Polish Up That LinkedIn Profile – Quick!

According to the company review and job site Glassdoor, “On average, each corporate job offer attracts 250 resumes (often more…). Of those candidates, 4 to 6 will get called for an interview, and only one will get the job.”  

Put yourself in the position of the recruiter and hiring manager(s). He or she must go through piles of resume and whittle the stack down to just a few amazing candidates. It is an imperfect science for sure, but job seekers have unprecedented opportunities to rise to the top.

But being proactive can also mean having a spectacular LinkedIn profile. Companies pay a lot of money to be able to search through LinkedIn and source talent. You might get a call from the recruiter without having sent a resume first. It’s best to be prepared – and polished!

Even if you are active on LinkedIn, it is easy to neglect the details in your profile, skip sections and never return to them to fill them in, or fail to take advantage of all of LinkedIn’s features, which are designed to help job seekers.

Follow these quick steps to give your profile a boost.

1. Profile Picture. Is your photo recent? If not, replace it with one that is. Is your photo a head shot? If not, replace it with one that is. Are you in professional attire in the photo? If not, replace it with one in which you are.

2. Background Photo: Is it related to your field and professional experience? If not, replace it with one that does.

3. Contact Information: This includes LinkedIn Profile URL, personal Websites, Email Address, Phone Number, and other Social Media Sites. Make sure this section is up to date. Add/Remove as necessary.

4. Open to Job Opportunities: If you’re in the hunt, make sure to go into your Settings > Privacy > Job Seeking Preferences > Let Recruiters Know You’re Open to Opportunities and enable it. While you’re there, review and revise the other job seeking preferences to customize these features to your needs and desires. Only recruiters will see this information.

5. About. Is your “About” section still relevant? Jobs and circumstances change, yet sometimes this important profile element remains static. Try and include these four things: 1) a summary of all your best high-level qualities and roles, 2) a list of core skills and competencies (this should be on your resume already so cut and paste it over), 3) If applicable, the announcement that you are open to new opportunities, and 4) how you can be reached. Yes, your contact info is accessible elsewhere on your profile, but everything you can do to make things easier for the recruiters/hiring managers is noticed and appreciated.

6. Featured: If you’ve got the mojo, try and put at least three examples in this section (Posts, Articles, Links, Media).

7. Experience: Is it up to date? If not, update it with current experience. For the sake of expediency, cut and paste from your resume.

8. Other Profile Sections: Repeat. Make sure everything is up to date. Add/Remove as necessary.

9. Interests: If you’ve left this profile section blank, spend one minute of the twenty populating it with Influencers, Companies, Groups, or Schools. You’d be surprised how many you can select in one minute and you will have a foundation on which to build.

10. Proofread! This cannot be stressed enough. Just like a cover letter and resume, misspelled words, poor grammar, and typos are bad. Very bad. If your profile is full of mistakes, perhaps your work will be too.

Philip Roufail contributed to this article.

Scott Singer is the President and Founder of Insider Career Strategies Resume Writing & Career Coaching, a firm dedicated to guiding job seekers and companies through the job search and hiring process. Insider Career Strategies provides resume writing, LinkedIn profile development, career coaching services, and outplacement services. You can email Scott Singer at scott.singer@insidercs.com, or via the website, www.insidercareerstrategies.com.