You And Your LinkedIn Profile

Trees In Bloom

Are you happy with your LinkedIn profile? Is it a good profile?

Is your LinkedIn profile as healthy as the trees in the image above?

If these questions make you to feel uncomfortable, there are several things you can do to help check if your LinkedIn profile is working hard for you and getting results for you.

How Can You Judge Your Profile?

My LinkedIn Dashboard

Just looking at your profile will not do.

First, consider how LinkedIn judges your profile. Visit your profile and see how it is rated by LinkedIn. My profile is judged to be “all star”. That means it meets many of the criteria for creating good LinkedIn profiles. My profile could be better but there are some things I choose not to include. The fact that these things are missing may affect how the profile is judged.

You can also see in the image above how many times my profile appeared in searches recently and how many people viewed my profile.

How about you?

How is your LinkedIn profile judged?

How often is it found?

Do you review, each week, in how many searches your profile has been listed? The number of searches you appear in will tell you something about how well your LinkedIn profile is working. The more your profile is found via searches the better, whether you are looking for a new job, a series of connections or anything else.

LinkedIn And Searchers

LinkedIn Search

I know which industries people work in who have found me on LinkedIn recently. I know because LinkedIn tells me.

Do you keep a record of this sort of data? I do. I also make changes to my LinkedIn profile after reviewing all the information LinkedIn gives me about those who have searched for me online.

Beyond LinkedIn Search

Now start to think about the text you have uploaded.

Review:

  • your name
  • your image of yourself
  • your profile headline.

Ask yourself:

“What should I have uploaded to interest a LinkedIn user? Have I done this?”

Here is my current headline and the start of my introduction:

Margaret Adams

If you ask a colleague or a friend if your LinkedIn profile’s introduction is currently interesting, what will the answer, in all likelihood, be?

If those who have found you via LinkedIn search look any further into your profile have you checked that the headline text is informative. Are you writing what will interest a LinkedIn user? If your LinkedIn headline is like every one else’s, then it is likely to be categorised as “uninteresting”. That means you will lose the opportunity to start to engage with the LinkedIn user who has found you. He or she will probably click away and find another LinkedIn profile and something more interesting to view.

Question markWhy Are You On LinkedIn?

Ask this question. Why, exactly, have you built a LinkedIn profile?

Shape your LinkedIn profile with reference to your answer, if you have not already done so.

Ask also what you want LinkedIn users to do after they have seen your profile?

Use your answers when you next update your LinkedIn profile.

Keen to know more?

Take a look at the page on this website entitled: Sparkle.