Friday, November 9, 2012

Your LinkedIn Profile: 22 Ways to Make it More Professional


by Erik Emanuelli


LinkedIn is a popular tool widely used among recruiters and employers to find candidates.
More generally, it is now important to build a strong and serious identity online. The objective is to gain visibility around the internet, in order to improve your reputation and increase the chances of having opportunities for collaboration. So, taking care of your LinkedIn profile is crucial to achieve these goals.
The question is : “How to maximize the impact of your LinkedIn profile?”
Here below you may read some tips that will help you make a better use of this social network and enhance your image and your professionalism in the eyes of those who are looking for collaborators.

1. Choose Your Strategy Linkedin-check-up

You have to decide what you want to write and how to present yourself in your LinkedIn profile. It is a question of having a strategy for your presence on this social network.
Which image would you give yourself ? Which professional and personal skills do you want to highlight? How to orient your profile in a way that your skills are in line with the work you are doing or you are looking for?
In short: how to build a profile consistent with your career goals?
Answering these questions is essential. Otherwise, your profile may give to the readers a partial working image of you or even wrong, far from what is your real professionalism.

2. Do Not Treat Your LinkedIn Profile as a C.V.

Your LinkedIn profile is something different from your Curriculum Vitae. More precisely: we can say that it is something complementary to your c.v.
In practice: your LinkedIn profile should not duplicate your resume step by step, but it must contain a statement of the information covered in more detail in your c.v.
This means that your LinkedIn profile is not an online c.v., but a tool that shows easily the best of your professionalism.
So, as mentioned above, another tip is to use the maximum synthesis!
A recruiter who wishes to deepen the data you have written in your LindedIn profile will ask you your C.V. or will invite you to an interview.

3. Be Honest

When you are writing your LinkedIn profile is necessary for you to be honest.
This means that just as you would prepare your resume or curriculum vitae, do not be tempted to exaggerate your skills.

4. Take Care of all the Details

When you fill out your LinkedIn profile, try to be clear and precise in every detail. The rigor exhibition – along with the synthesis – is very appreciated by any recruiter.
In particular, avoid like the plague errors of spelling, grammar, syntax and slang or dialect! Mistakes of this kind can destroy your credibility.
Your LinkedIn profile is a serious online document : you must therefore pay the highest attention to every detail.

5. Add One or More Applications

To give a more professional look to your LinkedIn profile, you can install one or more applications.
The applications allow you to show more detailed information about you and your work. Here are some examples of applications available:
• WordPress : if you have a blog that you want to show in your professional profile, this application allows you to display your latest posts.
• Twitter : if you have a Twitter account, this application allows you to display your latest tweets.
• ReadingList : this is an application that shows the books that you read or what you’re reading.
• Events : this one allows you to display on your LinkedIn profile the events in your field in which you participate.
• SlideShare Presentations : this is an application that allows you to include in your profile a Curriculum Vitae via SlideShare.

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