We were thrilled when Helen Pitlick, digital media strategist, spent a Saturday with us going over best practices for enhancing our LinkedIn profiles. Her 10 golden rules of LinkedIn are worth sharing with others. Take a look at these, and then take a look at your LinkedIn profile. Do you need to modify anything?
- Write your personal summary in the first person. Describe your professional experience and accomplishments—without sounding like an advertisement. Aim for 100-200 words in length.
- List your jobs, even those with no relation to your current position. These are potential networking opportunities or conversation-starters.
- List all of your higher education. You do not need to include high school, unless there is a strong networking potential. This is another way to help viewers develop a connection with you and increases the likelihood that you will show up when people search within their network on LinkedIn.
- Join and participate in groups. Having groups on your profile shows viewers that you’re involved in the community, but they’re also great places to ask and respond to questions, share relevant articles, and learn from discussions and information shared.
- Make connections. Connect with current coworkers, former coworkers, classmates, people you meet at networking events, and active, interesting members of your LinkedIn groups. Be sure to include a personalized message when inviting someone to connect, not just the standard LinkedIn blurb. When traveling, search for connections you may have in that area and then meet up offline.
- Ask for recommendations. Endorsements help viewers of your profile get a feel for what you are like to work with, and reinforce that you are a real person.
- Include an up-to-date picture. People connect much more with a profile if they can put an image with it. Plus, someone you met may not remember your name when you try to connect with them, but might recognize your face.
- List your skills! Let people see what you can do and recommend you accordingly.
- Be sure your profile is public. What’s the point of perfecting your profile if no one can see it?
- Customize your public profile URL, to easily share. Adding a link to your LinkedIn profile in your email signature line is an easy way to encourage people to connect.
