LinkedIn has quickly become the go-to social networking platform for job seekers and hiring personnel. As a job seeker, you may feel intimidated by its capabilities and potential dangers, but creating a LinkedIn profile is valuable, and almost essential during a job search. It’s your digital, job-seeking identity. These are ten important P’s of LinkedIn, for job seekers:
- Perception – Know the rules of LinkedIn. Before you start using LinkedIn, read and change your account settings and profile settings to control how your audience perceives you.
- Presentation – Keep your profile basics up-to-date. Your contact information, social media accounts, headline, industry, and summary should be current.
- Professionalism – Upload a photo of yourself smiling and wearing professional attire.
- Personality – Upload a background photo that represents you, and include your personal and non-professional interests to showcase your identity outside of work. You can also list organizations you belong to or causes that are important to you.
- Portfolio – Highlight your accomplishments by quantifying them. Share your awards, qualifications, certifications, and languages. You can showcase your past work by attaching photos, videos, presentations, or publications.
- Precision – Use specific keywords repeatedly and create a custom URL to accommodate for search engines and applicant tracking systems.
- People – You can customize your invitation-to-connect letters. Don’t be afraid to ask your connections for recommendations and skill endorsements. Let recruiters know if you’re seeking a new opportunity by discreetly activating the option.
- Participation – Join groups and stay active. Write posts, share articles written by others, and join healthy discussions.
- Perfection – Scan your profile for inaccuracies, discrepancies, and errors.
- Pertinence – Include only information that is relevant.