The Necessary LinkedIn Items For Your Job Search

A clear, concise and well-written resume is a great start for connecting with hiring managers. Yet, this strong job search tool can always use some extra support. That’s where an effective LinkedIn profile can help!

After reviewing your impressive resume, a hiring manager will often visit your LinkedIn profile to gain more information about your skills, experience and background. What the hiring manager sees on your profile can influence their decision to contact you or move on to the next candidate.

While you may have a LinkedIn profile, it may not be fully optimized for maximum effectiveness. Below, you’ll discover some of the necessary items to include in your LinkedIn profile to support your resume, paint a better picture of your professional experience, and convince hiring managers to take action and contact you!

Necessary LinkedIn Item #1: Complete Profile

Consider this scenario: A hiring manager reviews your resume. They’re very impressed and are considering contacting you to schedule an interview. Before they do that, they decide to visit your LinkedIn profile. As soon as they click on the link you’ve included in your resume, they decide to move on with their candidate search.

Why?

Your LinkedIn profile is incomplete.

While your resume paints a picture of a dedicated professional who has the skills, experience and responsibility to complete any task, your LinkedIn profile tells a different story.

If your profile has no picture, lists your job history with no additional info regarding responsibilities and accomplishments, and lacks a network of colleagues, then it contradicts your resume since this task is incomplete.

To ensure that the effectiveness of your resume isn’t undone by an inadequate LinkedIn profile, consider taking the following steps:

Add a profile picture - Your profile picture is the first thing a hiring manager sees when they click on your profile. Seeing a generic illustration of a person instead of your photo does not make an impression. Instead, include a photo of yourself, dressed professionally against an uncluttered background.

Helpful Hint: Since your profile is designed for professional networking and job/candidate searching on LinkedIn, it’s best to avoid using photos that are more appropriate for your personal social media profiles.

Include a detailed job history - Your resume is a more clear and more concise reflection of your professional experience and skills. However, you can go into greater detail about your job history on your LinkedIn profile. This is a great place to expand on each position's responsibilities, requirements and your accomplishments. Unfortunately, many candidates just cut and paste their resume info into the job history section. Or worse, they simply list the organization, job title and years of employment. In these cases, it paints pictures of candidates who do the bare minimum to complete a task.

Build a relevant professional network - LinkedIn profiles are not conduits for professional popularity contests. Still, a lack of professional network on your profile is counterproductive to your job searching efforts on LinkedIn. A good way to build a relevant network is to reach out to former coworkers and connect with them. You can also join professional groups related to your profession/industry and connect with new colleagues. Soon, you’ll have a healthy professional network that will impress visiting hiring managers.

Helpful Hint: While you may be compelled to increase your network numbers by connecting with any professional, regardless of their title or industry, we recommend avoiding this practice. As we mentioned, your network is not a popularity contest. The hiring manager will be impressed by a network of 40 colleagues who are relevant to your profession or industry. On the other hand, they will be dismayed by a network of 500 professionals from random industries and professions.

Necessary LinkedIn Item #2: Endorsements & Recommendations

Much like a relevant LinkedIn network can impress a hiring manager, so can professional endorsements and recommendations.

Professional endorsements emphasize the skills you’ve listed on your resume. For example, if “graphic design” is one of the skills highlighted on your resume, it receives extra support when a colleague endorses you for this particular skill on LinkedIn. One of the best ways to receive endorsements is to contact former coworkers or clients in your professional network. If they were always impressed with your skillset, they’ll eagerly accept your request to endorse you on LinkedIn.

Recommendations are another must-have on your LinkedIn profile. Although similar to endorsements, recommendations go into greater detail. Essentially, recommendations are testimonials to your professionalism. If you have a strong connection to a former client or colleague, ask them if they would be comfortable writing a recommendation about the benefits of working with you or hiring you.

It’s one thing to tell a hiring manager that you have what it takes to be a valuable team member. It’s even better when those claims are made by a colleague or client.

Necessary LinkedIn Item #3: Skills Assessments

Another persuasive tool for your LinkedIn profile is the addition of skills assessments.

Similar to endorsements and recommendations, skills assessments support the information included in your resume. If you're unfamiliar with this tool, we’ll explain. Skills assessments are online tests that correspond to specific skill sets. Based on the results of the test, you can demonstrate your proficiency in each respective skill, and earn a “Verified Skills” badge that is attached to your profile.

The best part of these assessments is the LinkedIn data that suggests that verified candidates are more likely to get hired than those who are not.

Necessary LinkedIn Item #4: Engagement

One of the easiest ways to improve your LinkedIn profile’s effectiveness for employment opportunities is to increase your engagement. Hiring managers who visit your profile and see a high level of activity and engagement, will take note. By sharing relevant industry articles, posing questions to your network, and participating in discussions related to your profession or industry, you show hiring managers that you’re actively using LinkedIn to stay informed about industry trends, news and innovations.

Conclusion

Having a LinkedIn profile is a must for your current job searches. However, you need to make sure your profile is optimized for maximum effectiveness to connect with potential employers. By taking the steps outlined above, you’ll be able to use your LinkedIn profile to make more meaningful connections with hiring managers.

If you’re still unsure of how to improve your LinkedIn profile’s potential, the team at Elite Personnel can help. Our recruitment experts will gladly offer advice and tips for improving your job search efforts. Best of all, our team can connect you with some of the best companies who are currently looking for great candidates like you!

Get started today by viewing our current openings or submitting your resume!