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How to Make a Great LinkedIn Profile: 12 Easy Steps

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It is quite known to everyone that LinkedIn is a social media platform that plays a major role in students’ lives (especially college students). But it is somewhat different from other social networking sites because it’s designed specifically for professional networking like finding a job, discovering sales leads, connecting with potential business partners, and also it helps to know many other crucial insights such as trending technologies, the latest job opportunities, etc.

How to Make a Great LinkedIn Profile

 

Steps to Create a Better LinkedIn Profile

LinkedIn is a place where one can get independent validation through recommendations/endorsements. Also, it’s a great way to cultivate and manage a professional network. And with a similar context, let’s take a look at several best practices to build a better LinkedIn profile:

1. Make Your First Expression with a Professional Photo

A Professional Profile photo can be considered a must for a LinkedIn Profile! Research shows that LinkedIn profiles with pictures are 7x more likely to be viewed by potential connections than those with no pictures because somehow pictures attract a human more. The photo can help you to signify the credibility of the rest of your profile. You must look professional in your photo and can use several most-preferred tactics such as up to close photo, a decent smile, a light background, etc. 

2. Your Headline Should Represent Your Complete Identity

A detailed LinkedIn headline motivates your audience to keep reading the rest of your profile. It plays a major role in your profile building. It also makes it easier for your connections or audience to find you.

Vanshika Student
Studies at MIT ADT University
(really a B.tech student)

VS

Vanshika Student

B.Tech IT Engineering | MIT ADT University | Aspiring Data Scientist | New Product Design | Looking for opportunities

In the above example, you can see the difference between a short or confusing headline and a headline that used keywords that effectively identify one’s expertise, focus, and experience. 

3. A Compelling Summary

A summary is like a virtual handshake and personal introduction. You need to use the same genuine, conversational voice that you would use if you were meeting someone over coffee i.e., personal and descriptive. You need to tell your reader what you do…and maybe a little bit of why.

Do not sell yourself- Just tell!

  • First Paragraph – A short summary that includes what you are looking for and how to contact you, For example:-

 “I am a third-year IT engineering student at MIT ADT University, Pune seeking a summer 2020 internship. Please contact me at abcstudent@gmail.com or 904-798-0305”.

  • Second Paragraph – You can provide more details about yourself. You can start with the background of what you do and why you are passionate about what you are studying (without saying “I’m passionate”). You can share a story about your “YAY!” moment to immediately grab their attention.
  • Third Paragraph – Here you can share about your experiences like your industry experience, more about your internship experience, you can also share about the projects you have worked on and currently working on or the problem you are trying to solve. These all will create a good impact on your audience.
  • Fourth Paragraph – “Crowning achievements” – You can tell about your co-curricular involvement inside your college campus or any other community and if you are a student partner or part of a community such as the Campus Mantri Programme, etc. Also, you can mention your leadership, teamwork, interpersonal, and communication skills.
  • Fifth Paragraph – Fifth Paragraph is optional, if there is room at the bottom, you can create a list of keywords relevant to your field of study/industry.

    Keyword | keyword | keyword | keyword

4. Remember Your Profile Priorities

The first line should tell your reader who you are, what you want, and how they can contact you. After that, make sure your summary is more of a story that answers, “Tell me about yourself?” “Why do you do what you do?” and “Why do you love it?” Tell me about your “Aha!” moment. Remember to describe the accomplishments you are most proud of. Also, include relevant work and projects that describe your hands-on experience and make them know you can do the work.

5. Highlight Your Resume

Most of the visitors can’t spend the time reading your full profile. Once they get attracted by your resume, they might want to download your resume before returning to read more of your profile. Hence, you need to highlight your resume to make it easier for them to find it.

6. Grow Your Network

Networking is the base and the easiest way to grow your LinkedIn network. You can opt for various ways of connecting with people around you such as by sending follow requests to your friends or colleagues from your current and previous organization. Apart from this, one of the quickest methods to have great connections is by syncing your mailbox with your LinkedIn profile. It is an effective way in which you can have good networks as it surfaces all the relevant people in one place and helps you to connect with them formally. Also, it is a great method of keeping up your network up to date. 

7. Request for Recommendations

Recommendations are great for your profile as they take things further by making you noticeable to other people. Basically, recommendations are testimonials written by your colleagues from the previous organization about their personal experiences that how they liked working with you. Also, on LinkedIn, there is a very easy-to-use and reachable drop-down menu that makes your profile reachable easily by some specific contacts. Hence, always take the help of the most trusted people to write the recommendations section of your profile. 

8. Do Not Showcase Your Desperation

Desperation to work is good but never show it in your profile by writing a headline like “actively seeking opportunities” Even if you are not working at that point or want to change your job on an urgent basis it creates a negative impression. If you want to get hired then always show your worth and the qualities that are required for that particular profile. Acting in a way that you need a job at any cost will always lead to satisfaction for less. Also, organizations only want to hire people who are in demand hence, indicate your value and not your requirement. 

9. Highlight Your Skills

Skills are a vital part of your resume as it makes your profile rank accordingly and it is also easy to approach you with ease. But there is a condition that you choose exact skills which match your exact expertise from the list of skills available on LinkedIn otherwise it can also create a negative impression. Among a few skills present on the platform you need to choose the ones that are directly connected to the work you do and relevant to your profile. 

10. Add Proper Keywords

Search Engine Optimization or keywords play an important role in ranking your profile. Always use the keywords which are relevant to your profile as well as the audience. However, do not add all the keywords in your profile but make sure to use the relevant ones so that your profile appears at the top and is reachable by everyone. 

11. Other Sections to Consider

Many of these categories you should have already covered are much higher in your profile, but because every reader chooses a different place to start, sometimes repetition is good!

  • Skills (You can also give the skill quiz and you will get a badge for your skill)
  • Organizations
  • Honors and Awards
  • Test Scores
  • Publications

12. Be Yourself

Last but not least, you need to be authentic with all the information you would enter in your LinkedIn profile. You’re not expected to mention any fake or irrelevant details as it may get you blacklisted from various career opportunities. Never add any such skill that you are not aware of or which can create a hassle in your professional life. 

Conclusion

Creating a good LinkedIn profile is an art, the page works well when all the dynamics are visually compelling and has good value. Therefore, implement the above-mentioned points in order to get noticed by others and achieve your goals. 



Last Updated : 15 Nov, 2022
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