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5 LinkedIn profile tips

In this episode of Beyond Bites, Emma Head breaks down five essential tips to make your LinkedIn profile stand out. 

From optimising your headline to making sure recruiters can easily find and contact you, these quick fixes can boost your visibility and attract the right opportunities.

Whether you're actively job hunting or just keeping your options open, these tips are a must-know. Tune in to learn how to make your profile work harder for you.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to today's Beyond Bites episode. In this episode, I am going to cover the top five LinkedIn profile tips. So, if you're here and watching this, you have a LinkedIn profile, and you want to ensure that it's really working hard for you.

Tip number one is your headline. It is extremely important what you call yourself. When people like me or internal talent managers search for candidates, we are looking for specific job titles.

If you are called something unusual in your current job, just ensure that your headline states what it is that you do. Additionally, if you specialise in a sector, mention that sector as well. If you're a freelancer or a contractor, it is also helpful to include those words, "freelancer" or "contractor," in your headline. All of those words are searchable fields. When LinkedIn's algorithm, for want of a better word, is looking, it takes into account the headline and also weighs it alongside your job titles further down your profile. So, just make sure that the keywords in your headline are accurate to what people will be searching for and that they are also mentioned further down in your profile.

Tip number two is to ensure that you have the "open to work" box ticked in the back of your profile. There are two boxes you can tick when you open up your profile. The first one allows only people with recruiter licences, such as recruiters and internal talent managers, to see that you are open to work in your profile. LinkedIn also has a clever algorithm that ensures that no one in your current company, even if they have internal talent managers, can see your profile or that you are open to work. So, you can do this in a safe space.

The second tick box is where, if you tick it, it adds a green banner to your profile. This is really helpful if you are happy for all of LinkedIn to know that you are open to work, whether you have been made redundant, are coming back from maternity leave, or are moving from freelance to a permanent role. This way, the wider public is aware of your situation. Just make sure that you have one of those ticked in your profile if you're open to a new position.

Tip number three is your About section, which is a really helpful space for people to understand what it is that you actually do and the skills you possess. Ensure that your About section is skills-based and that you have a clear and concise order of those skills. This could include software skills, management experience, or specific sectors you work in. Make it easy for someone who lands on your profile to look at your About section and quickly understand what you are all about. Use that section to your advantage.

Tip number four is for creatives: put your portfolio where someone can find it. There are two spaces on your LinkedIn profile for this. One is in your contact details, where you can include a link to your website or online portfolio. The second space is the Features section of your LinkedIn profile, which is particularly useful if you have a PDF portfolio. If you have had a specific post that you are proud of, such as being a guest speaker or receiving a promotion, or anything you think might be useful, include it in your Features section. This section acts as a highlight reel of everything you’ve accomplished, so make use of it—you'll thank me for it.

Tip number five, and the last one I have for you today, is to make it easy for people to find you and contact you. Often, you cannot send a direct message to someone unless you are a first-degree connection. Many potential employers or recruiters will not be your first-degree connections. So, is there a way they can message you? I would strongly advocate putting your email address in your contact section, providing a separate way for people to reach you rather than relying on InMail.

If there’s a great job out there, you want to hear about it, and you don’t want it to get lost in a flood of DMs.

That’s all for today’s Beyond Bites episode. If you would like to listen to more Beyond Bites episodes, please head to btbpeople.co.uk and visit our insights page, where you will find further episodes for your viewing. We also have longer podcasts available on our B2B website. I hope this all helps. If you have any other tips that you think would be great to share, please comment in the comments section—it's always great to share.

Have a great day. Goodbye!


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