Top Ten Tips for the Best LinkedIn Profile

One of the most important tools in recruitment is the Linkedin profile. Us recruiters spend our days reading summaries, posts and articles from potential candidates. At Schwarz & Vogel, we’ve pretty much seen it all. From the ‘you have to guess everything about me’ profile to the ‘that’s a little too much info’ profile.

They come in all shapes and sizes. But each one is a valuable additional resource when we’re selecting highly skilled candidates for our clients.

Time is precious in recruitment. This is true for agencies and internal talent acquisition teams. Great Linkedin profiles should be short and sharp. They should be able to convey your greatness within sixty seconds.

LinkedIn Profile TIPS

Here are a few tips to help you build that incredible Linkedin profile.

1. Your cover photo needs to be engaging. People love people and this is a good place to start. We think the covers showing people within their teams are the most interesting.

2. Because the time spent on your profile will be relatively short, it’s important that your profile summary is short. We recommend bullet points with short sentences. You can elaborate further within the specific experience sections.

3. Utilizing visual highlights. This cannot be underestimated. The best-linked profiles have visual highlights within the experience panel. Adding a link to a site or uploading a presentation or document that you’re proud of can really lift an experience section.

4. Featured Section. The importance of this section is huge. If you can add something relevant to your current role or the skills you have, it will do wonders for holding the attention of prospective employers or recruiters.

Industry Trends

5. Industry trends. Get posting and commenting on the stuff that matters to you most. Your opinion is important and your colleagues and peers want to hear what you have to say. This shows energy and interest for your field and industry, a huge plus for head hunters recruiting for their clients.

6. Recommendations. There is no better way to engage with industry peers and communities by receiving recommendations and endorsements. This way it’s not just you talking about you, other people get to verify what you say in your profile.

7. Accomplishments. This is the validation section. Details of honours, awards, and certificates obtained. All you have achieved professionally and academically should be included here. Particularly important are the certs for proficiency in certain technologies or specific areas of your chosen industry. Up to date certification shows determination to learn and grow within your chosen field.

Activity On The Network

8. Activity on the network. Linkedin is a professional network. How you conduct yourself within the platform is becoming more and more important. Recruiters and employers will look at your activity in regards to comments on content and the posts that you create. Showing positive engagement with industry peers and related professional content is very important.

9. Get personal. Whilst Linkedin is a professional network, it’s good to show what matters to you personally, as well as what you’re interested in from a business perspective. Recruitment is about people after all, if we can get a small understanding of what people are like from their profiles, this helps a lot when choosing the best candidates for popular roles.

10. Keywords. If you’re actively looking for a new role, updating your profile to contain keywords is a good idea. Keywords are the words used to describe your skills and experience. Recruiters will search for these keywords when searching for candidates. E.g. Digital Marketing or React Native.