Catch Recruiter Attention: 5 Critical LinkedIn Profile Elements Recruiters Want

By Biron Clark

Recruiters can help you get more interviews if you are an active job seeker.

They can also bring you the occasional career-advancing opportunity even if you are not looking.

It all starts with catching their attention, though.

Recruiters sift through hundreds of LinkedIn profiles in a typical week.

So, they do not have time to read each profile carefully. 

In this article, I’m going to share how the typical recruiter reads your LinkedIn profile and how to grab their attention so you can get more interviews and hear about more opportunities.

The 5 Elements Recruiters Need to Find on Your LinkedIn Profile

You have many opportunities to gain attention on LinkedIn. Start with these five ways to make a big impact for your job search:

1. Information in Your Headline  

Your LinkedIn headline is the first thing I see when landing on your profile. It is also one of the few things I can see before clicking on your profile when sifting through LinkedIn search results, so that makes it even more important to optimize.

If your headline is totally unrelated to the type of jobs you are applying for, or unrelated to the rest of the content on your profile, that is a big red flag. And, you are out of consideration.

Make sure your LinkedIn headline is clear about what you do and aligns with the types of jobs you want to be considered for.

You can put your role or job title, but add more.

Numbers and metrics are a great way to make your LinkedIn headline stand out.

For example, if you are a Project Manager, your headline could be:

"IT Project Manager at XYZ Company. Leading Projects with Budgets Exceeding $2MM"

Or, you could say:

"IT Project Manager at XYZ Company. 49 Client Projects Completed in 2019"

You can also add an additional keyword to show what industry you’re in (this is a good idea if you want to stay within that industry).

For example, if you’re in the software industry and only want to hear about Project Manager jobs in this space, your LinkedIn headline could begin with:

"Software Project Manager"

If you need more ideas of what to put, look at some of your colleagues and peers in your industry. There are thousands of great LinkedIn profiles that you can take inspiration from, and this is much easier than starting with a blank page and trying to write from scratch.

Do not plagiarize, but do take general ideas and make note of what sounds best on other people’s profiles. Use the ideas as inspiration for your own headline.

4. Skills & Keywords  

After checking your work history, I’m going to search your profile for important keywords and skills that are required for the job I’m considering you for.

To do this, I will click on CTRL+F in my web browser, to activate a search of the page I am viewing, and then type in the most important keywords for the role. This is usually between two and four keywords, focused on the skills required for the job I'm filling.

This quick search saves me time and prevents me from having to read your whole profile if you’re missing the top one or two skills that are required for the job.

What does this mean for you as a job seeker? If you are targeting a certain type of job, make sure the essential keywords appear on your profile.

Look at the job descriptions of the positions you’re applying for, and include as many of those skills and keywords as possible and appropriate for you.

Pay extra attention to skills that are listed as “required” and/or skills that appear near the top of the job description. (This usually indicates that they’re more important).

Notice if something is mentioned multiple times. If so, it is more likely to be important to the employer, too.

Once you have identified the most important skills for the types of jobs you want, find ways to include these in your Experience section and your Skills section on your LinkedIn profile.

Not only will this help you get contacted by recruiters, it will also get your profile seen more because these keywords will help your profile appear in more search results when recruiters conduct keyword searches.

Read all 5 elements and the complete job-hunt.org article