8 Ways You Can Improve Your LinkedIn Profile to Land a Job

When it comes to marketing for others, we invest a lot of time and resources to ensure we meet all necessary goals. However, when it comes to marketing our own personal brands, we sometimes sell ourselves short.

Whether we’re too busy or maybe even unaware, it’s essential for us to keep up with our personal branding so that we aren’t missing out on specific opportunities to advance our career. By following these eight tips to improve your LinkedIn profile, you will be able to showcase your unique personal brand to help attract recruiters, peers, and industry connections.

1. Choose a proper profile picture

Your picture says a lot about you and acts as a calling card to potential employers, so it’s critical you want make a great first visual impression. Pick a recent photo that shows your face up close, making sure to avoid any long distance or full body shots (as they don’t stand out as well). Ensure you are dressed appropriately (business attire is often preferred) and make sure to smile.

2. Rework your headline

Use the headline field on LinkedIn to describe more about your current position, why you love what you do for work, and what drives you career wise. Feel free to browse other people’s profile page headlines who currently work in your profession or in a field you are trying to get into for inspiration on what you can add to your own title.

3. List relevant skills

Scroll through the list of skills, adding those that are relevant to you. By doing this, you will help back up your headline and summary and give a platform for others to endorse you. It isn’t necessary to have every single skill you think you need to attract many different employers. Instead, choose ones that are relevant and really speak to who you are and what you do.

4. Endorse others

Receiving endorsements from others helps confirm your skills and increase your credibility. To help get yourself endorsed, go through your network and give endorsements to any of the connections you would like to return the favor. Don’t be shy when it comes to sending a polite message to someone whose endorsement you’d value, and ask them to substantiate a few of your key skills.

5. Update your responsibilities

Upon switching jobs or acquiring new tasks in your current role, don’t forget to update your profile to reflect the new changes. Your responsibilities are one of the first things people look at, so make sure your current position is kept up-to-date, including your titles and location.

6. Follow the correct people

For inspiration, follow people who are essential leaders and influencers. They will provide a lot of exciting content and advice relevant to you. Plus, more context will be given to your LinkedIn profile, demonstrating the dedication you have for what you do.

7. Publish content to help with conversations

Take some time to share and comment on the content being added to LinkedIn to help keep you informed on issues your connections are posting about. If you find particular posts interesting or related to your industry, don’t hesitate to share with others as well. Make sure to keep an eye out for comments on content you’ve shared so you can be ready to reply.

8. Invite people to contact you

Include a way for people to contact you, whether through email or by sending you a LinkedIn message. In addition to accepting open profile messages, you may have to turn on premium profile visibility to allow other members to message you.

By regularly keeping your LinkedIn profile up-to-date, you won’t have to spend hours at a time making sure you are taking advantage of one of the best self-marketing tools available. Try spending a little time each day to update any necessary changes as well as keeping up with your connections and any relevant posts that could help get you noticed. You will be amazed at the improvement of your profile and the difference it can make to help you professionally.

Your LinkedIn profile is a valuable tool to help you land that job you always wanted, but it can be difficult to be hired from it alone. If when you are building your profile, you may notice you want to gain some more work experience or learn additional skills to increase your chances of being employed, look into joining an organization that can help.

The Jobs Partnership has been dedicated to helping people discover the path to the job they were made for through career training and resources. Thanks to our partnerships with churches, volunteers, employers, and community organizations, we can offer our no-cost LifeWorks training program to qualified students and help them learn the skills needed to land a better job. Call us today at 407-641-0755 or fill out our LifeWorks application online.