I have posted a video on how to set up your LinkedIn profile.
Your profile is your personal website and whether it’s an employer or it’s another person who would like to do business with you, this will tell them a lot about the sort of person you are and how you can add value to them.
Starting off at the top of your profile, it’s extremely important that you have a really good photograph and I would recommend that you get a photograph professionally taken. It needs to be a business-like photograph; a photograph of you covered in face paint or a photograph of you partying is not appropriate for LinkedIn. Make sure you have a close-up photograph of yourself, a headshot, because the photo is not very big so if you are too distant, people will not be able to see you properly. Make sure you’ve got a punch description that sells you, rather than the actual job title, actually talk about what you do and how you can add value to your potential clients or your employer.
You have the ability to post a status update on your LinkedIn account, make sure you include information on where you’re working and where you’ve worked in the past. Make sure you get recommendations, if you have worked for some really good people who really liked what you do, make sure they endorse you. Do you have any websites? Do you have a blog? Are you on Twitter? If you do any of these things, make sure you list those on your profile so people can actually go to your website and find out more about you.
As you go down your profile, you can talk about your summary of your current job, you can talk about your previous work experience, you can talk about your education, and you can put additional information about yourself such as your interests. In addition to your standard LinkedIn profile, there are also some additional sections you can add, which I would recommend. So, for example, if your work is widely published, you can actually link to your publications, if you’ve done any presentations, you can put these presentations on your profile.
You can even include videos. If you’ve done any videos, you can include those. So, go through the LinkedIn add sections and if you see any sections that are relevant to you, make sure you add them.
There may even be patterns that you have for your professional work, you can add those. Now, as we get to the bottom of your LinkedIn profile, you can include all sorts of groups that you are a member of. Now, these are LinkedIn groups, these take all sorts of shapes and forms.
For example, you may be a carpenter, and you may be part of a professional carpentry group. Put that in. Or you are a member of a local chamber of commerce, put that in.
All we have to do is select a group, type in, find the organization and join the group. The advantage of joining these groups is, again, it tells people about the sort of people that you are associated with, the sort of industry that you are in, all of these things will make a big difference and help sell you.
