View my LinkedIn Profile – 5 Areas to focus on

Since Covid-19 lockdown,every single one of us has been affected from a work and career perspective in one way or another.  You may be in the fortunate situation of retaining your current role and enjoying the work from home life, or you are one of the many who have been made redundant, on furlough, working reduced hours or feeling quite insecure about the future of your role or business.  Whichever phase you are in, updating your LinkedIn profile is a great way to showcase your professional brand and connect with your professional network.

Linkedin is the largest business-oriented networking website for professionals. Many people can sometimes underestimate the importance of a well written and engaging LinkedIn profile, either for your job search, or uncovering opportunities and networks that you may not be aware of.  LinkedIn helps you to create your online professional brand and identity which can be found and followed by millions of other professionals and businesses across the world.

I have listed a couple of ways to help freshen up your profile. As always, please contact me directly for any questions or help on your LinkedIn and I will do my best to advise.

Profile Section

• Headline – this is a great way to summarise and showcase your skills and profession. You have a limited number of character space here so it needs to be concise. Include your job title, current company if required and the key industry(s) you work in..  Take a look at my profile headline below. This means when someone comes across my profile, they know exactly what I do. Also make sure your location is up to date on this – especially if you have moved countries or cities recently (it doesn’t update automatically).

• Profile Photo – Please pick a more formal photo than you would add on your Facebook or Instagram – I know it’s tempting to add a photo of you on a beach, sipping cocktails or that golden shot of you living life, but this is not the place for them! A head/shoulder photo of you with a warm smile will be perfect, perhaps even in a branded work tshirt or the office background. No sunglasses, no hats and no jumping shots!

Personal Summary

This is an important section to include, but many people do tend to leave this part out – it can be challenging to write, not only keeping it concise but also sell yourself a little.  Of course, don’t go overboard on this section but do highlight your key skills and achievements.  This is a similar section to how your personal summary should be on your CV so you can just copy and paste if easier. A couple of key points

1. Write this in the first-person (I am highly dependable…, I succeed in…) – this shows your authenticity and gives you ownership over your own story. 
2. Write short and concise paragraphs to highlight your work experience, your skills, achievements and the impact you have made.
3. Ask people around you to proofread your summary – sometimes it is hard for us to be objective in our summary (especially if you are modest) and so asking your friend, colleague, family member to offer some extra details might be useful.

 Work Experience

This is pretty obvious but make sure your role titles and companies are all up to date – you may want to add a new role title when you receive a promotion at work!  I would also include a couple of key points under each role to outline what you have been doing in that role or key projects you have worked on.   This doesn’t need to be as detailed as your CV but it could be if you wanted.

Skills & Endorsements

This section also gets a little undervalued but for me when I am headhunting and researching potential candidates within the market I would definitely use this section to understand more about the person’s experience.  An easy task is to ensure the skills you have included are up to date and you have been endorsed a number of times for the relevant skills (ask some colleagues to endorse you!)