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 A LinkedIn profile is like an electronic business card these days. With so many companies using the web to find out about you one way or another, you can be sure that they will look on your LinkedIn profile to find out the scoop about you if you have one. You do have a LinkedIN Profile, right? Unfortunately, new LinkedIn users profiles may look skimpy to more avid users. Let's fix that up right now.

Go ahead and open LinkedIn right now:

www.linkedin.com

Your Face

Check your picture. Does it look professional? Find something that just outlines your face including hair. You do not need a full length picture of yourself. If you need to, use a cropping tool such as Jing or any other cropping software. All you need is a nice professional smile that people should recognize right away as soon as they meet you. J

Professional Summary

Since you are the Executive and CEO of Me, Inc., plan on creating a professional summary.

Your professional summary is where you feature highlights of your resume in a dramatic style including first person speech and making sure to add your personal statement. Take a look at these profiles to gain a deeper understanding of how you can optimize your professional summary.

http://www.linkedin.com/in/mbeckford
http://www.linkedin.com/in/paulmullenceo
http://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonalba
http://www.linkedin.com/in/megguiseppi
http://www.linkedin.com/in/paulcopcutt
http://www.linkedin.com/in/debdib
http://www.linkedin.com/in/davidmnesbitt
http://www.linkedin.com/in/marktreshock

Your 'Vanity' URL

LinkedIn can give you a default profile that is ugly and makes no sense at all. While you are logged in to LinkedIn, go to SETTINGS, PUBLIC PROFILE and where it says Your Public Profile URL clickEDIT and enter your name, first and last in the box provided. Save, then you are done.

Past Job History and Description

Where you worked and what you did there gives the reader a greater understanding about you. Take the time to praise businesses you worked for here as well. When given a little time at it, your past job history and descriptions can help you to formulate what you plan on talking about in interviews. YOU  have a story. Tell it!

*Recommendations

While recommendations are nice to have on your LinkedIn profile, remember that hiring managers or recruiters may not go off of what is contained on LinkedIn. There is still a great feature here nonetheless. When you manage your recommendations correctly, they can be very effective in the hiring stages.

Requesting recommendations or endorsements refreshes your connections thoughts on you, your work ethic, etc. Keep open lines of communication with your professional references. I cannot stress this enough. Having a handful or so of recommendations is great! Consider people who you inadvertently worked with such as vendors or other staff from partner companies. You would be surprised who remembers what about you. When you open these channels of communication, you can dig further into your work history and add more information to your resume than you originally thought to.

 

 *Managing Recommendations on Linked In for References

Keep track of who you offer recommendations to and ask them specifically to endorse you as well. A good way to do this is when you receive a request via email to endorse someone, reply directly to their email before going to LinkedIn.

Reply with something like: Of course I would love to endorse your work. I think that we made a great team on the Lion's Project especially when we had that strict deadline to meet! I can't believe that you kept your cool when the manager ran into the room hollering 'Do we have ANYTHING yet??' (or something like this that specifically relates to a challenge or crisis that you encountered with your peer at your previous job). 

Get personal and engage with your connection. This reminds them of the times you worked together and refreshes past challenges as well as victories.

Ask that they in turn endorse you too. No doubt, having made this type of connection, you can use them as a reference on your resume.

Good luck in your search for the best job you ever had!

-Cass Fisher
 
 


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