LinkedIn Profile Optimization For Dummies

Donna Serdula

• Publisher: For Dummies
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781119651420
• eBook ISBN: 9781119651468
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Careers

Give your LinkedIn profile the makeover it deserves—and get the attention you deserve

Look at your profile: you know it could be a little better. Too many LinkedIn users are just posting a basic resume and hoping for the offers to come flooding in, missing out on the incredible opportunity the platform offers to properly showcase their talents, products, and services to 610 million professionals in over 200 countries. LinkedIn is way more than a resume tool—to display your professional past and present—it's also your career future and personal brand. Used to its fullest extent, it helps you demonstrate the unique value and culture you provide, the skills and aspirations that make you different, to get the outcomes you truly want. But how's it done?

Profile branding expert Donna Serdula pioneered the concept of LinkedIn Profile Optimization and through her Website, LinkedIn-Makever.com, has helped over 5000 professionals use LinkedIn to achieve increased success. In this guide she applies that experience to help you use all of LinkedIn's capabilities to meet your goals, whether they be job search, reputation management, or sales—including how to:

• Create a memorable, successful profile
• Optimize personal keywords
• Showcase your experience, accomplishments, and unique value
• Use LinkedIn features to grow your network and more

You never get a second chance to make a first impression—and people are Googling you right now: Get a fresh online look and get results!

Part 1

The Strategy Before the Siege

IN THIS PART …

Understand your LinkedIn goals and target audience to give your profile purpose.

Learn how to use the proper tone in your profile to draw people in, not push them away.

Optimize your LinkedIn search results by discovering your keywords and infusing them throughout your profile.

Learn how to use LinkedIn as a search tool and how to ensure your search result listing catches a reader’s eye.

Add skills to showcase your strengths to potential employers or clients.

See why soliciting endorsements and endorsing others boosts your credibility.

Chapter 1

Determining Your LinkedIn Strategy

IN THIS CHAPTER

Deciding your LinkedIn goal

Understanding your target audience

Using the proper tone

When you register for a LinkedIn account, the first thing you encounter is the LinkedIn profile. Most people jump in and immediately fill out the fields of the profile, not giving much thought as to why they are on LinkedIn or who will eventually be reading their profile.

Profiles created without a goal or a target audience in mind lack purpose. These profiles don’t catch readers’ eyes and compel them to reach out to the person behind the online persona. You see these profiles on LinkedIn every day. Scanning the profile, nothing grabs you or makes you want to learn more about that person.

To experience success on LinkedIn, you must approach your LinkedIn profile strategically. In this chapter, I show you how to determine your LinkedIn strategy by looking at the three most typical goals people are trying to accomplish on LinkedIn. Once you’ve determined your goal, I show you how to figure out your target audience and discuss the importance of creating a compelling profile tone.

Determining Your LinkedIn Goal

To create a profile that has purpose, you must ask yourself, “What am I trying to accomplish on LinkedIn?” Many people get a LinkedIn account because they want to find a new job. Other people are interested in reputation management and branding. Still other people are on LinkedIn because they are in sales and want to prospect and increase sales through social selling.

To help you determine what you want your profile to accomplish, review the following three most common types of LinkedIn profiles.

Job search

LinkedIn plays a huge role in the job search process. Recruiters, hiring managers, and human resources professionals search LinkedIn looking for potential candidates. They may perform broad-based keyword searches looking for a candidate who matches the skill sets the position requires, or they may already have certain candidates in mind. When they have a person already in mind for a position, a name search is performed on LinkedIn with the goal of learning more about that person than what is stated on his or her resume.

LinkedIn is also a job board. The LinkedIn Jobs section (www.linkedin.com/jobs) is where thousands of jobs from all over the world are posted. These job postings are promoted throughout LinkedIn as well. When you find a job posting that interests you, you can apply for the position by submitting your resume and LinkedIn profile.

Even if you aren’t utilizing LinkedIn’s job postings or hoping to collide with a recruiter, potential employers are still looking you up on LinkedIn and reviewing your LinkedIn profile. Think about it: If you are about to hire someone, and available to you is a database in which to look this person up and see a picture of the candidate, a listing of people he or she knows, and recommendations of his or her work ethic, of course you would use it!

Potential employers are looking at your profile. The good news is you have control over how you represent yourself and how they perceive you. A job search profile complements and echoes your resume without being a direct one-to-one copy. The profile is written to the job description of that next position you are targeting and showcases you as the perfect candidate for that role. See Figure 1-1 for an example.

To find out more about how to create a powerful job search profile, see Chapter 11.

FIGURE 1-1: A job search profile.

Reputation management and branding

It’s a Google world. At one time, if you needed to find out information, you headed to the library to search the encyclopedias and other reference materials. Now, all you need to do is pull up a web browser and perform an Internet search to get more information than you could ever read or use.

This easy access to information has some side effects. People are doing more research than ever before and they are researching you! Going to the doctor? Most people search the Internet for the doctor’s name to see the results that pop up in a search engine. Executives who find their names appearing in press releases or in magazine articles may find that views to their LinkedIn profiles skyrocket by readers wanting to know more about them.

Job candidates’ names are entered into search engines all the time by hiring managers looking to discover more than what is provided in the resume. Similarly, hiring managers’ names are searched by job candidates wanting to learn more about their potential new employer.

LinkedIn profiles rank high in search results. Not only is it usually the top result when a person searches for your name, but also it’s sometimes the only result, as most people don’t have a personal website. You create your LinkedIn profile. You choose what people learn about you. You have total control over how people perceive you. A reputation management profile is one that showcases your successes, honors, awards, and accomplishments, and leads people to see you as a credible, impressive professional.

Sales and prospecting

LinkedIn is more than just a job search tool. LinkedIn is a compendium of professional profiles with industry and contact information, which makes it a terrific prospecting tool for sales professionals. However, it’s not just for sales people looking for prospects. People use LinkedIn to search for service providers and consultants who can help them.

Most people prefer to do business with someone they know or someone with whom they share a connection. When searching LinkedIn for a service provider, you see how you are connected to that service provider through the degrees of connection. This ability to see shared connections provides a level of trust and comfort.

A sales and prospecting profile shines the spotlight on not just the salesperson, but ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Table of Contents
• Introduction
• Part 1: The Strategy Before the Siege
• Part 2: Getting Your LinkedIn Profile Started
• Part 3: Detailing Your Career Trajectory and Creating the Ultimate First Impression
• Part 4: Rounding Out Your Profile and the Final Reveal
• Part 5: The Part of Tens
• Index
• About the Author
• Advertisement Page
• Connect with Dummies
• End User License Agreement