The Main Elements Of A Successful Linkedin Profile
Introduction
In this technology world, social media is becoming an essential part of an individual’s daily life. When society connects among themselves through computer-mediated technologies that facilitate the sharing of information, ideas and career interests, then social media is the one thing which comes into mind. Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin are few populare examples of this. Social media is interactive with an internet based application. Users create service specific page which other’s can see if owner of that page allows others to see. It connects every user to every nook and corner of the world.
These days, social media is not just a way of friendly or personal communication, it includes employment oriented services also and Linkedin falls into this category. LinkedIn allows an individual to create profile by which they can connect to each other in an online social network which provides professional relationships. LinkedIn assimilate with Twitter as the function of both is somewhat similar, not the same, where LinkedIn is a better version of it. It helps in increasing the chances of become visible on social networks, however it is in professionalism manner. One surplus of it is that one can build a profile without affecting their financial status. ( Halloran, Thies & Thies, 2012) It provides the oppotuity to the user to uplad their resume which includes academics, experience, a brief summary about themselves and many more. It is advantageous to both user as well as the employer. Employers can list jobs and search for potential candidates.
LinkedIn purpose is not to connect and serve people for fun or sharing or posting their daily personal life activities such as they do on Facebook and Twitter, the main goal is more towards professional aspects such as to build and strengthen the business, career experience. Users can search for second-degree connections who work at a specific company they are interested in, and then ask a specific first-degree connection in common for an introduction.
Tips for upgrading your profile
During viewing a LinkedIn profile, the first noticeable thing is a person’s photograph. It should be professional, with a smile which can leave a positive mark on the viewer. Do not use a selfir or a photograph in which the face is not visible clearly such as distance photographs or side posing photographs. In profile picture, user should make sure that whatever be the photo, it must say clearly to the employer that this user is employable. Next essential element in LinkedIn profile is “self promotion”. How a person can explain and promote themselves, in other words “try to sell you”. Rather than writing in a reserved style of resume or curriculum vitae, try to make it attractive by highlighting the professional skills which a person possess and which an employer always seeks for. During self promotion, adding a professional headline can benefit a job seeker as this also often the first thing that search engine find.
For that, individual goal has to be more precise which includes significant keywords or skills that an employer is looking for. In addition to this, summary section also comes under self promotion. Summary should be written precisely not too lengthy by which viewer get bored and ignore it, nor too short which is unable to explain about the user completely. Words which an individual choose during writing the summary should be strong enough so that they themselves reveal the owner’s professional background. It should be real world means whichever experience, major skills a person possesses should be included, employer is not interested to hear about the person’s feeling such as “I do this” or “I wanna be”, these words instead of showing a professionalism, they are more likely a person’s own belief, these types of sentences should be removed completely. LinkedIn asked members not to provide their life story but to highlight specific skills, thus promoting their strengths for different business stakeholders.
Another section which is as important as others two is a person’s experience section. In this section, an individual can highlight the specific skills which have been learned during the past experience. It can also include the accomplishments which are achieved by the person. Experience should be clear enough in terms of its duration. After entering every detail, make sure that whichever dates are mentioned should be correct as a small mistake in it could be responsible for creating big troubles in the future. In addition to this, under education section, mentioning educational years will enhance the profile. The final profile element is the skills section, which plays a role in all important search engine optimization. Addition of each skill will upgrade the profile which will result in increasing the chances of showing up in relevant searches.
