20 Easy Ways to make Your LinkedIn Profile More Hirable

20 Easy Ways to make Your LinkedIn Profile More Hirable By now, you already know why LinkedIn is vital to your job search. As the fifth fastest-growing social network in the world, LinkedIn reaches far and wide, and the sheer number of users on the site means you have to ramp up your efforts to stand out. Of course, theres a right way to stand out. You dont flood your activity feed with vacation photos or upload a picture of your latest Happy Hour escapade and expect to win brownie points with potential employers. Instead, follow these 20 ways to attract more eyeballs to your profile and increase your chances of getting a recruiter to say, Gotta hire this person! 1. Have a Flattering, But Professional, Profile Picture Making a good first impression takes more than a pretty face and a powerhouse suit. To look competent, likeable and trustworthy in your LinkedIn profile photo, smile just wide enough to show your teeth, keep your eyes on the camera, use a head-to-shoulders or head-to-waist shot and pick the right color saturation. 2. Use a Cover Photo That Shows off Your Brand Aside from your headshot, a cover photo can make your profile pop. Use a picture that shows at a glance what your work is all about or at least incorporates your companys brand. If the photo complements your profile picture, such as having the same background color, thats even better. 3. Spell out What You Do in Your Professional Headline In a professional headline, youre only given 125 characters to make an impression, so make it count. Use phrases like I Help (Group X) to Achieve (Objective Y). Ask yourself what you can do for a potential employer, sum it up as concisely as you can and write it down as your professional headline. 4. Rewrite Your Summary Using a First Person Point of View By using the first person POV, your summary comes across as more personal and more authentic than the third person POV. When you emphasize how your particular set of skills and experiences contribute to any organization youre thrown into, employers wont mind your frequent use of the word I. 5. Rewrite Your Summary as a Story You dont have to write a novelette, but you do have to highlight what youve achieved, how you achieved them and how your achievements benefited the company youre working for. Feel free to write it as a linear or nonlinear narrative, as long as the important stuff is at the forefront. 6. Include Photos, Videos and Presentations in Your Summary Visuals dont just break up your summary into digestible chunks of text. They can also complement what youve written in your profile. If youre in a creative field like graphic or web design, you can use photos, videos and SlideShares to show off your aesthetic sensibilities. 7. Post Links to Your LinkedIn Content If you havent tried publishing via LinkedIn Pulse yet, you might want to start now. Six out of 10 LinkedIn users browse it for content about industry insights, after all. Blogging on those topics will not only help you establish your credibility, but it can also bring in traffic to your profile page. 8. Link to Your Official Website as Well Aside from your LinkedIn Pulse posts, youll want to blog on your official website too. Use a self-hosted site as much as possible, and keep it professional. Start with WordPress, the most popular platform for self-hosted websites, or use any other service that feels more comfortable to you. 9. Dont Be Afraid to Repurpose Content Repurposing isnt the same as plagiarism. Its increasing the visibility of content youve already written before. Use LinkedIn Publisher to your advantage, and share your best posts through that platform.   10. Dont Be Afraid to Include Volunteer Work Even volunteer work for a nonprofit has value. If anything, volunteer work is actually more valuable for potential employers because it proves that your commitment to your job extends beyond the monetary rewards. List your volunteer positions and highlight the ones where you gained skills relevant to the job youre gunning for.   11. Strengthen Your Job Descriptions To quote the Star copy style sheet: Use vigorous English. Rewrite your job descriptions with action-driven verbs like improved, increased/decreased and launched. Do away with vague and overused words like results-driven, highly qualified and hard worker.   12. Pepper Your Text With Keywords Keywords make it easier for search engines â€" and, by extension, employers â€" to find you. For example, if you specialize in writing nonfiction for major publications, you can include creative nonfiction or journalism in your Skills section. Be careful not to overstuff keywords, though: They should be incorporated naturally into your text.   13. List Other Organizations Youre Involved With If youre a member of any organization where you hold a leadership capacity and/or you learned skills transferable to your dream job, list it on your LinkedIn profile. Employers always appreciate well-rounded workers, after all.   14. Ask for Quality Recommendations From Contacts Its great to have a recommendation like Shes awesome! However, potential employers will need to see something more specific than that. To show that unbiased third parties see your potential as well, you have to know how to request LinkedIn recommendations thatll make employers take a second look.   15. Accept Requests from Acquaintances Even if youre not best buddies with someone, hit Connect anyway. Aside from boosting the number under the Connections section, those acquaintances might lead you to a golden career opportunity in the future.   16. Post Every Day According to a LinkedIn study, even one post can help you reach 20 percent of your connections. Furthermore, 20 posts a month can help reach as much as 60 percent of your unique audience. If thats not enough reason to publish on LinkedIn Pulse, we dont know what is!   17. Post at the Right Time When it comes to social media posts in general, timing matters. Since employees usually check LinkedIn during working hours, the best times to post on LinkedIn are the following: 7:30 to 8:30 A.M., 12:00 P.M. and 5:00 to 6:00 P.M. from Tuesdays to Thursdays. You can also post between 10:00 and 11:00 A.M. on Tuesdays, though no one is sure why that works!   18. Watch Your Privacy Settings You know how your activity shows up on the LinkedIn feed? If your supervisor accidentally sees you Liking a post about bosses from hell, it can get awkward, to say the least. Go to the Privacy Settings tab at the top right of your profile page, hit Privacy then customize your settings under the Profile privacy tab.   19. Keep Your Profile Updated Make sure your contact info is current. Change your job description if youve taken on new responsibilities. Add any new skills youve picked up recently. If you can keep your other social networks updated, why not your LinkedIn page? 20. Delete Unnecessary Information Cut out the fat from your profile. Delete short-term jobs irrelevant to the career you want. Hide recommendations that look bad or that dont contribute anything to your desired image. Make every word on your LinkedIn page count.   With these tips, you can boost your chances of attracting your dream employer by a mile. Try them out for yourself, and let us know how they worked for you in the comments below. 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