Learner Guides

How To Make The Most Out Of Your Linkedin Profile

The jobs market is changing. The days of walking into a business and handing in your CV is slowly fading away. Coming in to take its place are digital platforms that allow you to showcase your skills and talents.

LinkedIn is one such platform. LinkedIn provides you the space to showcase yourself, connect with employers and search for jobs. We’ve compiled several easy tips that will help you get the most from your LinkedIn profile.

1. First-Person Narrative

Always write in the first person. People are looking for authenticity, and when you write about your career story as if you are telling it, this grabs people’s attention and gives people a sense of your character.

2. Short Paragraphs

There is nothing more off-putting to people than dense paragraphs outlining your life story. The goal of your LinkedIn is to give people a sense of who you are and what you’ve done.

The most efficient way of doing this is to use bullet points to emphasise your key skills and accomplishments. This gives readers an easy way to get a sense of who you are and what you’ve done.

3. Write a Summary

Your LinkedIn summary is an opportunity to tell your story and grab a potential hiring manager’s attention.

That means you need to:

Tell Your Story
Showcase your passions
Highlight your goals

When writing a summary, keep in mind our first two tips, write in the first person and write in short, concise sentences. Furthermore, if you’re hoping to join a particular industry or sector, showcase this not only in what you say but how you say it. If there are specific industry-related words and phrases, be sure to include them to highlight to hiring managers that you know what you’re talking about.

Finally, include a call to action. This doesn’t have to be anything dramatic but could be something along the lines of “email me at [email protected]”.

4. Don't be shy! Showcase your Achievements

Employers will want to know your level of education as well as your work experience. Highlighting your education is an excellent way of showcasing your achievements and highlighting potential industry-related knowledge.

For example, if you want to work as an engineer and you have relevant educational qualifications, this is a great way of showing potential employers your suitability for the role.

Furthermore, don’t be embarrassed to highlight any awards, scholarships, or projects you have excelled in. Phoenix Learning offers a range of qualifications with our training as well as a digital certificate, sharing achievements such as this highlight to hiring managers that you are keen to continue learning and are always looking for ways to improve!

5. It's All About Visibility!

To maximise the impact of your profile, people must know what you are doing and when you are doing it. This means that you should be mindful of your privacy settings. If the privacy settings are too strict, you run the risk of not showcasing your achievements.

For example, when you add experience to your profile, LinkedIn allows you to “Notify network”. Turning on the notify network option means that your network will be up to date on any changes to your circumstances. That means that if you’ve got a promotion, your network will be aware. Equally, if you have just left a job and are looking to start your next chapter notifying your network could lead to job leads and suggestions!

6. Build Your Online Presence

Being visible and maintaining a presence on LinkedIn is vital to the success of your personal brand and will ensure that when employers are looking for potential employees, your account, owing to the fact it’s active, will always be near the top of the list.

Ways you can ensure you maintain your presence is by:

Checking in on LinkedIn every day
Like, comment and share articles you find interesting.
Create and post your own content
Join groups that are relevant to you! If you want to be a sports journalist, see what LinkedIn groups there are. Engaging in these groups is a great way to make yourself visible and engage with people involved in the industry you are interested in.

Top tip: When sharing articles, be sure to tag the author; this is an easy way to build a relationship with someone you may never have met and may benefit you later down the line.