Building your Linked In Profile
Does your Profile stand out like this?
Stand Out to Recruiters
“I don’t have any good content to put in my CV!”
“I’ve got a CV, it’s ok but my Linked In Profile is just not attracting any recruiters!”
“I am not getting invited for interviews, what am I doing wrong?!”
If you are thinking one of the above, rest assured you are not alone! When it comes to making yourself stand out, we humans are notoriously bad at selling ourselves, constantly selling ourselves short and many of us dealing with Imposter Syndrome and thus only waiting to apply for positions we are 100% qualified for. This results in low self-esteem, constantly questioning oneself and eventually compromising by taking a position with no room for growth.
Therefore, with this in mind, how can we be sure that we stand out to recruiters in our chosen fields with the credentials that we have?
1. 360 Feedback: Have you tried asking friends, family, and colleagues for their feedback? What do they think are your best characteristics and skills? Is there something in particular that stands out from everyone’s feedback – a common trait?
In doing this exercise you may learn something about yourself that you didn’t know but people do need to be as honest as possible. It is a good way, however, of gaining some perspective which might have been lost in the difficult process of pulling your CV together. After all CV writing is a mind-boggling exercise which needs to be done regularly – not once and for all!
The best thing you can do here is pull out all the best adjectives your friends have come up with, to enhance your personal statement and extract skills for your skills section.
2. Skill Share: Speaking of skills, these are a big part of your profile. Don’t just think about your work life here; think about home life, parenting, hobbies you may have…what transferrable skills do you have which can be used in the workplace? These could be:
· ‘Communicating with people of all ages and backgrounds – i.e. bribing the children to go to bed at bedtime’;
· ‘Budgeting and controlling expenditure – i.e. not buying another candle from The Range at the weekend’;
· ‘Patience and persistence – i.e. getting the limescale off the shower screen’; and
· ‘Prioritization & Delegation – i.e. farming out chores to the children in return for 30 minutes of peace and some pocket money’!
So, you have characteristics, and you have skills – now the biggest stumbling block is often where it comes to the work experience itself. My greatest advice to you would therefore be:
3. Job Description Mind Map: Choose a Job Description for the type of job you want to get; use google, pick relevant jobs from Linked In etc. Highlight everything they are asking for in the way of past work experience; then start highlighting all the elements of the new position that are required.
Which of these things have you done in the past?
Now start to construct sentences which are related to these things by adding a number, a percentage or statistic of some kind.
For example, the new position requires somebody to supervise the conveyor belt in a large factory. Therefore, your CV should read something like Supervised 100% of production on the XXX line with a quality rating of 99% accuracy.
4. Interview Visualization: Now this one will take some imagination and forward thinking! Imagine yourself in the interview for your chosen position… what questions are they likely to ask you? For some of you, this will feel like jumping the gun and perhaps you feel unable to think so far ahead, which is perfectly understandable. However, if you can try to have a go you will find yourself producing exciting content you hadn’t expected.
Interviewers often like to start an interview by having you talk through your CV and discuss major achievements. So, are you confident to go through the CV you have and make a ‘mini-presentation’ from it? If not, then you have some work to do.
Make a list of 5 common generic interview questions & 5 job specific interview questions that you could be asked for your chosen position or field. Once you have this done, write good solid answers for them using numbers, percentages, and statistics as far as possible.
a. Are you confident to present this in an interview?
b. What can you take from this to put into your CV and/or Linked In Profile?
Now that you have done this section, it is worth repeating steps 3 & 4 for your qualifications section. Do you have a recent training course that you have undertaken? Try to have recent professional development of some description on your profile which is relevant to the position you are applying. Think about how it relates clearly to the job that you want.
Technical Changes
There are, of course, many reasons why your profile may not be getting the traffic you had expected. Double check that your settings show that you are open to job opportunities for example. Widen your expectations a little – don’t just state that you are looking for one particular title. Remember that in different companies the hierarchy is very different – you may be looking for a Director role when in a global company the equivalent of Director could be Head (despite you feeling that is a step down!) or similarly it could be VP. Open yourself up to new titles and also locations – this will help to cast your net a lot wider.
If you’re feeling a bit overwhelmed with doing your own CV and Linked In Profile that is perfectly understandable. There is a lot to think about and in this market, a lot of competition. Why not send over your CV and Linked In for a free Health Check and see if we can help you to put together the winning combination? Free consultations for all CV Writing clients – send a message to Gillian.
Best of Luck with your Job Searches!