Five tips for a better LinkedIn profile

While Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Google Plus+ grab most of the social media headlines, LinkedIn is actually the third most popular site.

LinkedIn focuses on business connections, which differs widely from most of the rest of the sites. People have used LinkedIn to get a job and some employers use it as part of their recruiting and screening process. As a consequence, you should not treat your LinkedIn profile like you would Facebook or your personal twitter account.

Here are some common mistakes people make using LinkedIn:

1. No profile photo: People want to know what you look like. Even if you look like a Cro-magnon man, it is better than no picture. If you don’t put one up other people will naturally be suspicious and may end up wondering if you are trying to hide something.

2. An inappropriate photo: I know someone who used a photo of them in their Hallowe’en costume. That might be fine if you are working at a costume store, but extremely inappropriate if you are trying to convey that you are a serious business person. Worse yet, you could have people looking at your profile for all the wrong reasons.

3. Not filling out your profile: Yes, it takes a bit of time to completely fill it out, but by leaving it blank, you end up raising more questions and doing yourself more harm then good. 

Your summary section gives you 2,000 words to brag about yourself — be honest, but don’t undersell yourself here.

4. Exaggerating what you did: The Internet is a wonderful thing and any good employer will do a Google search on you so if your profile says you were a ‘Petroleum Retail Marketer, Chevron Oil, West Coast Division’ and what you really were was a gas station pump jockey in San Diego, they are going to find out. 

5. Just listing your resume: An employer, HR person or recruiter will be able to see that from your resume, which is one or two pages. Give some insight as to how you accomplished some of your major achievements. You increased productivity by 50 per cent — great, tell people how you did that. You have room to do that here and it will show people that you are a thinker and can provide solutions to problems. 

15 most-popular social media sites

Alexa does a global traffic rank while both Compete and Quantcast does a US traffic rank.

Source: Ebizmba