Unfortunately, many executives never look at the privacy settings on their LinkedIn profile. While it won’t harm anything most of the time if your profile is completely public, there are some instances where it’s best to keep your profile a little more private. Even a LinkedIn profile service will tell you it’s not always advisable to share your profile with anyone and everyone. Here are a few things you should know about how and why you shouldn’t always have your LinkedIn profile viewable to the entire online world.
Restrict Your Profile if Currently Employed
If you don’t want your current employer or coworkers to know you’re looking for a new job, it’s best to restrict your LinkedIn profile as much as possible. There are many different ways to put restrictions on your profile, so a LinkedIn profile service can help ensure people inside and outside your network see the things you want them to see.
Make Your Profile Public if Unemployed
On the other side, if you’re unemployed or don’t care if your current employer sees you’re on the job hunt, you can make your profile public to everyone. Just be sure to study the art of LinkedIn profile writing, so you don’t damage your chances of landing a job with your public profile with something you’ve written. There’s no need to keep any components of your profile private if you want to be discovered on LinkedIn by a recruiter or hiring manager. Some recruiters will bypass your profile altogether if it is heavily restricted, since it indicates you may have something to hide.
Update Notification Settings
Another important but little-known factor of LinkedIn profile development is what your connections can see regarding your activity. Some people get annoyed if they have to read about every single action you take, like joining a group, making a comment, connecting with someone new and more. To prevent annoying your connections, update your notification settings to only notify people of important things like job changes or important memos. The privacy of your LinkedIn profile is something many people aren’t sure how to handle. You want people to discover you, but you also don’t want just anyone to have access to your information. For more tips on the challenges of LinkedIn profile development, feel free to contact us.
Everything You Should Know About LinkedIn Endorsements
If you’re new to LinkedIn, or just noticed the endorsements feature, there are some things you need to know. Recruiters and hiring managers take all endorsements with a grain of salt, but they still usually won’t hurt your chances of landing an interview. These endorsements can come from former or current co-workers, friends or even family members. The point is to highlight your skills and post them on your LinkedIn profile for everyone to see. Many LinkedIn profile development services will help you manage your endorsements so you can highlight the important ones and make your profile stand out more. Here are some things to keep in mind about LinkedIn endorsements.
Manage and Edit Your Endorsements
Sometimes your family members or friends will endorse you for a skill without even knowing if you’re good at it. Recruiters may view that negatively since it’s possible you’re using them to boost your endorsements. The key to good LinkedIn profile writing is to highlight the professional endorsements from people you’ve actually worked with in the past.
Return the Favor with Endorsements
If a colleague endorsed you for a skill, be sure and return the favor and endorse them with one of their skills as well. LinkedIn profile development services suggest staying as active as you can on LinkedIn to show you are well connected. Endorsing others will help give you a better professional reputation.
Endorsements Show What Professionals Think of You
LinkedIn endorsements should be thought of as completely separate honors than recommendations. A recommendation is generally a few sentences stating what a person is good at and how they can bring value to a company. An endorsement is just a quick acknowledgement of a skill without any explanation. Still, other professionals will take notice if you have several endorsements and may contact you if you are endorsed in a skill they require.
Don’t Take Endorsements Too Seriously
The main thing the best professional resume writers will tell you is to not take LinkedIn endorsements too seriously. With the social media world today, everything seems like a popularity contest with how many “likes” you can get on a post or a picture. LinkedIn doesn’t work that way. They are nice to have, but don’t get too down on yourself if you don’t have multiple endorsements coming in every day. LinkedIn profile writing can be tricky. We understand the struggle some executives have, so feel free to contact us if you are ever uncomfortable with how your LinkedIn profile looks.
Three Quick Tips for Souping up Your Executive LinkedIn Profile
LinkedIn is a powerful networking tool for executives. With the high visibility your LinkedIn profile has, even some of the smallest mistakes could be critical. Just like with a resume, your profile has to stand out among the rest if you want to get discovered and considered for any job openings. Understanding how to optimize your LinkedIn profile will go a long way in getting the job you desire. Here are a few tips on how you can soup yours up!
1. Choose an Appropriate Profile Picture
LinkedIn is a social media platform, but it is much different from Facebook, Twitter or other platforms. When working on your LinkedIn profile development, the first thing to find is a professional photo. Your picture is the first thing recruiters will see, so make sure you present yourself in the best light. Save the picture of your family or you and your kids for Facebook. A good rule of thumb to remember is if you wouldn’t put the picture on your resume, it doesn’t belong on your LinkedIn profile. You can have a friend or colleague take a photo of you as well.
2. Customize Your URL
Your profile will automatically be assigned a jumble of numbers and letters at the end of the URL. It would look a lot better and cleaner if you added your name to the end of the URL, especially if you will be sending potential employers the link. It only takes a couple minutes at the most, but it’s a pretty important part of your LinkedIn profile development. Details like this may not seem like a big deal, but they matter to employers and recruiters.
3. Be Detailed and Truthful
Any LinkedIn profile writing expert will tell you to be as detailed as possible without stretching the truth. You have the freedom to write whatever you want on your LinkedIn profile, but employers also have the same freedom to investigate to confirm what you write is true. Trust us: they will check facts!
Unlike the typical resume, which should be fairly short, your LinkedIn profile should be more detailed. When it comes to how to optimize your LinkedIn profile, keywords are critical for being discovered. The more you write, the better chance you’ll have of using keywords to help you get noticed in the search engines.
While it may seem easy to develop your profile, LinkedIn profile writing is more difficult than it sounds. However, with some time and effort, you’ll be able to construct a profile to help get you noticed. If you need any help or advice along the way, just refer back to these three tips and get in touch with us for any other detailed questions you may have.
A professional resume writing service can help you network for future jobs.
Searching for a job is hard work. No matter how diligently you try, it can feel like you are not doing enough to land the one you want. You most likely started with a solid resume crafted by professional executive resume writers, numerous job searches and an upgrade to your online information to show how employable you are. However, let’s face it, there’s a lot of competition out there and it takes something exceptional to stand out from the rest. You are basically marketing yourself by trying to sell your skills to a potential employer. Think of your job search like running your own marketing campaign.
Starting the Conversation
Even with the help of a professional resume writing service, you will get nowhere in the business world without conversation. There are interviews, job offers and plenty of social media sharing to help get a conversation started. Discussions started online through things like professional LinkedIn profile writing can lead to future employment. Think about your job search as trying to figure out how to start a conversation with someone who can hire you.
Think Like a Business
Treating your search for a job as a marketing campaign puts you at eye level with a company. In marketing, you try to find a way to entice a buyer by offering them something in a way they can’t resist. When you are marketing yourself to a business, you have the opportunity to show them how valuable your skills are to them, how you will save them money or how you can make them look better. The same sales strategies used in the marketing arena work for applying for a job as well.
The Role of Targeting
When you are marketing a product, you choose a specific audience to target because they are most likely to invest in the product. This is an essential element in the job search process as well. You want to choose the companies that may be interested in what you have to offer. These are the ones you want to engage in conversation with. Once you identify the companies you want to target, everything can be crafted to get their attention and demonstrate how you can play a role in their productivity and profitability. Everything you do, from hiring professional executive resume writers to answering questions during the interview, will be geared toward alerting a potential employer to what you have to offer.
Who to Talk To
Once you find the industry or business to target, you then need to identify who you want to start your conversation with. Some specifics you might look for include:
Individuals in supervisory positions above yours
A corporate recruiter
Individuals holding the same title as you are aiming for
By gearing your efforts toward these positions, you will be able to speak with those who can either hire you or connect you with a hiring party. Thus, you start your own professional network relevant to your expertise and necessary for your success.
By working with a professional resume writing service, you can craft the perfect resume to get you started on the right path. From there, you will be able to build your own marketing campaign with you as the focus product.
Your LinkedIn profile can make or break your chances of getting hired.
When you are a job seeker looking for a C-level executive position, not only must you have a LinkedIn profile, but that profile must be outstanding. Your profile should be succinct and to the point, as well as provide critical information upfront so a recruiter doesn’t have to wade through expendable verbiage to get to the details they’re most interested in.
Some Critical Components to Optimize LinkedIn Profile Benefits
First, you want to include relevant keywords that will help a recruiter find your profile. Review some recent C-level job postings you’re interested in and look for words most frequently used in these postings. Incorporate these words in a natural way in your profile so it will catch recruiters’ attention.
Also, make sure to build up your network of connections, as well as give and request recommendations from past employers, co-workers and those who work under you. Recruiters place significant weight on what third-party sources have to say about you and the words they use to describe you. This is valuable information that paints a picture of your leadership style.
Don’t underestimate the importance of the photo you choose for your profile. You are applying for a high-level managerial position, you’re not trying to get a date or impress your buddies. Keep it professional; your photo should depict you looking like you would sitting in your corner office, not on the golf course.
Finally, while it may be true you are on LinkedIn for the sole purpose of finding your next C-level opportunity, you definitely do not want to broadcast that fact. You lose your intrigue ifyou appear desperate.
What Tone Should You Take When LinkedIn Profile Writing?
Obviously, your verbiage should be professional, but many professionals agree the tone should be relatively informal. It only makes sense to use first person “I” because you are describing yourself. Even if you hire a LinkedIn profile writing service, as many upper-level executives do, the writer should write in first person. Avoid being too wordy, but also being overly dry. Any recruiter who sees your profile will be interested not just in your qualifications, but in your personality.
One Special C-level LinkedIn Consideration
It may seem counterintuitive, but if you are already employed as a CEO, CFO or COO, it’s a good idea to change your privacy settings to ensure your connections aren’t visible to the public. Doing this is simple. On LinkedIn, you will find a setting that allows you to choose who can see your connections. Change the setting to “just you.” This protects you from current competitors mining your connections and gaining insight into professional relationships you’d rather them not know about. Similarly, scroll through your public profile privacy settings and opt out of any that may jeopardize your odds of landing a better position. If, for example, you belong to partisan or controversial groups or organizations, you can opt to keep these off of your public profile.
It’s not good enough to simply have a LinkedIn presence. If you’re a C-level professional, your presence should be complete and well-crafted, not simply an afterthought.
