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• Increase your online reputation • An online survey by Jobvite performed in 2015 returned that 92% of

recruiters use social media to find high-quality candidates. • Connect with prospects outside of your network

• Expand your connections, and connections are resources.• Build stronger relationship with clients, colleagues, alumni

• LinkedIn provides a reputable platform to endorse and recommend your connections, and receive endorsements and recommendations. Something of a real-time live resume, complete with active reference.

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Large or small, like any other ecosystem, LinkedIn requires regular maintenance.

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Plant the Seeds• Keep your profile up to date! • Your Professional Headline should to entice people to learn more about

you. • Highlight your expertise, awards, or showcase skills that should turn

up in searches.• Make sure that your location and industry are accurate

• This will allow LinkedIn to focus you to the right audience• If you’re listing your current company, make sure you’re using the same

name as the corporate LinkedIn page.

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Plant the Seeds• When listing skills

• consider what you do in your profession• research competitors• list no less than 10 skills.

• This list will build as you’re given endorsements, but this will give your connections a base to build from.

• Your summary should be written in first person, include links to rich media where possible, and be in the range of 2000 words.

• Include your education. • Fellow students and alumni are a key part of your network, and if

someone searches for people who studied at your school (which is an automatic LinkedIn prompt) you’ll want to show up in the results.

• Customize your LinkedIn URL! • It’s better for SEO, and looks cleaner on your profile.

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Plant the Seeds• Your photo is important! 90% of information transmitted to the brain is

visual, and connections are more likely to remember it over your name. • Use a photo no older than 5 years• Professional-looking (leave your cat out of the photo)• Your face should be the centre of the photo• Use this photo for your other social networks

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Plant the Seeds• It’s okay to ask for recommendations! Don’t ask everyone, be

selective, and don’t ignore requests. Recommendations are more credible than endorsements, and provide a more thorough description of your expertise.

• Complete your profile. Complete profiles are 40x more likely to receive opportunities through LinkedIn.

• The LinkedIn Search algorithm seeks and lists results in the following order:

• Profile completeness • Connections in common• Connections by degree (1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc.)• Groups that you share

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Keep it Clean• Make sure connections are relevant to your profession and valuable - remove

connections that don’t fit this criteria Feed It

• LinkedIn thrives on valuable content. • Some of your connections have connected with you because you know them

personally, but many will have connected because of your knowledge and experience.

• Make sure you’re demonstrating that by posting relevant, important and applicable content

Make It Productive • Your LinkedIn should work for you. • The effort you put in should produce measurable ROI. Whether you’re using your profile

for job searches, building your network, or finding new clients, everything you input should produce beneficial output.

• Measure your new connections, your post analytics, and interactions. If you notice a decline or lower statistics than you’d expect, evaluate

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• Share/like posts from pages/groups you follow, or your own company page.

• Invite or accept connections from contacts of value. • Reach out to your connections

• Work anniversary• New positions• Birthdays

• Endorse and recommend your contacts• Publish updates!

• A good update should look something like:[Your comments on what you’re posting]

“[Article Title]” by [Author Name] [Short URL] of/by [company/publication] cc [anyone you want to see the update specifically]

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SUPER SUMMARY

• In the LinkedIn ecosystem, the Summary is the most important version of your bio – the most powerful personal branding tool you have

• It will likely be read by more people than any other form of bio information on your profile

• Think about how you can create a summary that stands out from the crowd while still being true to you

• Let’s look at the steps you need to consider when writing your summary and some tips to ensure you have a Killer LinkedIn Summary!!

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SET THE SCENE

• Think about the audience you are trying to reach with your information? Are they your current industry? Are you looking to change industries?

• Your summary should speak to that ideal audience• What do you want your audience to learn about you?

• The summary isn’t about your experience in the work you do, but more about who you are as an experience

• Do you want them to think of you as a viable candidate for further positions

• Do you want them to think of you as a thought leader in the industry?

• How do you want your audience to feel once they have finished reading your summary? Enlightened? Encouraged?

• When you are clear about your intentions and goals then you can pull together the content.

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GATHER YOUR CONTENT

Think of the content of the summary in terms of these themes…• Your most important accomplishments

• A sentence to describe each one in terms of the value you created• Your values and passions

• What are your basic principles and what are your passions. Values and passions engage others because often they are shared.

• Your superpowers• Show off the things that you do better than anyone else

• Facts, figures and stats• Quantifiable points make an impact

• Differentiation• What makes you YOU? How do these things help you stand out from your

peers?• External validation

• Include testimonials and awards or accolades you’ve received.

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PULL IT ALL TOGETHER

Now that you’ve collected all your content and understand what it is you want to convey, it is time to pull it all together

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Never leave the summary section blank• This is the first thing that viewers will read of your profile other than your header

information. Don’t forego a summary.

Tell a story

Break it up- Headings and subheadings are a great idea to keep relevant information together and to give the eye a break for those reading your summary

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List all previous employment which contributed to your skills developmentUse keywords - for example use the term ‘cost reduction’ instead of ‘saved money’ or ‘saved costs’. This makes you far more searchable on LinkedInContinually update your experience. Even if you aren’t looking for new employment your experience should include your current job and any experience you’ve developed there,

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PARS

P – PROBLEMA – ACTIONR – RESULTSS – SKILLS

Example:

PROBLEM - Firm was dealing with high printing costs ACTIONS – Focused on printing reduction/electronic document initiativeRESULTS – Firm experienced a 15% decrease in supply costs due to lower paper and toner usage.SKILLS – Auditing and project development

The resulting bullet point experience statementDeveloped a project to audit the printing usage within the firm which led to an increased use of electronic documents and a printing reduction which reduced printing supply costs by 15%.

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It’s those extra touches that are built into a platform like LinkedIn that will take your profile to superstar level. Take it one step further than just an electronic CV. Take advantage of the visual nature of social media to ensure your profile stands out!

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Once you have your profile set up, reach back into your network or past employers and get some industry appropriate recommendations. And in the well know words of Hannibal Lecter, quid pro quo (literally “something for something”)…make sure you’re providing recommendations when asked.

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Ensure that you don’t just post the headings. If there is room given to expand on what you’re adding to your profile (like your work experience) make sure you’ve includingsupporting information. Understanding where you’ve worked and what your job title was, isn’t going to be as effective as elucidating on what it was that you did in that position, what accolades you received and what kind of problems you may have assisted your firm through!

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Add rich media such as presentations or videos you may have participated in, to make your profile standout. If your writing/thought leadership has been published anywhere, including TOPICS, post a link!!

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Over time LinkedIn may automatically order your skills by the number of endorsements you have but you can manually re-order them in order of importance to you and your industry.

This can be especially helpful if you are looking to move jobs or positions and want to highlight certain skills.

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Join some groups which are relevant to your industry or job title. These memberships get displayed on your profile and others will notice that you are engaged with your industry and peers.

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Listed volunteer experience can be just as important as your work experience. Just because it wasn’t paid doesn’t mean it’s not going to be relevant to the situation

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