LinkedIn Profile Makeover Tips Advice Resume Job Search

The first 5 to 7 seconds of someone visiting your profile is the most important. Think of someone coming to your LinkedIn profile for the very first time.

What do you want them to know about you?

What do you excel at?

What do you do for a job?

What are some of those high-level skills you possess?

We need to make an impact - it’s almost like meeting somebody for the very first time in person or maybe on zoom - so the very first thing we need to discuss is your LinkedIn banner.

Now let’s say you work at Amazon as a project manager. Having the Amazon logo on your LinkedIn profile really only brands the company – it really doesn’t say what it is you do.

So, what I want to share with you - is we need to tell people again what we do.

Let’s say you are a Project Manager at Amazon.

Visit Google and type Project Manager in the search.

Then I want you to click on the images tab.

Here you’re going to find size appropriate banners that you will be able to put up on your LinkedIn profile.

Now somebody visiting your profile for the very first time will be able to understand what you do.

You can use companies like Canva or one of my favorites PosterMyWall to create your own LinkedIn banner. Your banner is very valuable real estate – but I will share the most valuable real estate on your LinkedIn profile in an upcoming module.

Say Cheese….

You don’t go to a networking event with a bag over your head, right?

So, we need to make sure we have a professional photo.

Now you don’t need to pay for a professional headshot.

Pro Tip: Have someone take your photo of you.

· Use the portrait mode feature on your cell phone.

· The background will be blurred out and that will make your face stand out.

· Outdoor lighting is the best.

· Make sure you are faced looking at the camera or looking slightly to your left (right if looking at your profile photo on your profile).

· You don’t want to be facing the other way. If you’re looking to the right (or to the left if looking at your profile photo) you will be taking the persons eyes off your page.

Make sure to use your legal name unless you go by your middle name or a shortened version of your first name etc. (Maidan name in ( ________) if needed)

It is ok to add Dr. at the beginning or PMP at the end but stay away from adding emojis and or too many certifications etc.It does go against LinkedIn’s terms of service to add emojis to your name.

Ready to deliver that mini elevator pitch?

You notice this icon that looks like a speaker?

On the LinkedIn mobile app, you can record a 10 second audio of yourself.

You can play it back on any device but you must record it on the LinkedIn mobile app.

Think of it like your mini elevator pitch. Share what you’re passionate about.

Because hardly anyone adds this audio message you are just making yourself more unique.

You can also add a 30 second video to your LinkedIn photo – I will be discussing this in an upcoming module when we discuss Creator Mode.

Now let’s discuss the most valuable real estate on your LinkedIn profile and that’s your Headline.

Here is what not to do:

Let’s say you’re a Project Manager at Amazon – I see people writing Project Manager at Amazon on their Headline or something similar all of the time. This is not a good strategy and let me share why.

When recruiters are searching for people on LinkedIn, they use some advanced search tools to search for people based on Industry – Jot Title and High-Level Hard Skills.

If you want to show up in better recruiter searches you should add something like this:

Project Manager excelling at Customer Success | Program Management | Workforce Planning | Strategic Planning | Change Management | Scheduling

I want you to share those High-Level skills that you have on your resume here in the Headline.

Use those vertical lines “ | “ to break up those Hard Skills.

You don’t need to write your Headline like a sentence.
I want you to take advantage of every character you can use.

Let’s Talk about your contact info.

Share a website – calendar – phone numbers – email address – Twitter handle – Birthdate

Your LinkedIn profile URL

LinkedIn creates a URL for you when you create account but people don’t edit it.

Go to your LinkedIn profile – Edit Public profile & URL and select it.

Another window will open…

Now you can remove those random letters and numbers. This will make your LinkedIn URL look more cleaner and more professional when you share it (Please make sure to share that new LinkedIn URL on your resume and cover letter).

Let’s stay on this page for a minute and go to Edit Visibility.

Your profile’s public visibility should be on.

Select Public and make sure that all of those toggle switches are in the Show position.

Now all LinkedIn members On or Off LinkedIn will be able to view your profile.

People will now be able to find you while doing an online search of your name.

Let’s talk about Open to Work

Open to work allows everyone or just recruiters (option here) to see that you are open to new possibilities.

· Job Titles – use generic job titles

· Workplaces

· Job locations (On-site)

· Job locations (Remote)

· Job types

· Everyone or Recruiters only

Let’s end the module with this…

In early 2022 LinkedIn added the ability for you to add a hyperlink to your LinkedIn profile.

You can add a hyperlink here. You just copy that link and paste it here.

You have up to 30 characters to give it a quick name of what they are about to view.

Link to your website – GitHub – Calendar – etc.

The About Section is the perfect place for you to share what you solve and how you solve it.

We know that people visit your LinkedIn profile to learn more about you.

When you share what you solve and how you solve it, regardless of why you are on LinkedIn, others will quickly know how you might be able to help them.

Pro Tip: Use this strategy…

Question: Think of the things you do and or solve.

Re-engineer that into a question.

The answer will be easy. Share the answer to that question just like how you would share it during an interview.

Normally that hiring manager or recruiter would have to get you on the phone to learn what you solve and how you solve it. Do this here in the About Section and you will temp that recruiter to reach out to you.

We learned in the About Section that we need to share what we solve and how we solve it, right?

Now it is time to share social proof of the things we have accomplished. Let me explain.

You can share a photo, PDF, or maybe it’s a link to a website sharing a project that you were a part of. Whether you are mentioned or not, if it is mentioned on your resume, you can still share it here.

Examples of what you can share:

· Maybe it’s a photo of you receiving some award

· PDF or PowerPoint

· Maybe it’s a link to a website that references a project that you were a part of

· You could share an article or Blog here as well

· You can also share a LinkedIn post that shares your knowledge

· Or for you entrepreneurs – maybe it’s a link to your website or calendar

Now let me share how easy it is to add something to your Featured section.

If you have only recently started your journey on LinkedIn there might be a lot of sections you have yet to add. The Add profile section will allow you to do just that.

Let’s take a look at all of the things you can add here.

Core: Add Education – Add Position – Career Break (I do not recommend this) – Skills

Recommended: Add Featured – Licenses & Certifications – Courses – Recommendations

Additional: Add Volunteer Experience – Publications – Patents – Projects – Honors & Awards – Test Scores – Languages – Organizations – Causes

I don’t want to bore you with this but it is important for you to know where all of these items are.

Here is a quick overview of what you will find here:

· Account Preferences

· Sign in & Security

· Visibility

· Communications

· Data Privacy

· Advertising Data

You would never write a resume and only share the Company Name, Job Title, and the Date’s you worked without adding what you did and those amazing Metrics, Accomplishments, and or Achievements, right?

I speak to so many jobseekers that just get bad information when it comes to the Work History section. I see so many jobseekers only adding the Company Name along with their job title and the dates they worked and that’s it. Let me share something with you that might shed some light on why this is not a good idea.

Let’s say I’m a recruiter and I find you on LinkedIn.
After skimming your LinkedIn profile, I might do the following…

I can download your LinkedIn profile as PDF that sort of looks like a resume.

Now you would never share a resume that only has the Company Name – Job Title – and the Dates worked, right?

Make it easy on that recruiter so they don’t have to reach out to you to ask for that resume.
Add those same amazing Metrics, Accomplishments, and or Achievements to your Work History.

I’m sure you are wondering… “if I make all these changes won’t I alert my current employer?”

Notify Network (ON/OFF) – make sure to turn this off and you will not alert any of your connections you have made changes to your LinkedIn profile.

Copy and paste your various job responsibilities that you have on your resume into each of the job descriptions on your profile– please adjust the spacing so it looks appealing after pasting.

Remember when we added some of those items to our Featured section?

Well, we can do that same thing here in our Work History…. they just show up as smaller thumbnails – but serve that same purpose.

If it has been a while since you received that degree you do not have to add the year you graduated. You can add a sentence or two about anything else you would like to share. You could share what memberships, clubs/organizations you belonged to or any additional coursework you would like to highlight.

I do not suggest adding your High School unless it is the only Education you have and it wasn’t more than 3 years ago.

Remember when we added some of those items to our Featured section and maybe even our Work History?

Well, we can do that same thing here in our Education…. they just show up as smaller thumbnails – but serve that same purpose.

This is a great place to share that Microsoft Advanced Excel Course/Training you took along with maybe your PMP.

I would highly suggest leaving expired Licenses and or Certifications on your LinkedIn profile. It does show what you took and the knowledge you gained. Now if you in fact have received a new Certification that supersedes that expired one then by all means please remove that expired one from your LinkedIn profile.

Why should you add volunteer experience.

When I was a hiring manager, I reviewed resumes almost on a daily basis.

I know that some of our volunteer work is in fact almost work. Just because we didn’t get paid doesn’t mean we didn’t provide value. Sometimes the organization leverages us for our skills and expertise. Maybe we did in fact learn some new skills during our time volunteering.

Feel free to add “why” you volunteered and or connected with that organization. Sharing your why just might grab the attention of that hiring manager having volunteered for something similar in the past.

Please make sure to add what you learned. Share the skills and knowledge they leveraged you for during your time volunteering.

You can add up to 50 Skills here.

Take all of those amazing Hard Skills you have on your resume and add them all here.

Ask your current and former Peers – Direct Reports – Bosses to endorse your Skills.

The best way to do this is by endorsing theirs first.

After you have added as many as you can here you can actually share what three you want to highlight at the top.

Click on the pencil – click on the three dots – click on reorder.

You want those three top skills to be those High-Level Hard skills.

These are becoming more and more important on LinkedIn and let me explain why.

Most companies no longer call references but still ask for them when you apply for a job... kind of silly if you ask me… but… that hiring manager or recruiter just might take a look at your Recommendations prior to scheduling an interview or prior to that upcoming interview.

Having more than a few here from a current or former Peer – Direct Report – Boss – someone you Volunteered with – or a professor at your university will allow others to know the value you bring.

Besides getting that verbal commitment from the person via phone, text, or email, I want you to do one more very important thing to increase the likelihood of them actually writing that Recommendation.

Pro Tip:

· You must be connected to them on LinkedIn

· Go to the top of their profile and click on that More button

· Select Request a Recommendation (click on Recommend if you are going to write them one)

· Select Relationship – select the one that closely resembles your relationship with them

· Select Position at the time – this will pull up a list of your jobs

Time to personalize that message…

Let them know that it will now be waiting in their Messaging on LinkedIn.

They write it – it will go to your messaging and you will get to look it over prior to adding it to your Recommendation section.

Now most people will never make it down this far on your LinkedIn profile. But this does not mean you shouldn’t add these here. I would say if they are extremely important for you to share that you do not only add them here but make sure they show up in either your Work History, Headline, and or the About Section.

Now that you have taken the steps to create an amazing LinkedIn profile let’s make sure you know how to interpret some of the data that LinkedIn provides you.

Profile views:

This section shares how many Profile Viewers you have had in the last week and the last 3 months.

You can filter by Company, Industry, Location, Interesting Viewers, or you can use All Filters to really narrow it down. If you have LinkedIn Premium you will in fact, be able to see everyone that has viewed your profile.

Post Impressions:

This shares your Impressions and Engagement over the past 7 – 14 – 28 – 90 – and 365 days along with the Top Engagement Demographics of the people viewing your content.

Search Appearances:

This allows you to see How often your profile appeared in search results during the past 7 days.

It shares what keywords were used to find you… This allows you to see what words not to use and or what you should be using in describing what it is you do. It also shares the Top companies your searchers work at… again this allows you to see a pattern.

Top jobs titles of your searchers… this can be important to know regardless of why you are here on LinkedIn.

Creator Mode allows those that are active or going to be active on LinkedIn after this course, to really start putting you top of mind with others.

Topics:

You can add up to 5 hashtags here. I suggest that they are followed by millions and that they are related to what you do and or what you excel at.

LinkedIn Live:

I go LIVE on LinkedIn at least once a week and so can you. You do need to subscribe to a service to go LIVE like StreamYard or Restream.

Audio Event:

Just like Clubhouse you can now use Audio rooms to schedule Audio events.

Newsletters:

This changed my life… ok, maybe just my life here on LinkedIn.

If you have a lot to share… maybe you have hundreds of blogs, articles, that you have shared at your company, website, or other social media platforms – this would be a great additional strategy here on LinkedIn. You can select the frequency of your Newsletter and sky’s the limit with what you can add to your newsletter, photos, videos, external links, etc.

You know the saying “You only have one chance to make a first impression” right?

The first week of launching your newsletter is the most important and let me explain why.

LinkedIn will promote it to all of your first-degree connections on LinkedIn during that first week.

If you do not have a large network, you are not going to get that many people to sign up.

Now yes you can ask, via email blast, your client list, etc. to subscribe to your newsletter.

Now I waited until I had over 70,000+ followers and 25,000 connections before I launched my newsletter, and it received over 15,000 subscribers in that first week.

Now I’m not telling you that you need to wait until you have that large of a network, but I would suggest waiting until you have at least 5,000 connections on LinkedIn. If you are active, that should not take you that long at all. You can use that time to get a library of content to share in your newsletter when you launch it.

This will allow you to easily share your LinkedIn profile across your other social media platforms, website, landing page, etc. Allowing people to quickly follow you.

Search Feature

Yes, LinkedIn is a 24/7 networking event and I don’t want you to ever think otherwise.

But, it’s also the world’s largest Data Base and let me explain.

LinkedIn’s Search feature is not only easy to use but you can easily leverage it for potential referrals. We will discuss in detail, sharing all of my best practices, later in this course.

I will tell you that the Search feature allows you to search for people based on the following:

· Job Title

· Company

· Location

· School

· Connection (1st, 2nd, or 3rd degree)

Before we end this section let me explain the 3 different types of relationships you can have with

a LinkedIn profile. You will always see either 1st, 2nd, or 3rd at the end of someone’s name.

So, let me take the time to share what this means to you:

· 3rd Degree connection: Means that you are not connected to them and you have no mutual connections.

· 1st Degree connection: Means that you are in fact connected to them on LinkedIn.

· 2nd Degree connection: Means that you are not connected to them but you have at least one mutual connection.

Building your network on LinkedIn will be one of the best things you can ever do for your career today, tomorrow, and well into the future.

Home Page

I want to make sure you know how to navigate LinkedIn so let me do that by sharing with you all of the things you should be made aware of. Now you might not use many of these much or you may in fact find it useful to use this in your LinkedIn strategy.

Left column: This area shows Who’s viewed your profile – Impressions of your post – Your Business Pages (if any) – Recent hashtags – Groups you belong to – Events – Followed Hashtags

Start a post: Ready to start posting?

Your Feed: Shows relevant info of the people, businesses, and hashtags you follow.

LinkedIn News: I get some great content ideas here

Promoted: Ads you might be interested in based on a number of factors

I want to make sure you know how to navigate LinkedIn so let me do that by sharing with you all of the things you should be made aware of. Now you might not use many of these much or you may in fact find it useful to use this in your daily LinkedIn strategy.

Manage my network:

· Connections: Number of connections

· Contacts

· People I Follow

· Groups: Groups you have subscribed to

· Events: Events you are attending or have attended

· Pages: Business Pages that you follow

· Newsletters: Newsletters of others you are subscribing to

· Hashtags: Hashtags # you are following.

· Add Personal Contacts: LinkedIn will periodically import and store your contacts to help you and others connect. You get to choose how to connect to and who to invite.

Pending Invitations

Manage: Manage Invitations

Received and Sent: People – Pages – Events

LinkedIn will provide you suggested connections… let’s look at those categories

· Because you recently followed…

· People you may know from…

· Audio events for you…

· People you may know with similar roles

· People you may know in Greater……(near you)…area

· People in the ?? industry you may know

· Black voices to follow and amplify

· Because you recently followed…

· Online events for you

· Recommended newsletters for you

· Groups you may be interested in

· More suggestions for you

There are over 100 job boards across the globe with Indeed and LinkedIn being the two here in the US that I would suggest using if you are in fact a jobseeker. Let me show you how you can navigate the LinkedIn job search to leverage your network on the platform. Let me share how to best navigate this and show you a couple sample job searches for you.

Left side: My Jobs – Job Alerts – Salary – Skill Assessments – Interview prep – Resume Builder – Job seeker guidance – Application settings

Searching for a job using LinkedIn: Apply vs. Easy Apply and the benefits and BIG differences with each.

· Easy Apply: Do you celebrate when you see the Easy Apply (LinkedIn) or the Apply Now (Indeed) button when you apply?? Yes, it is super easy to apply when you hit the Apply Now or Easy Apply but do you know that most people that use this do not get hired. Let me explain. When you use this feature when applying your application/resume is normally only going to one person and that’s a recruiter. What if they get 400 applications – do you think they are going to review them all? NO, me neither. Sometimes the Easy Apply goes to a third-party recruiter and not a recruiter at the company. Just another reason that the Easy Apply doesn’t always lead to an easy time getting an interview.

· Apply: When you see the word Apply by a job, we normally know that mean’s it’s going to take you to the Career Portal of that particular company. I do understand that this can be a very long process. But keep this in mind… who gets to potentially see that application when you apply on a company’s Career Portal? – Normally it’s the Recruiter – HR Manager - Hiring Manager – and Hiring Managers Boss that all have access. The more eyes that get to potentially look at your application and or resume the better.

One of the best advantages that LinkedIn has over all other job boards is the ability to quickly see if you have any connections working for the company prior to applying.

Pro Tip:

You can use what you learned in the Search feature to identify if you have any 2nd degree connections working at the job you want prior to applying.

What shows up in the Notifications?

· Content of groups you follow

· Content of people you follow and have selected the bell – every time they post you will see their post here

· Content of businesses you follow

If you click on View Settings, you will see all of the things you can get notified about.

Take some time to look at these to determine what you want vs. what you don’t want to see in your Notifications.

The Notifications section is a great place to see the content of the people that really mean the most to you.

Click on those three dots and let’s set an away message.

Click on the pencil and we can start a conversation with multiple people. This is a great way to introduce someone or start a collaboration.

Focused vs. Other

This allows you to keep messages Top of Mind in the Focused and leave others in the Other section for future follow up.

You can Archive a conversation – this way you can find that conversation at a later date. I highly suggest this so you can keep conversations and refer back to them at a later date if needing to remember how you know someone.

Create a Video Meeting

Send an instant meeting

Schedule a meeting for a later date – this is a great way to have a calendar without actually having a calendar subscription.

Here is a brief overview of the Me section

Account

· Premium Features

· Settings & Privacy

· Help

· Language

Work

Here is a brief overview of the Work section:

· Advertise

· LinkedIn Learning

· Insights

· Post a Job

· Groups

· Services Marketplace

· Salary

LinkedIn Business Services

· Talent Solutions: Find, attract and recruit talent

· Sales Solutions: Unlock sales opportunities

· Post a job for Free: Get your job in front of quality candidates

· Marketing Solutions: Acquire customers and grow your business

· Learning Solutions: Develop talent across your organization

Create a Company Page:

If you are a small business owner, entrepreneur, or freelancer you should create a Company Business Page. Creating a Company/Business Page is easy to do and does provide some legitimacy to your business. You can also post content as your company page as the administrator.

Is it important to post?

This is a question I get all the time and I would say it depends on what you want your experience to be like here on LinkedIn.

Before you determine that you are in fact not going to post let me share what you can actually share.

Before I share the HOW’s behind posting let me share some examples of each type of post you can create:

· Text only: see examples

· Photo with Text: see examples

· Video with Text: see examples

· Add a Document - PDF or what we call a Carousel: see examples

· Polls

Celebrate an Occasion

· Welcome to the Team – Celebrate a new colleague joining your team

· Give Kudos – Show appreciation to your colleague

· Project Launch – Share a new project milestone

· Work Anniversary – Celebrate a career milestone

· New Position – Share a job update

· New Educational Milestone – Share an educational milestone

· New Certification – Celebrate a new certification

Now that we know what we can share let me show you the “HOW” to create these types of posts.

Variety is the spice of life – I post about 3-4 times a day but I’m not the average LinkedIn user.

When you see a commercial on TV from your favorite restaurant – they don’t use the same commercial year over year – they mix it up, and so should you…. by not using video only… but mixing it up with a poll, photo, video, etc.

Following your company’s business page is in fact an opportunity for you to share a post and or engage with that post. Most companies do not get much employee engagement on their content because they don’t encourage. Missing out in what I think are some missed opportunities to build employee engagement.

LinkedIn also allows you to link your Twitter account so that you can post on LinkedIn and Twitter at the same time. A lot of CEOs are super active on Twitter and it can be an opportunity for you to share your knowledge with your Twitter audience.

I wanted to devote an entire section to Articles because of the value they bring.

Now normally they don’t get the number of views, comments, and engagement that a post will get because they take longer to read…. but…. Articles can share what you are in fact a SME (Subject Matter Expert) at to the person reading your Article.

Think of this... You write an Article regarding something in your industry and share your knowledge.

Now that hiring manager that is determining whether to interview you or not sees and reads your Article. Now they have a better understanding of your knowledge about that particular subject.

Why growing your network on LinkedIn will be one of the best things you can do for your career today and into the future.

Yes, you can and should engage with your current company’s Business Page to keep current on what your organization has going on. But if you’re looking to make a move or are currently unemployed engaging on the Business Page of the company or companies you want to work for is a very smart strategy.

Not only will you keep up to date on what’s going on but you might be alerted of new projects that could lead to additional hirings in the very near future. LinkedIn and Twitter are great places for you to visit prior to an interview to get the inside scoop of those new builds, projects, or what charitable organizations that company partners with.

If you know what that company struggles with in regards to their customers/clients that information can be useful to use in a cover letter and or an interview.

Now back to My Network tab

“I will only connect to people that work at the company I work for.”

“Why would I connect with someone that doesn’t work in my industry?”

Now if you remember back in Module 4, I shared the power of growing your network and all of those 2nd Degree connection possibilities.

Today I would like you to go to your My Network tab and find 5 people to send a connection request too. But I don’t want you to just click Connect.

Click on their photo and that will take you to their profile.

Click on Connect here and click Add a note why you would like to connect.

If you are not already connected to me, please send me a connection request and use this script or make your own: David, I’m enjoying your online course and hope to connect. Thank you

I will gladly accept your request – Send me a connection request.