9 Things You Need to "Get Right" on Your LinkedIn Profile Before Looking for New Jobs and Opportunities

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Whether you’re a student looking to start your career off strong or a seasoned professional trying to pivot or grow your career, optimizing your LinkedIn profile will help get you to get noticed by more of the people you want quicker.

The more you complete (and keep up to date) your LinkedIn profile, the more likely you will be discovered and contacted. A professional photo alone will get you 14x more views than an empty or non-professional-looking photo. 

When creating your LinkedIn Profile, you will want to do your homework by building a profile that draws the right people’s attention, sounds professional, and showcases keywords that will connect you with the network that can advance your endeavors. 

If you’re looking to take your professional ambitions to new heights, follow these Linkability-proven steps. 

The header includes your banner, profile photo, and headline. Since these are the very first things seen, it is essential that you visit this section first, rather than leave it as an afterthought. This section will represent who you are as a professional; your value, skills, and professional identity should be well defined here. 

Profile Photo: When you’re updating your Profile, the first thing you need to look at is your profile photo, as you want to make a great first impression. Your image should exude confidence, friendliness, and professionalism. 

Remember, LinkedIn is a network of professionals. It’s not Facebook or a Tinder account. So if you wouldn’t hang it on an employee wall outside your boss’s office, don’t use the picture for your LinkedIn account. 

When choosing your profile picture, here are a few tips to remember: 

• If feasible, you can hire a photographer to take a professional headshot. On average, this service runs $100-$250 per hour, depending on your location. 
• Choose a current photo. You may like that photo from 5-10 years ago, but chances are, a few things have changed since then. You want future employers or clients to see you for who you are today.  
• Don’t choose a dark, blurry, or pixelated photo. Ideally, you will want an image that is 400x400 pixels.  
• You want your potential candidates to know exactly who they’re connecting with, so be sure to be the only person in the photo. You will also want to pick an image that is above the waist.  

To change your profile picture: 

Click on the circle where your profile photo goes -> Click edit -> Upload your image.

You don’t get to make a first impression twice, so make the first one count. 

Although it may not seem like much, your LinkedIn banner is an integral part of having a well-rounded profile, as it has the power to draw a person’s attention instantly. 

When you include a graphic, you are 11x more likely to be viewed. 

When choosing a banner, you want to be sure that it synchronizes with your goals and mission. For example, if you’re promoting your business, you will want your banner to represent the company’s goals, vision, and how you solve your client's problems. However, if you’re looking to represent your personal page to gain new clientele or market yourself to recruiters, your banner should marry you to your brand and/or who you are as a professional. 

LinkedIn provides users with a handful of banner options, but you will create a more substantial impact if you create one unique to you and your target audience. 

Here are some tips to consider when creating your LinkedIn banner: 

• Canva, Adobe, and VistaCreate are a few websites that offer free graphic services.
• When creating your banner, set the dimensions to 1584x396 pixels. 
• The profile photo circle slightly overlaps the banner on the left, so don’t add key pictures or text where it will get covered up. 
• This is like a billboard for your company/career, so stay true to your brand. 
• If you want to be contacted, include your contact information in your banner. 
• Use easy-to-read fonts and colors. 
• Monterstat and Aileron are 2 of our favorite, easy-to-read fonts. 

What do you want your banner to say about you?

To add a LinkedIn banner: 

Go to your Profile -> Click edit profile -> Choose add a background photo.

Your headline is where you input keywords that highlight your skills, located right underneath your name. When creating your headline, you want to be strategic in your word choice so that you appear higher in a LinkedIn search while also engaging your audience enough that they feel inclined to learn more. 

LinkedIn automatically creates your headline to include your current company and job title. Still, by personalizing your headline, you will improve your LinkedIn search algorithm, which provides you a better chance of being found by other professionals.

If you were to come up with a phrase or a few keywords to describe what you bring to the table in 150 characters or less, what would they be? 

To add a LinkedIn header: 

Go to your Profile -> Click on the pencil located on the right -> Scroll down to the headline.

Your LinkedIn summary is one of the most valuable pieces of professional real estate you have on a digital platform. More than a resumé, it helps to establish trust with your audience while providing an insight into who you are as a person, without being limited to a one-page limit. 

Your LinkedIn summary is where you can highlight your proudest accomplishments, your passion, your “why,” and your dreams. It’s also a place to highlight your hobbies and your inspiration. When creating your LinkedIn summary, you want to keep it professional but also original and fitting to your personality. 

The objective is to give your audience an authentic, personalized view of who you are and what unique attributes you bring. 

Summary:  

Sharing your best attributes in a professional yet friendly and personal manner can seem like a huge undertaking. Here are a few key tricks to creating an interesting summary that draws people in: 

• Talk in the first person: LinkedIn is meant to facilitate conversations. By writing your summary in the first person, you remind people that they are connecting with a real person, creating a deeper connection. 
• By default, only the first two lines will appear before you expand it (220 characters on desktop; 92 characters on mobile), so be sure to have a compelling opening sentence. 

• Highlight the professional accomplishments that you want to be known for. Have some impressive statistics? Share them. Helped a company launch to success? Let’s hear it! Built and led an outstanding team? We want to know!
• Incorporate SEO keywords related to your industry throughout without being redundant. 
• Include client or employee testimonies or awards that you may have received
• Make use of whitespace by breaking up the summary into sections so that you don’t have one long run-on paragraph. (Making use of your whitespace also makes it more visually appealing).
• Keep it concise. This isn’t an autobiography. You want to share what is most important about your professional accomplishments and what makes you stand out. 

Here are a few questions to ask yourself when filling in your summary. Answering these questions will help you in your writing journey.

• Who is your ideal client, or who do you most enjoy working with?
• What are you passionate about?
• What types of services or products do you provide?
• What or who inspired you to get into this particular line of work?
• Where can they learn more or connect with you?
• What is your unique selling proposition? How are you different than your competitors? 

When concluding your summary, provide a CTA or Call to Action. This is the next step that you want your reader to take. How can they contact you? Do you have other platforms that they can check out? How can you assist them further?

To edit your summary: 

Go to Profile -> Click on Add profile section -> Scroll to summary

Before you officially publish your summary for everyone to read, be sure to do the following: 

1. Read what you wrote out loud. This helps you catch grammatical errors that your brain automatically corrects when you read them in your head.  
2. Double-check that your first sentence hooks your audience. You can always gather input from another person if you’re not sure. 
3. Does your personality shine through? You want your summary to be professional, but if you’re naturally a witty person, don’t let your summary take that away from you. You don’t need to sound stuffy or pretentious to be professional and engaging. 
4. 4. Even if you’re an excellent writer with superb grammatical and spelling skills, it’s always a good idea to check your work by copying and pasting your work into a site such as Grammarly. Even the best mess up sometimes. 

If you’re not comfortable writing your summary, hire a professional. This is a prominent aspect of our LinkedIn presence at Linkability. 

Investing in a professional who has the experience in writing exceptional summaries that get you seen is worth it. 

The skills section on LinkedIn is where you can input a comprehensive list of your professional skills and where your colleagues can endorse these skills. 

Adding relevant skills to your LinkedIn section helps with LinkedIn’s recommendation algorithms. However, if you want to turn up in recruiter or client searches, you must choose keywords that demonstrate your abilities. 

Hint: Add in your LinkedIn skills in order of relevance. 

Having colleagues endorse your skills gives you an extra boost, as it offers validity to those skills and further strengthens your ProfileProfile. LinkedIn allows you to add up to 50, but only the first three show up before expanding the section. 

Example strengths include: 

• Public-Speaking
• Analytical Reasoning
• Adaptability
• Creativity

To add skills and endorsements: 

View Profile -> Add to profile -> Click Core -> Scroll down to “Skills & Endorsements” -> Click add new skill 

The experience section is the ideal location for using keywords that relate to your industry. More than 90% of recruiters use specific keywords to find qualified candidates, so this is an important step that you don’t want to skip over. 

When filling out this section, you will describe your work experience, beginning with your most recent and senior roles. 

*Pro-tip: Include experiences that are relevant to your current goals and objectives. 

To add your experiences: 

View Profile -> Scroll down to “Experience” -> Click the + button 

Adding in your education and certifications strengthens your Profile and helps other alumni or professionals with similar credentials find you, further building your network. 

Tip: When adding in your academics and certifications, be sure to list your highest qualifications at the top. 

To add education and certifications: 

View Profile -> Add to profile -> Click Core/Recommended -> Add education and certifications

Customizing your URL only to include your name or business name will help potential recruiters or clients find your ProfileProfile easier. Try to avoid adding symbols and unnecessary letters and numbers. 

To customize URL: 

View Profile -> Edit public profile & URL

Building a complete LinkedIn profile takes a little bit of time and patience, but it is an integral part of your professional digital footprint. If you’re feeling overwhelmed with the thought of producing a profile that sets you apart from your competitors, consider reaching out to our team of experts at Linkability. We can help you open new doors and finally reach your goals for yourself and your business. 

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Kim Peterson Stone is a three-time business founder, keynote speaker, and leading LinkedIn strategist that has amassed a global following of over 225,000 on LinkedIn. Not only has she authored hundreds of articles on LinkedIn and became a verified thought leader, but she has helped her clients do the same.

Her B2B digital marketing agency, Linkability, Inc., has helped a multitude of clients ranging from Intrapreneurs and Entrepreneurs to Fortune 500 companies work smarter on LinkedIn by leveraging the art of surviving disruption. Armed with her intimate knowledge of thought leadership, entrepreneurship, and global business communications, Kim uses creative and purpose-driven solutions to develop a strong brand presence, generate targeted leads, and maximize online visibility for their clients. 

Kim has changed the lives of many not by selling products but by solving problems, and she can teach you to do the same.