Building A Professional Personal LinkedIn Profile

Building A Professional Personal LinkedIn Profile

Not sure where to begin when it comes to LinkedIn?

Here's our checklist for building a professional personal LinkedIn profile:

  • Create an informative headline

Your LinkedIn headline is one of the first things people will see on your LinkedIn profile so make sure it is direct, clear and to the point. It’s important that your headline includes your job title and industry keywords that will be instantly recognisable for people searching.

  • Choose a professional photo

Having a high quality and professional headshot for your profile’s photo is a great way to personalise your LinkedIn page.

  • Add important contact information

This means your email address, website, business/company name and other vital information people will instantly be looking for when browsing your profile. It’s also a great idea to edit the URL of your LinkedIn page to include your full name for professionalism and search optimisation. Find out how to do this here.

  • Create a catchy and engaging profile summary

This is a chance for you to show off your skills and experience. Your profile summary should resemble the first few paragraphs of a well-written cover letter, ensuring it is concise and direct, pin pointing your goals, passions, qualifications and experience. Make sure your profile summary is easy to read and not too long. Bullet points or short paragraphs are a great way to easily highlight these key areas.

  • Fill in your education and experience sections

Similar to your resume, this area on your LinkedIn profile is where you add in your qualifications, education and experience. You don’t have to list them all! Just select 3-5 past work vocations with short summaries on your job description, roles, achievements and skills.

  • Show off your skills

This area is a great chance for you to show off your skills and get colleagues, boss or friends to endorse your specific skills and abilities. Make sure you include general skills as well as industry specific skills to show a great variety of capabilities.

  • Add media

Now that you’ve got the basis of your LinkedIn profile complete, it’s time to make it visually appealing! A great way to do this is to show off your past or current work by adding website links, images, documents, presentations, videos and more to enhance your profile. Go to your selected experience section, click the pencil on the right hand side and click add media.

  • Connect!

An easy way to start networking with people on LinkedIn is to connect with people already on your email database. Simply go to the top menu and click connections, add connections, type your email address and LinkedIn will pull up all of your contacts from that email address who have a LinkedIn profile. If you want to connect with potential or current clients, businesses or agencies, you can search them in the top menu, click on their name and request to connect.

  • Join A Group

LinkedIn is a great platform for you to join groups with people from likeminded businesses or industries. You can search the groups in the top menu, or if you need a little inspiration, search for a client and see what groups they have joined on their profile and join! Now that you’ve joined, why not post something relevant or comment on a status update by the group? This will help make your profile more visible and will start the networking process.

  • Update

All the basics of setting up your LinkedIn profile are done! Now all you need to do is update your status a minimum of once a week. The best days of the week are Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday before work 8:00am - 8:30am, or towards the end of the work day 4:00pm -6:00pm.

Updates could include:

• Links to your company blog

• Interesting and relevant articles

• Events you’re attending

• Recent projects

• Industry tips and business news.

Need a little help? We offer Personal Brand Management services to help sharpen up your personal image.