14 tips to get the most out of your LinkedIn profile

by elamoscicka

I spent more than 9 years in recruitment and I’m pretty sure I have seen thousands of resumes/CVs/LinkedIn profiles during my career  Even though I’m no longer hiring, as a Software Engineer, I still have opportunities to do reviews (e.g. as part of my initiative where I’m helping #WomenInTech – check my Twitter and Instagram for more details).

Below are my tips for getting the most out of your LinkedIn profile (based on my profile).

1. Background photo

What kind of picture you can put there? I’ve seen people adding the logo of companies they’re part of, photos where they’re together with their teams, companies’ motto/slogan. It can be also something more personal like the city they live in or favorite tech stack
If you have many social media accounts use it to showcase them. The same goes for having your blog or YouTube channel – this is extra space that is visible and can help you stand out!

As you can see, I have information about my blog set as a background photo. There’s a high chance every person visiting my profile will notice it and decides to check the website (Pro tip: use this approach on every social media that enables setting background photo, this will help you build/promote your personal brand).

 

3. Your full name + customizing your public profile URL

This one is important, especially if you have special characters in your name/surname. My full name is Elżbieta Mościcka, but as I am working with people from all around the world, I knew that this might be difficult to remember or pronounce for some of them. Therefore, I decided to go with a short version of my first name: Ela Mościcka. Small, but really powerful change, I highly recommend you doing the same
When it comes to customizing your LinkedIn profile URL all details can be found here, but the most important part to remember is:
it is a “must-have” if you have special characters in your name. My auto-generated URL based on my name (Ela Mościcka) was something like this:

All because of “ś” in my surname. The problem with this is not only lack of readability, but something much worse: imagine* situation where you add this kind of a link to your CV when applying for a job, and a person who clicks it will see the “profile not found” page!
(*not “imagine”, this happened to some of my candidates as I was always clicking through all links in their resume making sure that when CV will be sent to Hiring Managers, all will be fine – I was always double-checking and letting them know if something wasn’t working as expected).

Now it’s https://www.linkedin.com/in/elamoscicka/ (all I did was changing “ś” to “s”).

6. “Open to” section

This one is powerful when you’re looking for new opportunities. Why? When Recruiters/Sourcers will be using “LinkedIn Recruiter” license and looking for candidates, they have the option to start from those that have “open to” on their profiles. This means your profile will be viewed before candidates who don’t have that option enabled.

You can specify what kind of work you’re open to by selecting “Job titles”, “Job locations”, mark if you’re open to remote work, what is your start date and type of jobs you’d consider (full-time, contract, part-time, internship, temporary).

Choose who can see you’re open to work – all LinkedIn members or only Recruiters:

Read all 14 tips and the complete article