LinkedIn is the modern resume. In many cases (particularly for executives) you may no longer be asked for your resume. LinkedIn is the first thing recruiters and hiring managers look at. They make a VERY fast judgment about you based on your profile. So, invest the time to clean up your profile.
ℹ️ Important: Before you start editing your LinkedIn profile, make sure your network doesn’t get notified about updates by turning off notifications. You can do this by going:
Settings & Privacy >
Visibility >
Visibility of your LinkedIn activity >
Share profile updates with your network > No
Best Practices
Below are best practices for cleaning up your LinkedIn profile before beginning a search.
Background image: Be thoughtful about this, innovation can hurt rather than help.
Never have a blank background - its just wasted real-estate
If you are at a company (or recently left), the best option is your corporate background. It shows you are currently employed.
If you have a personal branded background you will likely be perceived as not interested in full-time work
Using a generic scene background is always fine (and safe) if you are truly between jobs
Your Photo: Make it a good one - don’t get funky.
If you are going for a C-Level role, a professional photo of you on stage with a microphone makes you look even more important;).
Don't look too old in your photo (ageism is real in hiring). It is totally ok to use a photo from 5-10 years ago.
If you need a more professional photo check out Secta Labs
Headline: Align this with your one-pager to be really clear about what role you do, your super-power.
Remove pieces of the headline that could suggest you aren’t focused on full-time roles (i.e. advisor, thought leader….)
Be specific: Highlight your unique skills, experience, and achievements. Use keywords: Include relevant keywords that recruiters are likely to search for.
Be concise: Keep your headline short and to the point.
Be creative: Use action words, power words, and attention-grabbing phrases to make your headline stand out.
Headlines like “3x Leader at Unicorns”.... Can be powerful and succinct
Experience:
Never have an experience without a logo… you can always create a company with a logo if it doesn’t exist or link to something fun
Since you are looking for a full-time job, We recommend NOT listing each advisory role as an experience - it will look like you aren’t focused on full-time work. Instead, put all advisory roles under a single item on LInkedIn (here is our favorite)
Be really thoughtful about the top experiences “above the fold”. You want the key elements of your career story front and center. While they will always show by date, you can merge/delete/don’t show things that will push your key experiences “below the fold”
Don't use the skills on individual roles for a director+ LinkedIn. These can be distracting and at at a senior level people aren't looking to understand what tools you have experience with but your soft-skills.
Put quantitative results where you can. On LinkedIn you can have more swagger and fun with the impact you drove but put numbers!
As you get older, feel free to pull off your very early experiences and remove dates from education.
About (Description): Have a punchy description that engages people in the first person (3rd person is creepy:). Use stories to engage people who visit your profile. A simple approach is to use the “Value I Drive” content from your 1 pager. Also add a few side passions to give yourself some personality / provide hooks for people to engage with.
Recommendations: Asking for recommendations on LinkedIn is an excellent way to showcase your skills and expertise to potential employers and recruiters. Try to have everyone I would give as a reference to also add a reference on LinkedIn. It is a great way to warm up references and reconnect by saying “I’m about to look for the next role, I wanted to ask if you would be a reference (and also share one on LinkedIn)”.
Open to Work: Turn on LinkedIn “available for hiring mode” to appear on recruiters radars. This is especially effective if you are in a role similar to the one you are searching for. It can yield a lot of inbound opportunities. Note: We don’t suggest to make “Open to Work” visible for all on your LinkedIn profile. From convos with recruiters / execs, “it can appear desperate”
If you have a strong network, have worked at good companies and have had success - you will never "look" for a job or need a banner. If you don't have those things, you need the banner and all the help possible. Michael King, Executive Recruiter
Dates: Feel free to remove dates from education if you don’t want to state your age
Skills: There is debate on whether to include them. Generally I advise against for senior roles
Positives: They make you search-optimized for recruiters
Negatives: They make you appear focused on skills rather than strategy which many senior people are looking for. They can clutter up the story you are trying to tell
Custom URL: You can customize the URL of your profile. This looks better on your resume / email signature. You can find it by going to your profile and clicking “Contact Info” (located right below your photo)
Other LinkedIn strategies
To Post / Not to Post That you are looking on LinkedIn?: For junior roles, we love posts that share that they are searching. But for more senior people, recruiters/hiring managers have shared they see it as a negative.
Content: Content can add more depth to your LinkedIn profile. See this article on the power of writing.
Update how your headline caches on LinkedIn: LinkedIn caches images for a long time. This means that your current headline might not be the one that shows up when you (or others) share your linkedin URL via LinkedIn ;). There is an easy way to fix this... just go to this URL and re-enter your LinkedIn URL - it will force a reset in the cache/
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