phrases as well, such as “Hiring Tech Talent from Across the Globe” or “Shaping the Future with Data Analytics”.
Summary
A summary is your first impression. You are introducing yourself. This is really where LinkedIn starts to bring to life the person behind the work experience and skills. Your summary should reflect your passions as well as what value you can bring to an organization or person. What do you want people to remember you for? You can start by adding about your top skills, and accomplishments that make you proud. For example:
Graphic Designer with 3+ years experience working with top technology firms on the West Coast. Delivering high impact projects in a fast-paced environment is where I thrive. Recently, my team was awarded most innovative by the Design Academy Institute. I am highly proficient in the following programs: Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, Wix, and Google Snapseed.
Work Experience, Volunteering, Skills
Experience and Skills are where you show recruiters what you really know, these sections back up the claims in your summary. The most relevant and recent experience goes at the top, and from there you want to provide in the skills section, the technical and soft-skills that match your work and volunteer experience. Right below each job/company, you want to provide a brief summary or bullets (like a resume), that describe your responsibilities, what task or project you did, and the outcome or intended impact of that project. This last piece is very important, its about showing results, not about creating a list of duties you had. While it is important to describe the basics of the jobs, the best way to describe your experience is to demonstrate the value you brought to your company. Try to keep your words and descriptions concise here. No longer than your resume, and if anything a little shorter.
Bonus Tip: Recruiters on LinkedIn conduct a candidate search like we use Google. The difference is that they have an advanced search tab where they key in specific words and phrases to sort through the thousands of potential candidates to find the top candidates. The more complete your profile is, the more likely you will show up in the recruiter’s search. Use the job description for a job you see and be sure to include elements and key words of that job description in your profile. In the end, the recruiter is using that job description to conduct a search.
Contributors: Liz Ren, Jeff Mullen
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