In our post series about building a personal brand, we discuss the basic must-haves. And after explaining how you can write a winning CV that gets read in under 30 seconds, today we’re going to discuss a no less important element of any successful personal brand which is, you guessed it, building a LinkedIn profile.
LinkedIn is the #1 professional platform that’s now used by 500 million users worldwide. Having a strong LinkedIn profile is your way to look for new jobs, expand your network, connect with influencers, and get professionally recognized in your industry. It’s your electronic marketing document that allows you to brand yourself, paving the way for better career experiences.
LinkedIn Profile Basic Sections
While you can be a bit limited with the information you’re adding to your CV, trying so hard to highlight your best career points without elaboration, when building a LinkedIn profile, you have more space to tell your story, share your expertise, and give a glimpse of the other things you do that make you who you are. Here are the basic sections of your LinkedIn profile that you have to build first. When filling in these sections with information, you have to consider your audience. Think about who you want to read your accomplishments and what you’re hoping they will take away.
Profile picture
Choose a professional headshot of you in which your face takes 60%-80% of the frame. Professional pictures give better impressions and increase profile views by 21x times! Avoid selfies or pictures which you have cropped your friend out of! And smile!
Header picture
Choose a high quality professional picture that’s 1584×396 pixels. Many websites provide free header pictures that fit LinkedIn dimensions without having to crop, zoom, or edit them. Canva is one great example.
Headline
This is what you want to catch people’s attention with to make them read on. Think about your added value, what you help people with, and your ultimate purpose of doing your job and include that in your headline. Make it 10-word long and include the keywords that you want to be known for.
Summary
That’s where you need to tell your story. Give the reader a sense of what you do or have been doing and explain your purpose in details. Add some of your career achievements along with your values, passions, and strengths. You can also add a little bit about your personal life to create a connection with your audience.
Experience
Just like your CV, you need to describe your current and past positions. Add your achievements in every job and avoid writing your job responsibilities. Go from the most recent jobs backward and stick to the last 10 years of your career. You also don’t have to list every single job you did. Just add the most important ones that boost and strengthen your expertise.
Education
Mention your degree and any relevant courses you have attended. Richen your profile with skills, volunteer experiences, and links to your website or blog if you have one.
Contacts
Update your contact section by your professional email and phone number, which you want people to use contacting you.
Your LinkedIn profile is the foundation of your personal brand and your first step to transform your career. There’s still so much to learn about leveraging LinkedIn so stay tuned with our next LinkedIn-labelled posts if you want to make the best out of it.
