Linked In – How to dress your own shop window

by: Pete Gwilliam
  • 21/12/2010
  • 0
Linked In – How to dress your own shop window
There has been a significant growth in the use of Linked In as a medium for both researching and recruiting professionals in many sectors with 66m + people already listed on the website.

With many mortgage professionals among them, we have put together a list of the top 15 recommendations to help you maximise the impact of this medium.

How to get the most from Linkedin

– Make sure you add a photo. People are less likely to want to interact with a mysterious, faceless internet page

– Ensure your job title is understandable. If it contains uncommon acronyms, spell them out. If your job title contains jargon, change it

– Clearly, you should list your current job but remember to list any non-executive or official advisory positions too. People will respect this breadth of activity

– In terms of your previous jobs, if you have more than one you’d like to broadcast, perhaps only list the last two or the two which have been most significant, relevant or maybe prestigious

– That said, if you’re proud of your career history, list them all. Many people search for ex-colleagues or experts by using the ‘company’ search criteria and this could lead to interesting enquiries

– If you previously worked for a competitor business, list this, but don’t go into much detail about all the successes you achieved

– Detail your education. Some people place major value on academic qualifications. This might make the difference between someone interesting getting in touch or otherwise

– If you have some close professional connections on Linked In, do ask them to recommend you if you feel this is appropriate. Many LinkedIn users read recommendations with great interest and respect the opinions of others

– Your summary should be comprehensive but easy to understand. Write in the first person and make sure you appear confident, impressive but not boastful. Ask someone to review your summary before you make your profile public for a second opinion .Others are often better placed to judge the tone of your summary

– Use the ‘specialties’ section to add all the key-words relevant to your role. If you’re an accountant for example, you might list your key-words as such “management accounting, budgeting, forecasting, fixed assets, inventory control”

– Almost certainly don’t add links to Facebook or other personal sites. This just isn’t appropriate

– Under ‘interests’ I would encourage you to give a little information about what you do out of work. People will find it interesting. Perhaps don’t list your favourite football team or activities that some people might find objectionable, but if you’re an ice skater, or love cookery, this could just start a conversation. Give people material to use to make contact

– Join Groups on Linked In by all means but if you join loads of them, make most of their logos ‘invisible’ on your page – otherwise people will think you have nothing better to do than sit on Linked In all day (actually not a bad thing in our opinion but not generally acceptable)

– Add information to your ‘Status update’ section regularly – at least once a week. The purpose here is to attempt to capture your connections’ attention, and status updates get “flagged” to your connections. Perhaps talk about a project you’re working on, an expert view or even some recent thought-leadership relevant to your job and industry

– List all Honours and Awards. But if you have many, perhaps only list those most impressive or perhaps restrict this to those achieved in the last few years.

– Do make it easy to be contacted. Add a mobile, direct dial and email address.

Linked In is effectively a free shop window, which in its own right means it’s worthy of attention for job seekers. It is also a reference site, where prospective new employers/customers validate who they are due to meet, which makes maintaining your account with a sense of pride and purpose essential.

Pete Gwilliam is the owner of recruitment firm Virtus Search

 

 

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